Make One New Simple Ministry Focus: Splashing Love on People

February 27, 2024•3 min read

Sometimes we make ministry too difficult. It takes too many meetings to make decisions. Complex systems create bottlenecks for efficiency. Our attempts at good stewardship sometimes turn into overly cautious acts of missed opportunities. Committees get bogged down in procedures and reports and become blinded to evaluations and outcomes. While all of these systems, committees, processes, boards, and procedures once had a purpose, that purpose is sometimes lost in the minutia, history, and bureaucracy. Too often ministry has become just too difficult and complex. This is why people sometimes walk away from the church. This may also be one of the reasons 67% of the churches in the US are no longer growing.

To simplify ministry, congregations will need to boil everything down to one simple focus – relationships. Yes, building relationships with new people in their community. Rather than getting bogged down in all the ways “we’ve always done things” and all the lengthy decisions about buildings and money, what if we were to focus on new relationships with new people? What if the people of the congregations reflected the essence of this scripture?

And may the Master pour on the love so it fills your lives and splashes over

on everyone around you, just as it does from us to you.

1 Thessalonians 3:12 MSG

How different would the church be if your entire congregation portrayed this type of love for their neighbor? What kind of ripple effect would a love splashing over on the community have? Imagine what kind of God-sized impact could be made in your mission field!

Given the facts that 84% of Americans report being spiritually open in some way and 52% are feeling lonely (73% of Millennials), people are hungry for relationships. Everywhere we look, statistics tell us people have a deep desire for community. What if the church were to stop focusing on programs and just focus on building new relationships?

It’s really quite simple. Have a cup of coffee or a soda with someone. Ask them to share their story. What brought them to the area? The conversation is not about inviting them to church. It is simply building an authentic relationship with someone new because you care.

Ask a current friend to introduce you to a friend of theirs you don’t know to expand your circle of friends. Sometimes we get caught in our current bubble of friends. Worse, we get stuck in our Christian bubble of only people who attend our church.

Start a conversation with someone new. Find something you have in common with someone you encounter as a launching point for conversation. For example, you notice a person’s shirt has a destination you love to travel to or your favorite team’s logo. “Oh, I see you’re a Kansas Chiefs fan, too!” That’s all it takes. The conversation is off and running.

What if your church became known as the “love splashing” church? In today’s world where the church is often seen as divisive, what if the church could begin to change that image? It’s simple. It costs nothing. And it starts by building one new relationship at a time.

Kay Kotan

Kay’s purpose is to Equip and Empower Leaders of Faith Communities How to Engage in More Effective Ministry. Kay Kotan is the founder of You Unlimited (coaching, consulting and training company) and The Greatest Expedition – a collaboration of more than twenty thought leaders providing resources and insights for a congregational journey to develop new MAPS (ministry action plans) to reach new people in your community. Kay also launched Multipliers’ Movement – a gathering of kingdom multipliers for sharing, equipping, and encouraging. She is a CoachU and Advanced CoachU Graduate, an accredited coach (PCC: Professional Certified Coach) with the ICF, International Coaching Federation, a Certified Path 1 Coach, and once served on the faculty at Coaching4Clergy. As a passionate lay person, she has a banking background and has been a business owner for more than 25 years. Kotan has served as a church developer for conferences and worked with churches, pastors, conferences, and judicatory leaders across the country for more than a decade. She is most proud to be the wife of Bob for over 30 years and the mother of their adult son, Cameron. Kay is the author of multiple books, workbooks, and resources including Gear Up: Nine Essential Processes for the Optimized Church, Cry From the Pew, Full Schedules, Barren Souls, Being the Church in the Post Pandemic World, and Journey Preparation: Surveying Your Church’s Landscape, as well as the co-author of the books titled: IMPACT!: Reclaiming the Call of Lay Ministry, Small Church Check-Up, Insights on Productivity, Renovate or Die – Ten Ways to Focus Your Church on Mission, Ministry 3.0 and Get Their Name , Ten Prescriptions for a Healthy Church, Necessary Nine – Nine Things Effective Pastors Do Differently, Launching Leaders: Taking Leadership Development to New Heights, Strategy Matters: Your Roadmap to Planning a Strategic Ministry Planning Retreat, Voices of Christmas: A Daily Devotional for Advent and Expanding the Expedition Reach Through Marketplace Multipliers. Mission Possible for the Small Church. Inside Out: Everting Ministry Models for the Postmodern Church, and more. Kotan and her co-author Bradford published their third version of the best-seller, Mission Possible: Simple Structure for Missional Effectiveness. Mrs. Kotan spends her time investing in pastors, laity leaders, congregations, and judicatory leaders through equipping, coaching, and creating resources to help them discover and live into their fullest missional potential of effectiveness and fruitfulness to reach people for Jesus Christ. Through her enthusiasm, truth-telling, and passion, she challenges those who encounter her in both their thinking and their doing.

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