Cutting the Fat and Trimming the Silence at Your Church

Ever wondered if your church services could pack more punch in less time? Prepare to have that curiosity satisfied as I, Todd Rhoades, bring forth a groundbreaking discussion on how trimming the silence in our church practices could revolutionize the way we deliver sermons and conduct meetings. We're taking YouTube's latest feature and metaphorically applying it to our spiritual gatherings, challenging the status quo of how we share the gospel and manage church affairs.

This episode is not just a conversation; it's a call to action for church leaders to be more intentional with every minute of our congregation's time. We scrutinize sermons for spiritual density and question the necessity of every anecdote and illustration, encouraging preachers to measure the impact of their words, not by duration, but by depth. The discussion then shifts to meeting culture within the church—how to transform bloated agendas into streamlined, purpose-driven dialogues that respect everyone's time and contributions. I delve into the silent spaces of inaction and risk aversion, offering insights on how to nurture a culture of decisive action and clear vision. Tune in for a session that promises not just to fill your ears, but to inspire meaningful change in your ministry.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Hi there, welcome to this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes, I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and I'm so glad that you joined us today. I want to talk about this kind of struck me as a cool thing. Technology is always constantly changing. But YouTube recently came out with they're making a big play into the podcast field and you can listen to this podcast or just about any podcast over on YouTube anymore, particularly since Google Podcasts just shut down.

Speaker 1: 0:39

But one of the new features that YouTube is introducing they're rolling out is what they call kind of the trimming the silence feature, which it promises. What it does is it kind of maybe you're familiar with this it takes like long gaps and kind of condenses that so that you can listen to maybe a minute of audio in 50 seconds, and I'm sure it's doing it to me right now. But what it does is it cuts out all the fat and trims the silence out of spoken word and in podcasts so that you can listen to more podcasts in less time. And I was thinking as my mind acts weirdly sometimes is I wonder what it would look like if we took this feature and put it into the church and some of the things that we do, because, let's be honest, a lot of times we're just on autopilot, and autopilot can be dangerous, and sometimes we coast along. We repeat the same sermons, we do the same programs year after year, our leadership patterns just really remain the same. So I wondered just like a podcast maybe has too much dead air, maybe our comfort levels and our habits inside the church can become our downfall. So I thought, what would it look like? What would it look like if we in the church, as church leaders, try to trim some of the silence? And I've got four or five different areas here where I just want to kind of challenge us to rethink. Maybe there are some ways that we can cut some of the fat and trim some of the silence in our churches.

Speaker 1: 2:18

And the first obvious place is well, sorry the sermons is, oh, sorry the sermons. Are your sermons packed with spiritual substance or are they just had a lot of fluff to them? We've all listened to sermons, maybe some of our own, maybe not, but we've all listened to sermons that maybe took 40 minutes to deliver but really had about 20 minutes of content. And all I'm saying is that, as you deliver your messages and, as you do, your sermons. Maybe don't be as concerned about filling your allotted time, but maybe matching the content to the amount of time that you have. Make sure that your sermons are packed with some real substance, and does that story really need to be there? Is there something better that you could do there?

Speaker 1: 3:07

Trimming silence isn't all about rushing through God's word, but really ensuring that every moment counts and make sure that you're praying passionately over your sermon as you prep. But there may be some time that you need to cut some of the fat and trim some of the silence in your messages. So sermons are maybe one way that we could do this. Another way could just be meetings. How many meetings do you sit in each and every week or each and every month that are just they're bloated Meeting. That could have been maybe a five-minute phone call or a five-minute email, but you have the meeting because, honestly, you always had that meeting. You really. It would do us all a lot of good if we could just take some time to ruthlessly trim the silence in some of these meetings. Clear the agendas, the decision-making, not just updates, but realize that everybody's there in that meeting and they're not doing their other work. We need to respect everyone's time and make sure that they're all deployed in the right place and if they're deluged with meetings and a lot of churches really have way too many bloated meetings if they're in too many meetings they might not be able to really respond effectively to the work that they need to do Sermons and meetings.

Speaker 1: 4:25

And then I want to talk about Some areas of silence, and the first is some silence of inaction. Does your church have good ideas that just never launch? And sometimes there's a lot of silence in coming up with the plan. There's risk involved, there's perfectionistic tendencies that maybe stall out great ideas, maybe a lack of clear vision that kind of keeps everything in limbo. But when we're talking about trim and silence, really trim and silence here just means maybe being a little bit more decisive, maybe more biased toward action, because we really need to foster a culture that we can implement new ideas, and that's going to help as we trim kind of the silence of inaction. That's going to help move things forward.

Speaker 1: 5:17

Another area where we need to really watch out for silence is silence where other voices should be heard. So when we trim silence, that mentality really doesn't mean that your voice is the only voice. You need to be fostering environments where people in your church and volunteers, other leaders, feel empowered to communicate. The church shouldn't be a one-man show, silence individual ideas and thoughts and voices that should be heard. It really does stifle the ability to move forward and it really creates some stagnation at times. So there's silence of inaction, there's silence where voices should be heard and there's silence in self-reflection.

Speaker 1: 6:07

And a lot of times when we're talking about trimming the silence and cutting the fat, some of the busiest leaders are often the ones, unfortunately, who neglect the science of really some introspection and some honest assessment. So a question for you when was the last time that you really did a spiritual inventory of your leadership strengths and areas that need growth? When do you carve out time not to produce but simply to pray and to listen and to recalibrate? That's really trimming the silence and really taking some time for some self-reflection. It's really important as a leader. Now a word of caution as we finish this up on some of the things that maybe, as we cut some of the fat and trim some of the silence at our churches, one of the things that I want you to remember is that you can go overboard, even on trimming the silence, and it shouldn't be reckless, right, there's value in pauses. There's value in pauses. There's times where we really need to contemplate. There's times where we really need to contemplate. There's times where we really need to build relationships.

Speaker 1: 7:16

But this is more about intentionality. Most of us don't have that problem. Most of us actually need to make more time according to your personality. You could take way too much time to contemplate, so much so that you never get anything done. That's not usually most of our problems. Most of our problems are we just get set in that autopilot mode, and that's why I wanted to record this podcast today is to help us to turn off the autopilot, do some time of reflection, see where we need to start trimming some of this.

Speaker 1: 7:49

Cutting fat, trimming the silence, as we've said, and here's the challenge that I want to leave you with today when there's unnecessary silence in your ministry, this is going to be hard, but dare to trim it. Your church will reap rewards when you do that, because it'll bring a sharper focus to you, it will energize your decision making and it'll give you, both personally and corporately at your church, a renewed sense of purpose. God didn't call us to a ministry of comfortable silence, but he called us one that's going to make some life-changing power, not only in our churches and our communities, but in individual people's lives. So I hope this was helpful, just a kind of a challenge that so many times we get stuck in a rut and play things on autopilot, and if there is any encouragement today, it's just take some time.

Speaker 1: 8:46

Today, don't worry about checking something off your list, don't worry about actually producing anything for an hour. Just take an hour and say, okay, let's reevaluate this. Where can I trim some of the silence? Where can I free some availability? Where can I get off the silence of inaction? Whose voices do I need to hear and how should I get into a regular routine of self-reflection? I think it's really important and I would encourage you to do that. Hey, we have something coming up next week that I think is going to be we're going to start the 2024 Church Staff Health Assessment. I'll be talking more about that later on this week and particularly next week when we kick it off, but just a mental note to be watching for that the 2024 Church Staff Health Assessment I'd love to have you take that. It's absolutely free and I'll give you more information on that Very good. I hope you have a great day. We'll be back here again tomorrow.