Lists can be good and bad. I don’t use a list when I go to the grocery store and I should. I come home with stuff that apparently isn’t useful unless someone calls out “Who’s got the party snacks!?” Then I’m your man! When I get home my wife gives me that loving, but “Oh well, he can’t help it, he just doesn’t know any better” look. However, I also buy her flowers nearly every time I’m there. I would never put flowers on a list. When I see them, I think of her, and so I get them. This seems to make up for a lot!

The church can have the same kind of good news bad news when it comes to lists. There is a kind of science involved in the church and we need lists. We need lists of people, budgets, calendar items, prioritized values, and lists of things to do. That’s just for starters. There are however, an equal number of things that you can’t implement, capture, sustain, or create just because they are on a list. I’m referring to things like the power and anointing of God, the heart of someone caring for another person, raw momentum, a positive culture and ministry environment, or burden for the lost.

Click here to read full article