How to know when it's time to prune or finish

Phil Wood June 12, 2021

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Hearing the familiar but nearly forgotten tones on the other end of the phone line brought up the same sick-in-the-stomach feelings they used to elicit. It was three chimes followed by the message for a terminated landline. I realized I had not heard it in a while.

Sadly, it was for a church. Sans website and now active phone, it was clear they shuttered their doors, and the faithful moved on. An online satellite search and then a street-view level indicated the building was re-purposed away from kingdom use.

I never found out what happened, but the death of a church, organization, or business is not always bad. Realistically, how many 100-year-old people, churches, or businesses still exist?

Second-gen inherited family businesses almost always get driven into the ground. If they make it into the hands of the 3.0 generation by fate or twist of luck, the backside of the bell curve has a chance to be twisted into a healthy S curve. But that almost always involves a total re-tooling.

Many leaders need to have a funeral and move on. You may be propping up a corpse and trying to keep something looking animated that is dead. Move on does not always mean re-locate. Rather, it could mean standing on the shoulders of what was before.

In the study of physics, I am fascinated with leverage. I once saw a contractor move half a house that scooted off the foundation with a long, 2" X 16" lever and the right fulcrum point. Leverage can go a long way to accomplishing more than what seems possible. Even a quick study of the current list of the world's wealthiest individuals reveals they took great opportunities and leveraged them to even greater ones.

The death of an institution, division, or enterprise does not need to mean annihilation. Instead, each movement should be strategically positioned to lever up to a new height.

A funeral is always for the living. It should answer the question of how we move on. If you need to kill something to leverage it up for the better, consider these points:

1. If it is a church, a family business, or an organization, your progenitors proved their success by even the presence of resources for you to leverage. If they lasted 40, 50, or 60 years, we know that they made it. You, however, are the unproven one. A funeral does not work if there is no honor for the guy in the coffin. The best way to maintain generational equity is to respect the work of those who have gone before you.

2. New leaders often change for the sake of change yet without substantive improvements. It is just different. Like an animal marking their territory, they prove to everyone they are now in charge, but they can also end up stinking everything up. Usually, it comes in new paint, new locks, a new logo, or even a new name. With every change, do the smell test: Is this better, or is this just different?

3. When an organization starts looking for a single silver bullet to get things turned around, they are well nigh gone. One aging and declining congregation replaced their pews with the hopes it would spur growth. It only caused division and accelerated their demise. When a new congregation took over the building, their first move was to eliminate the pews. When it reaches that point, generally, only a total make-over will do.

Death and pruning are not always bad. Sometimes they are needed for new growth to emerge.

Overall, it takes more nerve to lay something to rest than it takes to start something new. It also takes more skill to leverage something truly higher. Any fool can start something. Most mediocre leaders can maintain something. It takes a brave and skillful leader to pull off a controlled burn.

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Phil Wood (PhD, DMin) is pastor of Fellowship Church, licensed counselor with Meier Clinics, and candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in Illinois' 8th Congressional District. Learn More »

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