Joel Young Blog.com

The other day I was reading Breakout Churches which is basically Good to Great for churches and it discussed the concept of churches allowing the tail to wag the dog. Simply put this means that many churches allow their programs and events dictate the direction of the church. In a perfect world the vision, or direction of the church, would dictate what kinds of programs and events are done, but that’s not always the case. Then, one of the ministers being interviews for the book shared this insight. Some churches have a tail, but no dog. They have nothing more than a bunch of unconnected programs that are all entities within themselves and have no cohesive direction.

The more I think about that statement the more it scares me to think that there are churches that exist that have no sense of purpose, but rather all they do is exist to “do church” as it should be done. There is no vision, no mission, and no goals to achieve. The day a church loses sight of its mission and vision is the day that church starts its downward spiral toward eventual death. It sounds horrible, but in my opinion that’s how important it is.

Now let me ask you this. Do you know your church’s mission statement? Do you know your church’s vision statement? How many people in the church actually do? I think these are things that ever member should know and be constantly reminded of as we work together to achieve them.

Let’s make sure in our churches that the tail is not wagging the dog. And more importantly, that there is a dog!