Siloed Ministries

I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but along the course of church history leaders came up with the concept of separating out ministries into categories.  Pre-school, children, teenagers, young adults, senior adults, music, missions, etc.  The further along we move down the road, more "ministries" are created.  Now please do not misunderstand me.  I am not bashing the need to separate out ministries in the church.  I completely understand that pre-schoolers and teenagers learn differently and need to be focused on separately.  I get the fact that missions is a big part of what a lot of churches do and it is helpful to have someone who is over that area of ministry in order to make things move a little more smoothly.  The point of this post is not to belittle ministries in and of themselves.  No, the point of this post is to address a problem that arises when each of these ministries begin to compete against one another and lose focus of the overarching mission of the church.

Even though I was not there when the original concept was discussed, I am sure that competition was the furthest thing from the leaders discussion when they began down the path that has led us to how our churches are structured today.  I am positive that they saw this as an opportunity to hone in on specific needs and to help be more strategic in their efforts to reach a lost and dying world.  However, somewhere along the way ministries began to build walls between themselves, becoming focused only on their specific area and not interested in the success or failures of the other ministries around them.  I know this is true because I was a minister who functioned this way.  I thought that as long as student ministry was healthy and growing that everything was good.  During the early years of ministry I was so intently focused on student ministry that I was willing to jump over other ministries in order to ensure that the student ministry was moving forward.  I was completely caught in this trap called "silo ministry."  In other words, I had built a wall around the student ministry and wasn't interested in helping others out in the church, nor did I need help from other ministries.  I became so focused on "my" ministry, that I lost focus of the big picture.

I am curious if this might describe you as well.  Please understand me when I say that I did not even realize what I was doing at the time.  I couldn't see how difficult I was making things for other ministries and how self-centered I was.  I was trapped in a vortex and didn't even know it.  The horrible thing is this, I wasn't the only staff member who had this same mentality.  We were all trying to do our own thing, believing we were helping the church move forward when in fact we were stunting growth.  

Why would I share this thought?  Simply put:  siloed ministries hinder church growth greatly.  Open your eyes to the bigger picture and tear down the walls that you have placed around your ministry.  Ask yourself tough questions like:  "How is the ministry that God has placed me in fitting into the overall picture?" and "What might I need to sacrifice for the greater good?"  If a church staff could come together without bringing a personal agenda to the table and begin to work together in order to move forward, just imagine how that could change your church forever.  What are you focused on?  Is it your individual ministry, or the health of the church overall?  Just something to think about.