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Okay, back to thought of the week:
In the last few weeks I’ve had several people tell me it’s time for them to move on from a ministry they lead. It reminded me of something I wrote in my second book: sometimes it takes more faith to leave a ministry than to start one.
Which prompts me to think about the vine and the branches story in John 15. Just hang with me a minute so I can explain.
High end grape growers do something few farmers do – they intentionally trim the amount of fruit on their vines. They cut big beautiful clusters of grapes and drop them to the ground to compost into the soil. As one vineyard manager said to me at an especially high end vineyard, “That’s $25 they just cut from the vine and dropped onto the dirt.”
They do this not because the grapes are bad, but because it makes the other grapes even better. The intensity of the juice is strengthened, and the flavors become more robust.
But it does seem counterintuitive.
Closing or leaving a mission is hard, emotional, and confusing sometimes. It can feel like taking perfect grapes and simply dropping them onto the dirt.
What’s especially hard is when the people around us don’t see it that way. They question the wisdom of the move, and it’s hard to say, “Well, just wait and see when the final product is done.”
Only a few grape growers practice this. They are aiming for quality over quantity. In a world – and a church culture – that has gone made for quantity, the people around us might never understand why we’re walking away or shutting something down. They see it as counterproductive, foolish, even stupid.
I see the same reaction sometimes from winegrowers. Some can’t imagine pulling off grapes from their vines. They don’t think it helps that much, if any, and they want to maximize their harvest. Others can’t imagine growing grapes that are simply bland and make merely drinkable wine, not excellent wine.
Truth is we need both, don’t we? We want drinkable, affordable wine most of the time. But there is a place for something excellent, that exceeds expectations.
The same is true of churches, missions, any organization actually. Sometimes it’s about growing a lot of fruit. Sometimes it’s about cutting it back to make even better fruit.
Knowing which is the right approach – and when to do it – gets us back to the basics. It gets us back to a wisdom built on faith, operating in humility, and surrounded by trust.