Less Clutter. Less Noise.

I’m currently re-reading Kem Meyer’s book, Less Clutter. Less Noise. This is probably my 5th time reading it (I feel like a stalker) and it has dynamically changed the way I think about church communications. If you do anything church-related, go get it. Now. Don’t finish this post. Go! Are you still here?

There is a passage that I keep getting stuck on, and I thought I’d share it with you.

People are busy and life is hard. They have too much information bombarding them from everywhere (not just one hour on Sunday) and never enough time. But, they’re still looking for answers that make a real difference in their lives. Being part of something bigger than you makes a difference. And, people experience that life change one step at a time. The value we provide grows in direct proportion to how easily people can find and say yest to their next step.

And the opposite is true: the value we provide decreases in direct proportion to how hard we make it for people to do what they’re trying to do.

The minimalist approach here is all about breaking a big leap into smaller, incremental steps. A person’s journey away from God does not happen in one step, but rather in a series of steps and decisions that seemed otherwise perfectly rational at the time. One day, he wakes up and realizes just how far he traveled as a result of the sum of steps in the wrong direction. And, what about when he’s ready to start taking steps back? How hard are we making it for him?

This certainly makes me re-think the way I do a lot of things.