This is a guest blog on www.thefirestillburning.wordpress.com. To read the edited version there with the resulting comments, click here.
This is a guest blog on www.thefirestillburning.wordpress.com. To read the edited version with the responses that followed it, click here.
The 80/20 Christian
There is a principle called 80/20 that I have seen in books on business, productivity, and even study strategies for students. The basic principle is that 80% of the success comes from 20% of the work that people do.
The principle emerged from the work of Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), an Italian economist, who noticed a reliable pattern: the majority of wealth belonged to a small number of people.
The idea was picked up again by the Total Quality Movement, namely by Joseph Moses Juran, who renamed it the “Rule of the Vital Few.” Juran posited that problems could be decreased if workers focused on the “vital few” instead of the “trivial many.” The idea became popular in Japanese and American business cultures. In the United States, the principle was known as the “80/20 principle.”
The percentage isn’t meant to be exact, but the principle has been verified in economics, business, and other disciplines. Said another way, some inputs (activities/efforts/resources) have different effects on outputs (benefits/results/value), and do not always follow a linear pattern.
Reading about and experimenting with the principle led me to consider whether applying this principle to being a Christian might be a good idea, and, if it was, what that might look like. My thinking was that by focusing on those areas of discipleship and ministry that were the vital few, the 20%, I would be more effective as a Christian.
I read an excerpt from a book by Patrick Morley called The Rest of Your Life (Zondervan) that cautioned people about being 80/20 Christians. Morley’s rationale follows the story of a man who was 80% committed to being a Christian. He went to church 80% of the time, read 20% of the Bible, and basically wasn’t willing to invest enough of himself in Christianity to really be transformed. One day he finally gave everything he had to God and that made all the difference. Morley’s position is that people should become 100% Christian, they should give their all to God. I think Morley’s argument is well intended, but misses the point. People who are 80/20, still add up to being 100% Christian, they just use the resources that they have been given in different ways to create more leverage in their ability to serve God and follow Christ.
I think of this a bit like time management. There is broad consensus that one day includes 24 hours. Therefore, no matter what you are doing or not doing, you’re still “spending” 24 hours of time each day. You’re still using 100% of each day. However, if we agree that how you use that time matters, you can focus on different things to achieve different results, or you can leverage the time that you have to “get more done,” than expected in 24 hours. For example, you might have more time available to spend with a loved one if you checked e-mail less frequently. You make decisions about your priorities based on how you allocate time. This doesn’t mean that you always have 100% control of your time, but you get the idea.
Let’s apply this to being a Christian. If you are a Christian, then you are a Christian 100% of the time. However, your attitudes, behaviors, choices, etc. may make you a more effective Christian or less effective Christian (however that should be defined). There are differences in perspectives about what being a faithful or effective Christian means. Some people equate it with ethics and church activity. Then there is diversity regarding what Christian ethics should be. Still other people link Christianity with service, and adherence to certain beliefs about Jesus and the Scriptures. This is not the place to debate what is right, so feel free to adapt the idea to your best understanding of who God is calling you to be.
If you’re still interested in seeing what this 80/20 Christian thing is all about, here are three simple steps to help you get started:
1. Identify your 20%
2. Allocate More Resources to the 20%
3. Build on the 20%
Identify your 20%
To get you started on identifying the 20% that is most important, consider answering the following questions and also having a couple of people who know you well answer the questions about you (family member, friend, colleague, church member):
1. What are you passionate about? What excites/energizes you?
2. What gifts/talents abilities do you have?
3. What makes you unique? What is the most idiosyncratic thing about you?
4. What ministry do you currently provide? If you were going to do a different type of ministry, what would you choose to do? Why?
5. What habits/behaviors/attitudes do you have that support your discipleship and the discipleship of others? What habits/behaviors/attitudes do you have that do not support discipleship?
6. What are the most important things that you do to build your relationship with God? With others?
7. What has made the biggest difference in your relationship with God?
8. Where do you see God most active in and around your life?
As you are identifying your 20%, keep in mind that you are looking for habits/activities/efforts and other types of inputs that create the most value. You are also looking for things that are tied to your uniqueness, meaning it should be something that is distinctive, or that someone else is not doing in the same way. Look for things that you enjoy doing because these usually “cost” less and give a better return on your investment, such as the joy you get from doing the work. However, don’t overlook something just because it is not fun to do. It still may be part of your 20%. Keep in mind that your 20% may change depending on the situation. Making intentional time for listening to God can help you identify your 20% and keep track of when and how your 20% is called to change.
Allocate More Resources to the 20%
Now that you have an idea about what aspects of ministry and discipleship are best suited to help you be who you are called to be, the next step is to find ways to reduce effort on the other 80% so that you have more resources to do devote to the 20%. This doesn’t mean that you focus exclusively on the 20%. For those of you who don’t like dealing with money, there will still be bills to pay. However, get creative about how you can work more efficiently in those areas. Look for small time and money savers as well as larger ones. Here are some examples to help your thinking:
1. Plan and group your errands, so that you’re spending less time and money driving.
2. Barter tasks with a neighbor or friend. Maybe she likes to clean and you like to cook. So, she could clean your house once a week in exchange for meals. You could just make double the portion of your meals and send them to your swap.
3. You could get a haircut every 8 weeks, instead of every 6 weeks. Assuming 15 minutes of travel and 30 minutes for a haircut, this would save you 90 minutes and anywhere from $20 to $100 over the course of the year. That might not seem like a lot of time, but little things can add up. You could use the savings to hire a neighborhood kid to mow your grass, thereby saving you more time and starting a relationship with someone, which might lead to more opportunities for ministry.
4. If there is someone who you are really called to be with or work with, consider relocating or restructuring your schedule so that you can spend more time with each other more easily.
5. For less important tasks, find ways to do them at a distance where feasible. Online bill pay, a teleconference instead of traveling to a business meeting, telecommuting one-day a week, etc.
Another way to do this is to find ways to leverage the 20%. This could be through a big change like entering into a partnership/collaboration/synergy/reorganization, and in small ways like by changing when you focus on these tasks. For example, if you are a morning person, you might want to spend more morning time on the 20% and do the other stuff at a time in the day when you don’t need to be quite so focused. This would increase the quality of resources you give to the 20% without changing the quantity of resources that you invest.
Build on the 20%
The next step is to grow the 20%. One way to do this is through answering these questions and then acting on these answers:
1. What are the experiences you need to have to be a better Christian? To be a better minister?
2. What opportunities are available to have these experiences?
3. What ways can you best use your resources to serve God?
4. Who is best suited to collaborate with you on any or all of these things?
Here are some examples to help your exploration.
Annie’s Story. Annie is a musician by training and by passion. She loves playing for church services, exposing her piano students to the power of music, and sharing the gifts of music with anyone that she can. She regularly coordinates music at a nursing home and has started a foundation that produces music CDs to share hope and healing with hospital patients. Annie knows that music and people are a big part of her 20%.
Jorge’s Story. Jorge is a retired businessman who is now a pastor of a small church, with average attendance of 30 people on Sunday, mostly older people with a few young families. Jorge speaks fluent Spanish and English, and is an assistant coach for a little league team. He loves kids, loves Jesus, and loves baseball.
Annie and Jorge both minister in different ways. They are both service oriented, both play a specific role at church, and are involved in communities outside of church. Each has different gifts, passions, and opportunities to serve. Annie tutoring kids who speak Spanish would probably not be as good a use of her gifts and talents as Jorge, for example. If Annie and Jorge know each other, maybe Annie could offer piano lessons for some of Jorge’s kids and Jorge’s congregation could give some money towards Annie’s foundation or Jorge’s kids. However, they’d need to be careful not to help each other just because the help is needed. The 80/20 principle is about matching how you are particularly called with opportunities to serve and with how to create the biggest impact with what you offer (again, be carefully that you’re listening to the Spirit for this and not your ego).
Annie may decide that she needs to free more time for her to focus on the ministry of music with her piano students, at the nursing home, and through her foundation. As a result, she may play for church less often, or not go as often. She may decide that she needs to carve out personal retreat team so that she is rested and refreshed to do the work that she is called to do.
Jorge may decide that the best use of his resources would be to serve as a youth pastor and include his baseball team in the group of people that he helps pastor. (Thus, he’d mentally shift from being a children’s pastor of church children, to a pastor of certain children, some who he knows through church and some who he knows through baseball). If he decides to stay on as congregational pastor, he may need to find some ways to outsource many of his responsibilities, such as creating a pastoral team, cutting back on the number of programs being offered, or hiring a virtual assistant to help with some of the record keeping and routine tasks. He may decide to start a new initiative like starting a tutoring program for some of the kids on the baseball team or in the neighborhood.
As you can see, this isn’t a one-size fits all description of what everyone should do. Being an 80/20 Christian means that you do your best to use all your resources to best serve as Christ calls. What makes being an 80/20 Christian different from being an 80/20 individual or worker is that this is about what you can do to be more effective, but it is really about God. Don’t mistake productivity for the fruits of the Spirit, or get so caught up in checking off your Christian to-do list that you forget to listen to the Spirit. Hopefully, by applying the 80/20 principle, you will be more free to faithfully follow the Spirit.
