There are few things in this life as satisfying as filling a skip with garbage.

The rectory is being renovated and the old garage is being knocked down.

Before the builder could get at it though, there was a decade of clutter to clear. So, a few blokes from church got together last Sunday afternoon. Armed with a sledgehammer, gloves, and a sense of adventure we started pulling rubbish out. Leftover paints, PA Brackets, three garbage bags of bean bag beans! Stuff that someone hadn’t been brave enough to commit to the tip years ago - ‘it might be useful one day, we can’t just toss it.’ Broken furniture, glass shelves, craft materials… I was surprised at how little we kept and how easy it was to fill the skip.

The garage had been a magnet for stuff that was too difficult to process. So it all stayed on site, collecting dust, and providing housing for the rats and the redbacks.

Its not a bad parable for what can happen around church. Its too easy for a church’s life to be choked by a clutter of competing programs. Much better to do less and to do it well, than attempt to do too much.

This requires a certain degree of ruthlessness though. It is hard to throw broken old ministries into the proverberbial skip. How many churches have the choir or youth group or ethnic ministry or congregation that is past its use by date?

What was once a good ministry is no longer reaching people with the gospel. Because it is hard to close ministries, it is often left to a crisis until something happens - the leaders quit, the budget can’t be met. Sometimes it is the new rector coming in with a new broom. Wouldn’t it be better though if we were always committed to de-cluttering?

If each spring say, we decided which ministries wouldn’t be happening next year?  Give thanks for what has been, but start the year with a fresh slate. Free people up from the busyness of maintaining things that weren’t helping the church mission.

That would require a degree of clarity about what was essential and what wasn’t. If you looked into the proverbial garage now - are there things you can see that need chucking? Would you be able to agree on what should be tossed and what was useful? What would it take for you to order in the skip? If you want to think more about de-cluttering church you should read Simple Church by Thomas Rainer and Eric Geiger.