(This article is the basis for Episode 10 of the BotaCast.)

The first time I heard this question was on the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast. He probably was the first to coin the phrase because he’s just brilliant like that. But even if it didn’t originate with him, it’s one of the most powerful exercises you can do. We’re going to talk about it today through the lens of worship ministry, but it’s a great question for anyone to ask.

Any role has the tendency to become stale and rote. Fresh ideas succumb to routines, outdated practices continue through sheer inertia, and repeated frustrations become tolerated traditions.

But it doesn’t have to be like this.

Years of cyclical repetition does not justify or validate poor practice. The sheer amount of time for which something has gone on may make overcoming it look intimidating or unconquerable, but that large obstacle is hollow: it has merely the illusion of permanence. But you can end years (and put a stop to future years) of bad practices with one deliberate choice. Bad practices are the seed of bad outcomes, and bad outcomes are the seed of discouragement and discontent. Feeling discouraged? If time off or going to the latest conference haven’t solved your problems, it’s probably time to start fixing some bad practices.

So here’s the question for your worship ministry: “If I was no longer in this role, what’s the first thing my replacement would change?”

Another way to say it would be what’s the first problem that my replacement would fix? Because it’s not just about doing something different for the sake of different. What’s that one pesky problem: that one thing that if you changed, it would move the needle dramatically for your church or worship team.

"Feeling discouraged? If time off or going to the latest conference haven’t solved your problems, it’s probably time to start fixing some bad practices." -Daniel Tsubota Click To Tweet

The first thing your replacement would change could be:

• TECH OR GEAR
  You know: that one piece of equipment that encompasses most of your Sunday morning prayer life. It could be the confidence monitor that “occasionally” turns itself off at inconvenient moments of the service? The ProPresenter computer that plays “almost every video without issue.” You need a new website—probably have needed it for 5 years now—but you “just don’t have time for that right now.”

• A PEOPLE PROBLEM
  Could it be the outdated choir that requires hours of prep work? The same choir you can’t put in the PA because they’re so quiet—or worse—so bad. Is it the sound guy who can’t hear any frequencies above 3k so he always has an ear-piercingly harsh mix? Maybe it’s that one difficult band member who has public outbursts of anger during rehearsal (read more on that issue back in Episode 3). What if it’s team silos: where it just doesn’t seem like the worship and production teams are a cohesive unit?

• BAD PROCESSES
  Maybe your onboarding process is long and unclear and it doesn’t seem like new people are sticking. Or you haven’t fully converted every one to one system of communication, so you send planning center requests to the band, but your guest services folks are communicated via email, and there’s that one lady who only does phone calls. Oh, and those calls end up taking 25 minutes at a minimum.

You’ve probably already thought of yours right now. 

If it’s so clear what we need to change, why do we hesitate to take action? 

1. It’s been going on a long time…

“The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
– Warren Buffett

Once a problem has gone on for long enough, it’s easy for our perspective to shift from “that’s a problem that needs fixing,” to “we have to accommodate that problem.”

Some examples:

• “Hey vocalists: really learn your lyrics because you never know when that confidence monitor might go out.”
• “Yeah the network is really bad in here sometimes, so uh we sometimes can’t change the monitor mix.”
• “You know how glitchy our video system is. Better plan on six hours for the Christmas rehearsal, you know, just in case we have tech issues!”

Maybe it’s bad behavior you have tolerated from difficult team members. Too much time has gone on that it seems like it would be awkward to address it now. After all, their behavior isn’t necessarily “worse” than usual right now, wouldn’t it be unfair to call them out on it? Nope! Your past tolerance won’t mean anything to your replacement who—if they have any spine—will address it on day one. And it shouldn’t stop you either.

If it’s process-based, the favorite justification is “we’ve been doing it this way for ___ years.” Now people love to whip this one out for all occasions, but it’s especially popular to use this tactic on younger leaders.

Here’s your new response, “If we’ve been doing it this way for __ years, we’re due for change.” Overdue depending on how many years that blank is.

Side note: if your supervisor or senior pastor is fond of this excuse, it’s time to move on. (I’m referring of course to if you are the full-time worship pastor responsible for the decision making in your department, not if you’re a volunteer with a crazy idea like moving your drum kit to the back of the auditorium). Jesus said you can’t store new wine in old wineskins. The regressive posture is as terrible as the hypocritical logic. Let’s say you’re 25 years old and they’re 50, but they won’t change because “we’ve been doing it this way for 25 years.” That means that 25 years ago they should never have done their own idea because they were as inexperienced as you allegedly are back when they instituted their own stupid idea. If they hired you, but won’t try a new idea, do yourself a favor and try a new employer.

If anything is too precious in your church or worship team to change, then you have a culture problem. This is your opportunity to break loose of hardened ways and begin a new day of flexibility and growth that comes with a culture of change.

2. Past Success

This one is really difficult when it comes to methods. The greatest threat to future success is past success. “We need to just do it how we did it when we were growing.” This is how so many churches end up in a time warp. It’s not just about growth either. There are churches who were hungry for God and saw amazing life change.

Back in the day, I have no doubt they experienced a move of God wearing their weird skirts and bad haircuts inside wood paneled sanctuaries with fake plants on the stage. But over time, the hunger faded and less lives were changed. But instead of reigniting the inner hunger, they just replicated the outer conditions. So we don’t change our haircuts, we bring more plants, we wear the clothes we did.

Okay maybe this example is too dramatic, but how many churches have confused nostalgia with revival? Question your song choices, your rehearsal processes, your song leaders… what’s the first thing your replacement would change?

3. Procrastination

You may not think you have time to address it, but I guarantee your replacement will find the time… quickly. 

What happened to me is I got better at managing my to do list than I was at actually fixing problems. It doesn’t take any skill to add items to a to-do list or to spend hours shuffling them around under the guise of “prioritizing them.” This is fake work that distract us from the actual effort it might take to tackle the problems. It doesn’t require any confrontation to move a to-do list item. There’s no fear of failure when it comes to getting a new notebook to better organize the things you’ll do “one day.“

Coincidentally, most of the problems will be solved much quicker than we fear. It turns out that the emotional labor and dread we carry is actually bigger than the so-called giant we’re so afraid to face.

Maybe you’re deferring that issue “until Christmas is over.” John Wooden said it best, “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”

4. Pain Threshold

If the discomfort is continuous enough, our bodies condition us to become accustomed to it. But your personal ability to ignore the problem does not diminish the importance of the change you need to make.

I can tell you from firsthand experience that the joy of solving a problem is so much greater than the compounded pain of repeated frustration. If you can spend one hour fixing a problem that costs you 15 minutes every week, you will have paid for it in just 4 weeks. Horrifically, if you don’t invest that hour it will cost you 13 hours over the course of a year.

You may have gotten used to that difficult team member, but what if their poor attitude or weird comments are driving away your new volunteers? You may have your weird 1000+ song number system memorized, but it doesn’t make any sense to a new worship team member to log into Planning Center and see “717, 156, 600 and new song ‘More Than Able’” Then they have to go to the 30 year old “database” and find what songs correlate with those three numbers. Think that example sounds wild? I guarantee you’re doing something just as weird.

It doesn’t require any confrontation to move a to-do list item. There’s no fear of failure when it comes to getting a new notebook to better organize the things you’ll do “one day.“ -Daniel Tsubota Click To Tweet

Now what?

Now that you have some clarity around what you need to change… change it! Your replacement is not going to ask permission. 

Why wait for your successor to be praised tomorrow for progress you are capable of making today? Jokes aside, if you are not setting up the next person God has for your role, you are being a poor steward of what God has entrusted to you. I have been the replacement many times: both to people who did not set me up to win, and to some who made my entry a lot smoother because of what they changed before I arrived. Let me tell you: I have had to skip communion because of the former, but would happily give the latter a holy kiss greeting.

“One day or day one, you decide.” – Joshua Fields Millburn

Now maybe you have found yourself in my situation where as your responsibilities increased, so did the amount of meetings you were invited to. What happens is that the time in your days seems to be drowned by the plethora of hourlong meetings, whether regularly scheduled or random. The only time left seems to be fringe bits: 15 minutes here—not enough to even get started on anything of substance, 25 minutes there—an awkward predicament where just as you are diving into it, it’s time to head to your next meting.

One popular solution is to become a full-blown workaholic: tackle your big projects at home late at night, or work on the weekends. You know you’ve become sick in the head when they announce the church office will be closed between Christmas and New Years and your first thought is the opportunity you’ll have to catch up on work.

Stop it. That’s the track to an unsustainable burn. Your family deserves better, and going at that rate will set you up for burnout at the very least and perhaps much worse:

Some examples:

• You start resenting people in your office who have the nerve to actually have margin or take time off.
• You neglect personal care like sleep or exercise. “Might as well catch up on emails while I’m wasting time eating dinner.” If you’ve thought this recently, you’re in trouble.
• You open yourself up for destructive self-medication and a whole host of other problems that you’re not equipped to fight off when you’re stressed and distracted.
  

So how do you make time to address what needs to be changed?

I’m a proponent of the Full Focus System, which in its essence forces you to condense your overwhelming to-do list down to just your three most valuable objectives. These quarterly goals are your “Big Three,” the ones that are extremely important but could easily get lost in the endless deluge of daily tasks.

A great way to make time is to literally schedule blocked off appointments with your Big Three the same way you would with meetings. Instead of giving your leftover time to your goals, establish a substantive amount of time as a priority and block it off in your calendar. I typically schedule an hour and half chunks for “Big 3 Focus.” And when someone wants to schedule a meeting, decline meeting times that would interrupt your commitment. Resist the urge to budge on that time and you’ll be amazed how quickly you become the employee who actually makes progress on your goals. You wouldn’t tell your boss, “Sorry I can’t meet for our one on one today because Jill wants my input on Connection Card designs at that same time.” No! You would tell Jill to find a different time, or just send you an email so you can reply with your input. Until your goals become a higher priority than your distractions, you will never bring your leadership or your team to the next level.

Speaking of emails, never leave your inbox sitting open. Schedule meetings with your email as well: I have three 15 minute meetings with my email for reading and replying. If you have to flag an email and dedicate time to craft a response, that’s a sign that your reply needs to be in person or over a call. Don’t waste your time creating masterpiece emails, spend your time on work that matters. This of course means turning off all email notifications on all devices. Email is just everyone else’s to-do list for your day. It’s also a cop out way to avoid having to take your own initiative.

You were made to make the change

Now I know I have been a total meanie this episode. But it’s only because I want to spare you all my wasted time avoiding the changes that actually made a difference in my teams and in my church. You are a leader. You have God-given talents and you’re growing your skills every day. You were not made to accept the problems that you have been gifted and called to fix. Your time is worth more than the distractions, the meetings, and the emails that would happily fill up your entire calendar and your focus. You are made to challenge the status quo, whether it’s been self-perpetuated or externally enforced by the impotent traditions of your leaders. There is no better gift you can give your replacement than making as much progress as possible so they can focus on accomplishing their mission, not fixing your accumulation of ignored problems.