The Committee that doesn't meet

A few weeks ago in Sunday School, we were discussing leadership development and I mentioned we didn’t need to put people on committees that never met. Immediately one of the funny guys in class said, “I would love to be on a committee that never meets!” The point of the discussion was that we should use these opportunities to allow people with gifts to do the work of ministry and be trained up in leadership rather than have the committee chairs do all the work. However, the more I have thought about it, the more convinced I was that he was on to something beautiful.

Immediately following class he stopped to tell me he didn’t need any help in organizing his non-meeting committee he would get it off the ground himself. True to his word he posted an email that the committee that doesn’t meet was not holding a meeting last week and would not hold one next week either. Several people from the class have requested being placed on this committee, but apparently willingness to participate is a bad sign so they were turned down. It has become a thing; everyone wants to be not recommended to this committee so they can be on the committee and not meet. It’s all quite Dr. Seussish and fun, but you do get the point right? How many committees have I served on that would have accomplished the same amount if not more had we never met. At least this committee has caused countless chuckles over the last couple of weeks.

I have just finished a three year commitment on a district wide committee that served no purpose and, to the best of my knowledge, accomplished nothing. I have four times a year sat for several hours while people listened to the sound of their own voices, made announcements and, if they are like me at all, played tic tac toe against themselves waiting to have spent enough time in purgatory to get into heaven immediately. What a good thing if this committee had the vision to see its purpose would have been better served never to have met at all. An opportunity lost.

I think it’s time to sit down with a list of committees and document the fruit produced. If we have been meeting as a committee for a year with no fruit, it’s time to seriously consider making this a committee that no longer meets. Let’s invest our energies in places where we can see that good stuff is resulting from our time and energies and let go of the stuff that isn’t. Yes, I know, all of life isn’t about producing something and sometimes we are nurturing relationships and the results take awhile and all that good stuff. But somewhere people, if we aren’t getting a thing out of it, that committee is just filling space. Let it move to its natural state and become what it was intended to be, a committee that doesn’t meet.

And then, let’s form a hall of fame for the committees who don’t meet with pride. I think we will be much better off and perhaps actually have time to read a book, take a hike, sleep and maybe do something of value for the kingdom. Radical thinking for a mainline girl, but I think it might happen.