An ineffective and limiting way to pastor a church …

“All-or-none” thinking is one of the ten most common cognitive distortions (“distorted” or irrational ways of thinking) people develop as habits.

An example of “all-or-none” thinking is “I’m either a success at everything I do, or I’m a failure.” It’s all or nothing.

That same faulty thinking is a common — and faulty — approach to shepherding a local church that many pastors adopt. In this case, it’s the idea that everyone has to be able to do some the same thing, and preferably all at the same time, or the pastor isn’t interested.

There’s a lot of good that comes from “corporate” or “all-church” gatherings, from everyone hearing the same sermon, and everyone singing praises to God together, to everyone partaking of Communion together.

But treating a local congregation like a “herd” that can only engage in experiences as a herd is a not a good way to shepherd a church, but it is a popular way.

I’ve observed many occasions when staff members or church members have suggested something to church leaders, who quickly dismissed the suggestion because the entire congregation couldn’t do it, or couldn’t do it at the same time.

Let me give you a specific example.

For more than 25 years, I’ve been a certified instructor for Couple Communication I workshop, which is the number one couple communication program in the world. More than 700,000 couples have gone through this training workshop, which is the most researched couple communication program available, with more than 70 different formal university studies all showing great results in the lives of program participants. The most common reason I’ve seen some pastors uninterested in providing this to their members and community (we offer it for FREE) is because the entire church can’t go through it at the same time. This workshop is an eight-hour educational EQUIPPING workshop, which means there are multiple breakout sessions so the instructor can work with couples in pairs for more individual and direct teaching and equipping. This approach allows for optimal outcomes, but limits participation to a maximum of 12 couples at a time. Even though the workshop can be offered as many times as necessary to allow for everyone in a church to participate if they want, so many ministers are uninterested in anything that cannot be done as a herd. The result is missing out on the most effective equipping in communication for couples that exists.

Pastors who approach shepherding their congregation with an “all-or-nothing” attitude limit their church members’ spiritual development and overall church experience when they insist everything be done as a “herd.”

There are some faulty or negative reasons why some pastors insist on pastoring their congregation only as a herd:

1. To save time. Pastors of both large and small churches feel the real pinch of limited time, so they think if we can’t take everyone through something at once, then it’s too much effort to consider.

2. To minimize effort. Pastors tend to think doing something everyone can do at once requires less effort, but that isn’t true. Events on a much smaller scale are often much easier to reproduce than moving everyone at once through a major program.

3. Control. Some pastors fear loss of control if something is done by multiple people in more than one setting.

4. Lack of consideration. By observation, I think several church leaders just haven’t given much (or any) thought to doing anything that isn’t designed as a “herd” activity.

5. “Herding” is all they know. They haven’t been taught any other way than “all-or-nothing” and haven’t seen any other way practiced.

Again, I think “all church” experiences are important to every local church, especially in shaping them into the family God would have them be. But we don’t all learn alike, and we don’t all learn best in large group settings. In fact, some of the most effective and intimate discipleship moments are experienced in small groups or even one-on-one.

Not pastoring with a “all-or-none” mentality requires the confidence to delegate responsibilities to others, and to understand that everyone doesn’t have to have the same experience (especially at the same time) to effectively lead a local church “flock.”

Scotty