The 3 Buckets – A Model For Prioritizing

Determining and setting priorities is perhaps one of the most important roles of the leader in today’s church. What should demand the attention of the staff and volunteers and what should be placed on the “back burner?” That is the question.

And, with the current economy effecting giving in the church, keeping the priorities straight is especially important. With limited staff and even more limited financial resources, it’s extremely important that church leaders are clear on priority setting. What should be focused on as the top priority and what can (and should) wait?

At Christ’s Church of the Valley we’ve established a method of establishing ministry priorities. It’s pretty simple. Think of Sunday morning, mid-week, and missions as 3 buckets into which we pour resources. The buckets are side-by-side and water (resources – money and people) are poured into the first bucket until it is full after which the resources “spill” into the next bucket until it’s full and so on.

The First Bucket

The first bucket is Sunday morning. For any church plant to be successful, it must first focus on the “front door” in terms of reaching its target. What must be done, based on an understanding of the demographic, to attract and retain people? Of course the teaching must be awesome, but what kind and quality of music must be part of the service to reach the target group? Is an awesome children’s program important? Having an awesome children’s program that is simultaneous with Sunday morning services is almost always a critical component in making sure parents are motivated (sometimes by their children) to come back. What else about Sunday morning is important? How about hospitality? Is it important to provide coffee and snacks for people as they are arriving for the Sunday morning services? How “user friendly” is checking children into their classes on Sunday morning? This “first bucket” priority dictates that the first 3 staff positions are the Senior Pastor, Worship Pastor, and Children’s Pastor.

Once Sunday morning is awesome and the required resources (great teaching, awesome worship leadership and music, and excellent children’s programming) are in place to make Sunday morning awesome, the bucket is full. It then begins to overflow and resources begin to spill over into the second bucket … mid-week.

The Second Bucket

Mid-week is primarily small groups. Is the leadership in place to build a small groups ministry? As the church grows larger, it needs to grow smaller at the same time. It needs to be easy for people to “connect” as they begin to regularly attend. Small groups are the most common way in which people connect with one another, becoming a part of what’s going on outside of the worship service on Sunday morning. Again, only after the first bucket is full and the ministry is growing (usually measured in average weekly attendance) should resources “spill” into the second bucket. They can’t spill (are not available) into the second bucket until the first bucket is full. The next staff position is, therefore, a Groups/Adult Ministries Pastor.

The Third Bucket

After the first and second buckets are full, they overflow into the third bucket … missions. Of course the missions area includes both benevolence and church planting. In order to have a strong missions effort (to be missional) a church must be healthy. By “healthy” we mean significantly growing in attendance and income. I’ve spoken to church leaders who illustrate how missional their churches are by saying something like, “We reserve 40% of our budget for missions.” I usually respond with, “awesome!” I then ask about attendance and growth and am most often told that the church has zoomed to 100 and been there for many years. Nice!

Jesus called us to “go and make disciples” and to serve the poor and impoverished. That is not in question. The issue is priority setting. Devoting 40% of the budget of a “small” church will pretty much guarantee the church will stay small. Early in the church plant the focus must be to grow, become self supporting, and build enough wealth to effectively “reach the world.” Then, and only then, can the church have a major impact on growing the kingdom.

The 3 Buckets in Action

I was recently talking to a Senior Pastor who was looking for new church growth ideas. We quickly identified that he needed to hire a full-time worship leader (first bucket) that could help create something on Sunday morning that would attract new people and keep them coming back. He said he couldn’t afford to hire that person. Looking at his budget I noticed more than $60,000 in a “missions” (third bucket) fund. My suggestion to use those funds to pay a good worship leader was met with an above average amount of “push back.” Hmmm. I then suggested that the $60K would sit there forever, not doing anyone any good, if the church didn’t grow. I think he got my point.

There you have it … first bucket: Sunday morning, second bucket: mid-week and third bucket: missions. Give it a try! Using The 3 Buckets as a model for priority setting will help your leadership make decisions that will ultimately allow your church to have excellent services, a great children’s program, rapid assimilation and connection, and an impactful missions effort in the long run.