The Two Biggest Meeting Time-Wasters
Because God Didn't Call Us to Sit in Bad Meetings
Have you ever sat through a 90-minute church committee meeting that could have been an email? Actually, it could have been three emails and saved the six people attending nine hours of collective time. We've all been there - watching as someone reads aloud the budget report that was already emailed, listening to every detail of last month's successful event, spending 20 minutes looking at calendar dates that could have been handled in an online calendar poll.
Here's the truth: Most bad church meetings aren't that way because they're poorly run - they're bad because they shouldn't be meetings at all.
Many churches struggle with watching valuable volunteer time evaporate in unnecessary meetings, but it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, your meetings can be immediately better if you eliminate just these two time-wasters:
Discussing topics that don't require any action
Sharing information that could be shared another way
The basic rule? If you can't complete the sentence "We need to ________" with an action word (decide, plan, choose, etc.), it probably doesn't belong in the meeting. By the way, “discuss” is not an action word.
In the meeting, these action items can begin with, “You’ve received the information/background about ________. I trust that you have reviewed it. Any questions about it before we move to deciding?”
I've put these principles and a few more into a short guide here. It's not revolutionary - just simple principles that help volunteer leaders make the most of everyone's time. Because let's be honest: nobody ever left a church because the meetings were too short or too focused.
When church teams start using these kinds of guidelines, the results are clear:
Meetings that start and end on time
More engagement because people know their time won't be wasted
Better preparation because expectations are clear
Actual decisions being made
The next time you're planning a church meeting, ask yourself: "What do we need to DO together that we can't do separately?" If you can't answer that clearly, maybe it's time to write that email instead.
Because here's what's really at stake: Every hour we spend in an unnecessary meeting is an hour stolen from actual ministry. It's an hour our volunteers could have spent visiting a homebound member, planning a youth activity, or maybe even being present with their own families. When we waste our volunteers' time, we're not just being inefficient - we're being poor stewards of their gift of service.
The good news? Better meetings aren't complicated. They just require intention and a little courage - the courage to change "how we've always done it," the courage to trust people to read materials ahead of time, the courage to say "this could be an email."
Download the guide and start running meetings that honor your volunteers' time and energy. Because when meetings work better, ministry works better.