The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule…) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.  – Reference, Wikipedia. This one in a series of posts discussing the Pareto Principle “Trap” and why churches fall into it.

The Pareto Principle states that generally 20% of the effort equals about 80% of the result. There are many illustrations in the business world, but I believe that it is often misapplied and misunderstood in the church, because of the “Mary – Martha” scenario I posted yesterday. When we focus on “we who do” and those who don’t”, we build a natural divide between the two groups, like Martha tried to do. We tend to look at where we are involved and see the “lack of volunteers” in our area. When we do this, we are being short-sighted. We focus on our small portion of the entire work being done for the Kingdom of God. Let’s look at the “church” scenario:

20% do 80% of the evangelism
20% do 80% of the teaching
20% do 80% of the giving
20% do 80% of the serving others
20% do 80% of the “behind the scenes” work
20% do 80% of the children’s ministry
20% do 80% of the youth ministry
20% do 80% of the time served in the nursery
and the list could go on and on….

Just with this basic list, easily 160% do most of the work for the kingdom and that’s just scratching the surface!

Hopefully you are beginning to see the trap. The math used is illogical. With this analogy, when we proclaim that only 20% of the people are doing 80% of the work, then you either want to increase the 20%, or ideally, have 100% of the people doing 100% of the work. And how would that look?

100% working together on the weekly bulletin. 100% on the platform leading worship. 100% teaching serving in the children’s area, 100% serving with youth, 100% serving with adults 100% serving ___________ (you fill in the blank).

Yes, that is a little ridiculous and how quickly do you think people would “burn-out”. But if we look at 100% of the people doing 100% of the work as each individual doing their part, we see an entirely different picture. We see a body of believers serving side-by-side in different areas working toward a common goal, building the Kingdom of God.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul writes that we are all individual members of one body and we each have a specific purpose. Though we have different functions, we still need each other, no matter what role they play. Being a body, some parts will work harder than others and play a more vital role. Now I have no medical expertise, but think about your body. What part does the most work? We would call them our vital organs, heart, lungs, brain, etc. I wonder if the heart gets with the foot because when you sit down, the foot is doing nothing while the heart keeps pumping and when the foot decides to move and run, it causes the heart to work even more.

Do you think maybe that is how the body is supposed to work? So if “the church” is the Body of Christ, is it safe to presume that some in the body will do more work and others will do less work, yet together serve Christ in unity in their respective roles? Some will be visible and some will be “hidden” inside the body and their work goes unnoticed? When the parts of the body are working together, then you truly have 100% of the people doing 100% of the work, though everyone is not doing everything. That my brothers and sisters is how the body is supposed to work together.