“Not another meeting.” So goes the sentiment of millions of busy Americans every day.
In the wake of COVID-19, “Zoom fatigue” has become a problem responsible companies must guard against. Our weariness with meetings is perhaps rivaled only by our wariness toward meetings. If we are not exhausted by them, we are certainly skeptical of their importance and benefits.
Religious people have good reasons to second-guess their exhaustion or skepticism about meetings. For example, most churches use confessions, constitutions, and/or covenants that express a commitment to gather regularly as the local body of Christ. While this commitment is first to come together for worship, there are other kinds of gatherings.
Most Christians identify other meetings or gatherings as “business meetings,” “members’ meetings,” and/or denominational meetings. Such gatherings are at least implied in their church’s stated commitments. For example, here is an excerpt from the covenant of a historic Baptist church:
We will walk together in brotherly love, as becomes the members of a Christian Church, exercise an affectionate care and watchfulness over each other and faithfully admonish and entreat one another as occasion may require. . . .
We will work together for the continuance of a faithful evangelical ministry in this church, as we sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline, and doctrines. [1]
Consider: Where should this obedience happen? In a church hallway? During an in-home visit? Over the phone or through text thread? Most would say, “All of the above.” However, what about a special-called meeting? That is to ask, are there times when we need to come together to “care,” “faithfully admonish,” or “work together to sustain our discipline or doctrine”? Can we imagine a pressing question to be answered, a dispute to be resolved, or a crossroads to navigate?
For whatever difficulties accompany meetings with our church family or sister churches, gathering to express our obedience to God and commitment to one another is essential. Wherever we differ on the “how, the “when,” or the “what,” we should not doubt the “why.”
In the face of our weariness or wariness, I suggest four reasons why we meet as churches and groups of churches. In naming these reasons, I aim to clarify both the “what” and the “why.”
(1) Strengthen Ties
It is next-to-impossible to grow together in love if we are never together in the flesh. How often do preachers challenge those attending “online church” to return in person? How often have they privately or publicly questioned absentee members’ commitment to grow and serve? Yet the same could be said of countless Christian leaders and laymen with respect to meetings.
When we frequently neglect meetings, we undermine our ability to strengthen relationships. Relational ties do more than help us to stay informed, as valuable as that is. They help us to grow in understanding, sympathy, concern, and trust.
Sometimes the most surprising opportunity for strengthening these bonds is not even during a meeting itself. Traveling with others to and from meetings provides personal opportunities to get to know one another better. Often as we head home from a meeting, we need help thinking through what we have heard and seen. Sometimes the water cooler conversations during breaks also provide similar opportunities to exchange notes. Whenever or wherever, no one would be coming together were it not for the meeting.
(2) Discern and Decide
Most organizational documents require that people be physically present to make decisions. Some things cannot simply be mailed in.
Meeting gives constituents, delegates, or members a chance to participate in a public hearing in which a question, problem, or opportunity is presented. The issue can be debated, supported, opposed, or more deeply investigated. The toxicity of online culture does not provide adequate space for such deliberations. We need to be together. The closer the proximity, the less likely words will be twisted, nuance will be abandoned, and vital context will be overlooked.
The alternative is hearing everything second-, third-, or fourth-hand, and expecting to know what really happened and what was really said. Discernment and decision-making require presence. While we may not understand the stakes of every issue in advance, we have no grounds to complain about decisions made in meetings we chose not to attend. Meetings provide the occasion to execute the will of a group of people—that is to say, the group who show up.
Yet showing up does not automatically convey that we are already entrenched on any one side of the issue. Showing up conveys that we cared enough to show up. Ideally, it shows that we are prepared to be good-faith participants in the discussion and discernment of weighty concerns. We need to meet to discern and decide in wise, transparent, and healthy ways.
(3) Clarify and Guard Identity
Assumed in the meeting of a group of people is that it exists for a specific group of people. Presbyterians do not attend Baptist meetings and vice versa. Democrats do not attend Republican meetings and vice versa. Notwithstanding the handwringing over identity issues in the modern world, we would not have debates, conferences, podcasts, and publications if we did not think that identity was somehow real and observable.
However, identity is not always static. It is dynamic, changing as the individuals who comprise an organization, denomination, or group change. Depending on the type of entity, the group likely has a core document to ground their identity over time. Still, anytime people and circumstances change, perspectives can change. Focus shifts. Priorities migrate. Whether this reality is ideal or desirable is an entirely different question; identity must be clarified, maintained, and even guarded.
How can we clarify and guard our identity if we never gather? If we never gather, how can we say with one voice, “This is where we stand” or “This is where we’re headed”? And if we never gather, then how do we know who “we” even is?
(4) Test Ideas and Build Consensus
Many have opted out of meetings because of the messiness and complexity of so many issues. However, the stakes are not always high or overly ambiguous. Sometimes a meeting agenda is not full of potential landmines. Instead, a regularly scheduled meeting is an opportunity for people to gather to test ideas and potentially build consensus.
Recently I enjoyed Cal Newport’s, Slow Productivity. [2] Newport emphasizes the need for those in what is commonly called “knowledge work” to do fewer things and work at a natural pace (as opposed to a frenetic one). This approach to work paves the way for one to focus more on quality, not quantity. He gives numerous examples of some of the greatest and most fruitful breakthroughs happening from a slower, more deliberate process. Meetings provide space for that deliberation.
Unfortunately, people often show up for a meeting that lacks a clear agenda, and they leave frustrated or bored. Other times people do not show up prepared to participate in an honest exchange of ideas about one or two substantive issues. They just want to move through an agenda, get a free meal, and head home. This mindset misses the vital opportunity that meetings provide to test ideas and build consensus around positive directions.
The Problem of Thirds
Perhaps one of the greatest challenges to meeting is not simply the lack of a clear “why” but the “who.” Three groups exist in any Christian entity, whether a church, denominational body, or parachurch organization.
First, the establishment show up for everything, seldom rock the boat, and often pay the minimal dues (literally or otherwise). If nothing else, they are reliable. But their greatest weakness is to assume that the organization will always be around. They are often asleep when massive problems slowly multiply just below the surface.
Second, the disengaged show up for virtually nothing. They are usually uninformed or misinformed. When asked to participate, they constantly ask aloud or to themselves, “What’s in it for me?” Their greatest weakness is their willingness to benefit directly or indirectly from something they are not committed to, while withholding valuable input, energy, and/or resources.
The final group seems to hold the most promise but may be the most at risk: the leader class. They are involved. They contribute. They labor. They care. But they are tired. They are pulled in too many directions. They are trying to pick up more and more slack when the establishment gradually recedes from participation and the disengaged remain skeptical, cynical, or aloof on the sidelines.
The strengths and contributions of the leader class are clear, but the weaknesses nearly overshadow them: if something does not change, the leader class will become mere establishment, or worse, disengaged. That is where divided focus, frustration, and disappointment eventually lead.
Without a clear understanding of the purpose of meetings, no one will be a healthy, long-term participant at the table.
A commitment to a Christian organization is not only a commitment to God. It is also a commitment to others and generations yet unborn. If we do not steward our ministries wisely now, caring especially about the parts that require patience, organization, vision (i.e., meetings), then we will not leave any ministries for our descendants to steward. We owe our descendants more than that.
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[1] “Church Covenant,” Capitol Hill Baptist Church, https://www.capitolhillbaptist.org/about-us/what-we-believe/church-covenant/, accessed May 30, 2025 (emphasis added). The Capitol Hill Baptist Church’s website notes that their ministry has functioned with a covenant since 1878.
[2] Cal Newport, Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout (New York: Portfolio, 2024).
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About the Author: W. Jackson Watts is a co-founder of the HSF, where he served as an editor and contributor from 2010 to 2020. He pastors Grace Free Will Baptist Church in the St. Louis area and is actively involved in denominational ministry. He and his wife, Mckensie, have two children, Amos and Isla. Follow his other writings at www.churchatopia.com.
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