“This is how we do it.”

Six words. Said in almost every church when questions get asked. Said with a smile, usually. Said like it settles something.

It ends a conversation that should have kept going.

The Sentence Nobody Questions

Every church sees the six words raise their ugly heads throughout the ministry. The Sunday format. The small group structure. The volunteer onboarding process. The way announcements get delivered.

None of what we protect started as sacred. Somebody built it on purpose, for a reason, in a context that made sense at the time. Then the context changed. The decision didn’t.

Ask why you still do it that way and watch what happens. Someone references tradition. Someone references what used to work. Someone says the sentence that ends the inquiry.

That sentence is a symptom. It shows up right where a real evaluation should have happened instead.

What’s Actually Happening

Here’s the mechanism. A model gets built to serve the mission. It works in the moment for the moment. People stop evaluating it because it’s working.

Over time, the model stops being a tool and becomes an identity. Leaders stop asking whether the model still fits. They start assuming the model is the mission. The shift is subtle, almost undetectable in real time.

The model was supposed to be useful, not permanent.

Marry the mission. Date the model.

Most churches do the opposite without noticing. They commit to the format and stay casual about the calling.

Why Leaders Default to This

It’s cognitive load, mostly. Evaluating every system every season is exhausting. Defending a fixed model requires no energy, just repetition.

So leaders default to preservation. It feels like faithfulness, but it’s inertia wearing a spiritual costume.

Faithfulness to the mission sometimes requires unfaithfulness to the model. That line will make some of your team uncomfortable. Let it.

Run It This Week

This requires structure, not sentiment. Here’s where to start.

1. Name the model out loud. Every recurring system in your church is a model: the service order, the volunteer pipeline, the small group rhythm, the staff meeting cadence. List them. Most leaders have never actually written down what their models are, which means they’ve never evaluated them either.
2. Attach an expiration question to every model. Not an expiration date, a question you ask on a schedule: does this still serve the mission as well as it did when we built it? Put it on the calendar. Quarterly works. Annually is the minimum.
3. Separate the defenders from the evaluators. In your next staff meeting, someone will defend the model reflexively. Let them make their case. Then ask the mission question directly: what were we actually trying to accomplish when we built this? If the answer doesn’t connect back to the current model cleanly, you have your diagnosis.
4. Rebuild without guilt. When a model no longer serves the mission, retiring it protects the mission it was built to serve.

Pick one recurring system, one you haven’t questioned in over a year, and ask your team this exact question: if we were starting from scratch today, would we build it this way? That question exposes drift in a way “should we change it” never will, since it removes the option of protecting the status quo by default.

If You Don’t Ask, Here’s Who Pays

You won’t feel this first. Someone on your team will.

She’s the one running the outdated onboarding process every single week, watching new volunteers get confused by steps that stopped making sense two years ago. She’s mentioned it twice. Both times, someone said the sentence, and the meeting moved on.

So she keeps running it anyway. Not out of belief in the process, just because raising it a third time feels like a losing argument.

That’s the actual cost of “this is just how we do it.” It doesn’t show up on your desk. It shows up on hers, in the volunteer who quietly stops showing up, in the extra hour she spends working around a broken process instead of through one that works.

You won’t see the bill. She’s paying it, quietly, every week.

One More Thing

If this hit close to home, this is exactly the kind of pressure we work through together at the Church Strategy Think Tank. Bring your list of unquestioned models. We’ll build the evaluation rhythm together. The next Think Tank is all about The 5 Rights from my newest book, RE:MODEL, releasing on September 8. 

Quotes to Share

• “This is just how we do it” isn’t a defense. It’s a symptom.”
• “Marry the mission. Date the model.”
• “Faithfulness to the mission sometimes requires unfaithfulness to the model.”

Helping You Add More Intention To Your Mission,
Dr. Gavin Adams