4 Good Reasons to Say “No”
By Rob Wiltshire
There is an endless amount of good things that need doing.
For instance, in simple church world terms it could look like; the production team needs help, the kids team needs help, the welcome team needs help, etc. The list of needs is endless.
I’d bet you’ve heard the saying; “See a need fill a need?” It’s somewhat common around church circles.
The idea behind this saying is to encourage people to be proactive at being Jesus hands and feet in the world around them. So it’s used to get people doing something.
But chances are like most leaders you don’t have a problem with being proactive, but you may have a problem with something else.
Matthew 10:5-8
5 Jesus sent out the twelve apostles with these instructions:
Stay away from the Gentiles and don’t go to any Samaritan town. 6 Go only to the people of Israel, because they are like a flock of lost sheep. 7 As you go, announce that the kingdom of heaven will soon be here. 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead to life, heal people who have leprosy, and force out demons.
Was Jesus saying this because the Gentiles and Samaritan’s were all good and didn’t need any help? Was there no sick amongst them? Was there no one in need of salvation? Was there no one broken and hurting and in need of love?
Quite the opposite I’d suggest.
In fact, I would be under the strong opinion that the need amongst the Gentiles and Samaritan’s was just as dire as it was amongst the Israelites.
Jesus wasn’t anti Gentiles and Samaritan’s, He was simply sending His leaders on a particular mission and didn’t want anything to distract them from it.
For the most part leaders don’t have a problem with proactively filling needs, they have a problem with not diverting off the track God has placed them on.
4 Good Reasons to Say “No”
1) No directs your undivided attention
My grandfather used to say; “You can have too many irons in the fire.”
This saying is an old blacksmith — Metal workers — proverb. The saying was to encourage blacksmiths to only have enough irons in their fire they could work with at one time.
Why you might ask? Because if they had too many at once, they wouldn’t have time to get to every iron before it melted.
If you are saying yes to too many things, eventually you will burn/melt everything…including yourself.
You can’t do 100 things and do them all well.
2) If you say yes to everything, then you are saying nothing is important
If something is truly important, then guarding your time and resources to accomplish that task is paramount.
If you say yes to something that distracts you from your mission, then you are effectively saying your mission isn’t important.
Everything is important to someone, but not everything should be important to everyone.
Let me give you a practical example. When you get married you are saying yes to your spouse and no to everyone else.
Leadership is the same.
Saying yes to everything says nothing is important.
3) No gives you a bigger yes
For everything you say “No” to, it enables you to say “Yes” with more energy and resources to something else.
On a practical level, if you said yes to everything it would leave you out of time to do anything.
Just because something needs doing, doesn’t mean you are the person to do it.
As leaders we need to guard at all costs our time and resources needed to carry out our mission.
Saying no isn’t bad, it’s just you protecting your yes.
4) If you are saying yes to everything, you are robbing from someone else of their opportunity to say ‘yes’
Paul encourages the Corinthians that the church is made up of many different parts.
If you are a hand trying to be a foot two things will happen. One you won’t be very good at it, and secondly you’ll be robbing the foot of the opportunity to actively be a foot.
Sometimes ‘we’ fill a need without realising that leaving it empty is often what it takes for someone to see that that is their yes.
One of the better things we can be doing as leaders is, rather than ‘us’ filling every need we see, we encourage people who fit that need to fill it.
And you know what happens if we do that. A need is filled, and someone feels both valued and needed.