Pain Thresholds

I had a good friend and mentor email me and ask, regarding some of my recent posts:

I read [your recent] blogs. Interesting stuff. Do you think that churches would ever take the time to plan, prioritize, and implement like this?

Here is how I responded:

Actually, I think there are some churches that will do it, specifically those that either 1) have a serious problem, reach the pain threshold, admit it, and then try to fix it or 2) those that want to truly grow and make an impact in such a way that they can do nothing else but plan, prioritize, and implement. You either have to have a big vision or big problem.

It all comes down to your pain threshold. Your pain threshold is either low, meaning that you have such a discipline and vision that anything outside of it causes pain and requires attention, or its high. If you have a high threshold for pain, that means that it will take a great deal before you are willing to stop and make adjustments.

Take a look at the graph on the left of the human threshold of pain for hearing. If you have a low tolerance for pain, you may begin to detect issues when things exceed the normal conversation level (60 dB). For others of us, it will take an ambulance siren at 120 dB to get us to realize that things are wrong. For a few of us, we must experience the equivalent of 140 dB (physical pain) before we’ll address the problem.

So, how does one become more sensitive to issues? Often, it simply requires an understanding of the vision of your ministry or church and the time to honestly evaluate its current state. Sometimes, it requires breaking the status quo, evaluating what is truly important for your ministry, and eliminating the rest. Either way, don’t let things get too loud, otherwise volunteers may leave your ministry or church for one that is less painful.

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