On this week's episode of the Build the Church podcast, Sheldon Andrus, founder of Andrus Advisory and author of the new book Sunday by Design: How Growing Churches Master Sunday, named one sentence that costs churches more than any line item in the budget. It sounds harmless. It even sounds pastoral. But it is one of the clearest signs a church is pressing up against a growth barrier.
The sentence is: "My people don't mind."
The service ran twenty minutes long, but my people don't mind. The announcements were rough, but my people don't mind. The video didn't fire and the mic wasn't on, but my people don't mind. They know us. They love us.
They probably don't mind. That's not the problem. The problem is what that sentence does to a church over time.
Here's the question I kept coming back to after talking with Sheldon: your people may not mind, but what if they got excited about what you're doing instead of just not minding it?
"They don't mind" is a low bar. It means we've decided that tolerable is good enough. When that becomes the standard, you're settling for mediocrity instead of stepping up into excellence, and you're doing it in the name of the people you love most. Nobody sets out to build a mediocre church. But "my people don't mind" is how it happens, one excused Sunday at a time.
Sheldon put it this way: a growing church expects people it doesn't know every single Sunday, and it is prepared to meet them when they arrive. He even suggests praying for it. Lord, send us people we do not know. Then don't be surprised when they show up.
That reframes everything. "My people don't mind" is a sentence about the people who are already in the room. It's doing church for the people who are already there instead of preparing a way for the people who aren't there yet. The family who walks in for the first time doesn't know you, doesn't love you yet, and has no reason to overlook a sloppy morning. They just quietly don't come back, and you never hear why.
In marketing school they teach you that if you only survey your customers, you never hear from the people who left. The same is true on Sunday. Your people don't mind. The people who aren't coming back never got a vote.
This is what makes the sentence costly. It takes away from your future by excusing not getting better today.
Every time "my people don't mind" wins, the church gets a pass on the thing it could have improved this week. The service format stays loose. The first five minutes stay unplanned. The guest goes uncaptured. None of those feel like big decisions in the moment. But add them up over a year and you've spent your future on comfort.
Sheldon doesn't call churches like this stuck or declining, and I like that about him. He says they're pressing up against a growth barrier: there's a mentality, a thought, or a system missing, and when it changes, growth is on the other side. This is one of those mentalities. The fix isn't a new program. It's deciding that "they don't mind" is no longer good enough for the people God is sending you.
This was one piece of a much bigger conversation. Sheldon walks through what he calls Sunday OS, the seven switches every growing church runs on: live in the clock, lock your service format, script the first five minutes, capture every guest, make one ask, follow up within 24 hours, and count. We also got into his Louisiana roots, his years on the executive team at Union Church during its run from 2,000 to 15,000 people, and a provocation from the book about the capacity of hell that I won't spoil here.
Sheldon's book, Sunday by Design: How Growing Churches Master Sunday, releases September 15. You can find it, the coming audiobook, and information on his Sunday OS Plus coaching platform at sundaybydesign.com.
Watch the full episode below or on YouTube, or listen on the Build the Church podcast. If it helps you gain momentum, grow your church, and go the distance, send it to a pastor who needs to hear it.
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