"If It Is Not Broken, Do Not Fix It!"

Have you ever heard the expression, “If it is not broken, do not fix it?” I know you have and we all understand what that means, right? Simply put, if something is working well there is no need to tinker with it and risk the possibility of messing it up! Years ago, Linda and I purchased our first colored television from an individual. It was an older model, but it had a good picture and great sound, so we enjoyed it. At some point, I decided that I could improve the picture quality by “fine tuning” the horizontal, vertical, color contrast and some other items. When I finished “fixing it,” the picture was hardly recognizable. We would have been much better off, if I had never tried to fix something that was not broken.

A lot of things are like that. Sometimes a person hears Dr. Phil make some claim that a little adjusting of a relationship will make it much richer. A tweak here and a nip there is supposed to make a good marriage great! Remember the theme of this article? Messing with a good marriage to make it better sometimes has catastrophic affects. There is nothing wrong with trying to improve a relationship, but it is often best left alone if it is working for those involved.

I have found the same thing is true with a church! If a church is at peace, happy and loving on each other, why mess with it? If that same church is reaching out to the lost in the community with reasonably good success, why risk ruining that ministry? The list could go on, but you get the idea, right? “If it is not broken, do not fix it!” When we start tinkering with the church, we can find ourselves much worse in the end than we were in the beginning! Then, the question can be asked, “how’s that working for you?”

Many peaceful, growing, and loving churches have become frustrated, cold, and lifeless because someone thought they knew something about “church growth” when the truth is that the church belongs to Jesus and He said, “I will build my church!”