The Weakest Link

August 6, 2007 by David.

If you’ve ever seen the game show “The Weakest Link,” you know that it consists of a group of contestants answering questions and eliminating the “weakest” competitor after each round. In theory, when you get to the end of the game, the final few contestants are arguably the strongest and most capable. In practice, people eliminated other contestants for a variety of reasons, and you usually did not end up with the strongest contestants at the end.

Unfortunately, this model has been employed by churches now for years. The theory goes, if you eliminate the weakest link in a chain, you strengthen the whole chain. Nice theory, but it’s ignorant of grace and it relies on the idea that links can not be fixed.

I was thinking about this in some perplexing detail. What if a link became weak in a chain? What options do you have? Well, if the link in the chain is stretched by the links nearest him, eventually the link will break. When the link breaks, the damage to the chain has been done.

But, what if you decide to loosen the tension on that link - collapse all the other links around it, if you will. With the tension relieved, you could actually set about repairing the link. You could find the stress fractures and do some welding to strengthen those areas. In a short period of time, you could make the link whole again - changed, but still whole. The interesting thing about welding is this: usually, the spot of the weld - where the weakness was apparent - is usually stronger than the rest of the body. So, in other words, by choosing to heal the link, you may have actually made the link stronger than it previously was.

Here are some of the problems with the discard theory to link management. First, the chain as a whole is shortened, lessening it’s effectiveness. It’s not much shorter, but this theory allows for a continual decline in effectiveness. Secondly, though you may have discarded a weak length now, it’s likely that another link will become weak in time. After all, these links are all under the same tension. All the links are being pulled on both sides - the weak link was no different than any other. Finally, by repairing the weakest link, you’re actually - in the long run - potentially making the link stronger. You see, the repairs actually fix the problems that existed, rather than ignoring them or discarding them in the first place. The problems will continue to be there, whether manifested in one link or one hundred links. By fixing them, you gain a better understanding of what makes a link work and how best to position them. In turn, the chain as a whole becomes more effective.

Somewhere along the way, churches lost sight of the fact that being in a church doesn’t make you better. It’s not a refuge to get away from the sick, it is a refuge FOR the sick. It’s not a place to avoid life’s problems. It’s a place to confront them. We need to treat our brothers and sisters the same way we’d want to be treated (imagine that). Let’s not discard people on the first sign of weakness. Rather, let’s gather around them, be a healing force for them, and watch the chain as a whole be strengthened.

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