"Welcome to the EquipCast for the Archdiocese of Omaha, designed to help leaders transform their cultures, embody the pastoral vision, and become one church encountering Jesus, equipping disciples, and living mercy. Hey everybody. Welcome to the EquipCast Coach's Corner, where we break down important topics to equip you and your team for missions in your family, church, and ministry.

My name is Jim Jansen, and today I'm going to talk to you about pruning things out of our lives and ministries. Okay, we've all been there, right? There's a part of our life that we love, but we're starting to get the sinking feeling that it just doesn't fit anymore. Maybe it's not bearing the fruit that it once did. Maybe it's not bearing any fruit. Or maybe our time and energy are needed elsewhere. Those, my friends, are signs that it's time for some spring pruning.

So in the Jansen household, Kim, my wife, is the gardener. She prunes with reckless abandon. And I'll come out and I'll be like, 'Honey, what did you do? You killed it.' But, sure enough, a couple of months later, her wisdom is verified, and there's new life, and it's healthier and stronger than it's ever been, because she's done some pruning. So even though I'm the amateur gardener in the family, I'm going to offer you some spring pruning tips for your life.

Okay, so, first thought here, we should expect to prune. Pruning is a good and natural part of life. Life always produces more than we can handle. If you have more than you can handle in your life, it's just that you've finally come to the place where you need to prune. It's a normal, natural thing. It happens in the natural world and it happens in our lives.

Right, so I mentioned I'm an amateur orchard farmer. Some of you know that. I've mentioned it on the podcast before. And I noticed that the trees, apples, and pears, always produce more blossoms and buds than they can fruitfully sustain. Pruning ensures that the best of the tree's energies go into the strong branches that can support the weight of the fruit. And it makes the fruit bigger and juicier.

I mean, this is something even the church has to do. The church, the fruit of the church, is saints. We have thousands and thousands of saints that you've never heard of because we don't celebrate them in the liturgical calendar anymore. We used to, but their example and their life are no longer the example necessary to inspire and instruct the faithful of today. The saints don't care. They're still worshiping gladly around the throne of God. But, in order to let the light of particular saints shine forth and provide the inspiration we need, from time to time, the church has to prune saints out of the liturgical calendar.

So, let's talk about when you know when you're supposed to prune. Like, when do you prune? Well, there are three main times when we need to prune things out of our lives. And I'm going to go through them here from the easiest to the hardest. So, time number one, you need to prune things out when they're dead, when there's no life, when it's a chore, when it's not bearing any fruit. And this, by the way, just doesn't mean like, 'okay, it's hard,' like working out is hard, but that bears fruit. I'm talking about something where it's hard, but it doesn't produce life. It doesn't produce fruit. When it's dead, cut it out. Because you need to make space.

Second, cut things out when they're sick. You either need to make it healthy or you need to cut it out. You need to prune it. And it may be that the quickest way to new life is to prune and let something new take its place. Thirdly, sometimes we need to prune even when a part of our life is still bearing fruit. Because it's not the most fruitful. The Lord may want more of our energy to go into another part of our life. And we shouldn't be afraid to prune and let that part go away so that our time and our energy can bear more fruit.

See, Jesus talks about this. In John chapter 15, Jesus says, 'I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away. And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, and you are the branches. He abides in me, and I in him. He is the one that bears much fruit.'

Now, there's so much in there, but I just want to highlight the example that Jesus gives of the Father. Not only does He prune out dead and lifeless branches, but He prunes branches that are bearing fruit so that they bear more fruit. So more of their energy goes into the things that He's made them for. So, let me give you some examples out of family life, ministry, and personal examples.

Okay, so, pruning in family devotions. In the Jansen household, we rotate devotions. We didn't used to rotate devotions based on the liturgical seasons and the cycle of our family, age of our children, the season of life we're in. We used to try and do everything, and it just became a cluttered, lifeless mess. Now, we tend to do the rosary during ordinary time. We do one decade of the rosary after dinner, because one decade, said just a little bit more slowly, with the whole family present, seems to bear more fruit. We do the Stations of the Cross in Lent, but we don't do every station every day. We do one or two stations each day. We do the Jesse Tree Devotion during Advent.

Now, the same thing happened with our liturgical celebrations. I love the Easter Vigil. And I love Midnight Mass on Christmas. That worked really well before we had children. And it worked well when our children fit in a car seat. But as they got older and they were unable to handle being up at midnight or going through a three-hour service, we started to go to morning Mass on Christmas and Easter.

The question you want to ask yourself is, is this devotion leading us closer to God? Are the fruits of the Spirit showing up? Is it producing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness? If you want to strangle each other after doing all of the decades of the rosary, maybe it's not a good fit. Let yourself give yourself the freedom to look for the fruit and ask yourself the question, is this leading me closer to God now?

Okay, so in ministry. We tend to do lots of things that no longer seem to be bearing fruit, like, wait for it, the parish festival. Now, I'm sure your parish festival is wonderful. I'm just talking about those parish festivals that maybe aren't so wonderful, where you really have to pull teeth to get people to sign up for the ring toss. Well

, I know one parish that heroically, courageously decided to stop doing the parish festival. Why? Because they found something better. They decided to do tailgates in the fall. And bounty houses and a simple grill out produced everything that they wanted to bring in new people and to build community within the parishioners. They had all the volunteers they needed in one day because people were excited about it. And they found what they were really looking for, a beautiful, simple, easy community-building event. And they made the decision to prune out the parish festival.

Okay, finally, some personal examples. Again, not heresy, hang on, wait for it. It's not really heresy. Just, it might sound like it to you. But I want to ask the question, is that small group that you've been a part of for years making a difference? Can you continue to be a part of that small group while remaining faithful to that call, that little tug on your heart that the Lord is putting for you to start another group? You might not, and that's okay. It's okay to prune something out to make room for something new.

So let me give you a quick, few pruning pro tips. First, make a good old-fashioned pro and con list, and rank each category according to its importance, and then bring it to prayer, and invite the Lord into your pro and con list. Second, try it out, meaning you can prune something out of your life for a week, or a month, or a few months, and if you made the wrong decision, you can always go back. Would it really be that hard to re-establish if you needed to? Back by popular demand, the parish festival. I mean, if it really is something that is fruitful and needed and desired, it isn't that hard to bring it back. So try it out. Third, develop an exit plan. It may take a few weeks to communicate well. Oftentimes we hesitate to prune things out of our lives because we don't want to disappoint people. Take the time to communicate well, to find a replacement, to make sure that you transition in a way that's fair to people who might be depending upon you. And that can allow you to prune if you develop an exit plan.

Again, remember, pruning leads to more fruitfulness. What might look like death is actually a step towards life, and life in abundance. Let me pray for us now. Oh Lord, we just ask that you would grant us wisdom and courage and the supernatural gift of counsel. Lord, show us what in our lives may need pruning. And grant us the grace to follow your lead. Give us docile hearts to the work of the Father, his pruning in our lives. We ask that you would grant that we, abiding in you, may bear much fruit. Amen. All right. What are your thoughts? You can respond back in the chat at equip.archomaha.org. Again, that's equip.archomaha.org. If you like this idea of pruning, I highly recommend the book, Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud. That's Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud. You can check that out. And spend a little time with John chapter 15. Jesus has some good words on pruning. Thanks, everybody."