I’ve got some questions for you. Is God your CEO? Do you have an Executive Pastor, not just a Senior Pastor? Does your church have an appropriate marketing orientation that reaches a strong local constituency? Are church attendees getting a good ROI? Are the church’s deliverables meeting the client’s needs? Does the church have a strong CFO, CEO, and CTO? And a final question: is all this beginning to sound more like a business than a church?
Make no mistake about it. The church has imbibed the strategies, techniques, and jargon of business. Pastors, rather than being viewed as “shepherds,” are now viewed as “executives,” many of whom receive salaries commensurate to the title. Instead of bookshelves stocked with commentaries and devotional books, pastors read business books like Good to Great, The One Minute Manager, and The Tipping Point.
What’s going on? Whatever happened to the church sans business? Is all this Church Inc., stuff really what churches need? First, let’s state a few disclaimers. Business is not evil, and the church would do well to streamline best practices, keep careful accounting, and exercise savvy management techniques. But the church is not a business. The megachurch movement has built an approach to doing church that smells way too much like a business corporation and not like the house of God. What’s wrong with this picture?
Business Models are Not God’s Models
There’s a lot wrong with this picture, but we will just mention four issues, beginning with this one: when it comes to church vs. business, we’re talking about two totally different models. Totally. What works great in the corporate world might get results in the church, but is it actually accomplishing God’s goals for the church? The church universal is Christ’s body. The local church is a visible manifestation of this body—glorifying God, winning the lost, and edifying believers. Turning this assembly into an organization that operates primarily on business principles is to turn the essence of the church into a secular organization that fails to meet the true purpose of the church.
The Goal of Business is Profit. The Goal of God is Changed Lives.
When it comes right down to it, business is in the business of making money. Listen to some pastors or check out the lifestyle of some megachurch pastors or television evangelists, and you might think that the church isn’t much different. But the church ought to be different. The church is not ultimately trying to rake in cash for its Christian coffers. It ought to be working in concert with God to change people’s lives.
Business meets people’s wants and needs. The church is on a rescue mission to save people.
Every business has a product or service. Transporting this idea into the spiritual realm, by speaking of the church’s product, service, or deliverable is woefully shortsighted. The church does not function on the same plane. The church is compelled by the passionate glory of God, ruled by Jesus Christ, and lived out by believers. The church is on a mission to bring glory to God by bringing the lost to Christ.
Business is temporal. The church is eternal.
One day, time will come to an end. Will profit margins, ROIs, executives, ad campaigns and branding continue? Nope. Whether in the church or in the business, these things will be no more. Only the church itself will continue. The church is here to stay—forever. Let’s make sure we’re adjusting our goals, objectives, and mission to match Gods. Let’s not make the church a business.
Check out these resources.
In tune with yesterday’s post, encouraging pastors and church administrators to be readers and learners, here are a few resources that you may want to check out. These are three of the classic (and contemporary) books on the subject of the church.
The Nature of the Church, Earl D. Radmacher
The Church in God’s Program, Robert Saucy
Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Mark Dever