The first part of the answer goes to the job description of elders (or the senior leadership board of a church). Unlike a business, their job is laid out in Scripture: Ensuring that the congregation is taught well, cared for, released into ministry, protected, and led in healthy directions. And, they have a ministry of prayer for the church (often not practiced much as they are so busy doing management stuff). So, the focus of their work is very different than is the bottom line of a business - adequate profits.
The second part of the answer is that the reason business organizes itself in efficient ways is to maximize their effectiveness and minimize the waste of time and energy. This ought to be true of church boards as well. Any governance system that helps us do what we do better for the sake of the mission of the church makes sense. The simple principle is that how we do what we do matters and our way of doing board work should serve what we are trying to get done.
Think of the issues faced by many church boards:
- Inability to make decisions in a timely manner.
- Long board meetings
- Revisiting decisions multiple times
- Lack of clarity on what is staff responsibility and board responsibility
- Not enough time to prayer and thinking as time is eaten up by administrative issues
- Preponderance of day to day management issues robbing the board of time to think about the future
- Lack of clarity as to where the church should be going
- Board members who hold up the process or violate board practices
- Lack of clarity on what the board is supposed to be doing
- Inability to move through agendas in a timely manner
All of these kinds of things are time and energy wasters which ultimately hurt the ability of the leadership to lead well and which ultimately hurts the ministry of the church. So, how well a board manages itself, creates systems for its work has a direct impact on the ministry effectiveness or lack of it for the entire congregation.
Thus my answer to the question to should we run a church like a business is no and yes. The no is that the job of elders is different than business leaders. The yes is that the governance systems may well look like those in a business because they are simply good practices that help you achieve what you want to achieve. Those good practices actually help you do what God has called you to do as leaders well.
When business is not led well they go out of business. When churches are not led well they plateau and go into decline. How we lead matters in both business and ministry settings. We change our leadership practices in churches in order to maximize our ministry effectiveness. What we do in ministry is very different than in business. How we do it may look very much like how we do it in business.
1 comment:
I am beginning to believe that present day churches are being run either like elite social clubs or badly managed businesses. Either you go to church and become part of the "in" crowd or you become part of an enterprise that says it is a ministry but is really a poorly done business model.
Organized religion is often run by a hierarchy that is poorly trained to meet customer needs but given prestige and power that is largely undeserved. There is no accountability to the customers which are God and the people. However the people running the business take power from the Lord and money from the people but give hardly anything substantial in return.
If churches were run like businesses we would have clearly outlined accountability standards, training geared to meet the needs of the people, mission centered teaching and preaching and community based programs that make differences in the lives of the people. Instead of reaching people where they are and helping them become more of who they were meant to be, we simply cater to our own notions of church, faith and holiness. We have no "brand" so we have no "mission" and so we have no real impact.
Coke Cola means something. You know what to expect from that bottle. You have no idea what to expect from any church except the outward trappings. Smells and Bells from the Episcopalians, the structure of the Mass from the Catholics, chanting from the Orthodox, preaching from the Evangelicals and speaking in tongues from the Pentecostals. But is that the HEART of the Faith?
To me, the Church should market what the Founder marketed-change. It is the change from darkness to light; from being lost to being found in a family called the Trinity.
When we CHANGE from being self hating, self centered and sullen to God loving, God giving and God communal without losing who we are individually, then we are truly saved and born again. The Cross should be a logo for change and transformation. We have not marketed this properly because most churches are not cold blooded enough to treat the Gospel of the Master as a business and do what needs to be done the way Jesus commanded.
If we did so, then teaching the Gospel of Change would be Job One. We would put the Founder's Vision in Matthew 6 and 7 as our Mission Statement and the customer would be the core of our outreach with that Mission in mind. Not accommodating the culture but innovation; not dressing up confusion as inclusive but marketing CHANGE through CHRIST as possible and healing.
That's what I think.
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