Needed: Pastor with Business Savvy
Posted on November 13th, 2006 by catalyst into the Uncategorized categoryWell look at this. Two articles in the same week discussing how churches are run like a business. Quick! Someone do a google search and tell me if there's a blog out there that talks about this issue.
Here's a revealing section:
Similar vast corporate church operations are on the rise. The largest congregations — those with memberships in the thousands and budgets in the millions — operate like Church Inc.
They embrace the business side of religion, often recruiting staff with corporate experience and adopting business world methods — hiring consultants, starting endowments and taking tithes electronically — as they try to meet the challenge of handling God's business with accounting savvy but also spiritual integrity.
If I read this correctly, mega church pastors are endowed with spiritual integrity; while the rest of us have to get by on plain old ordinary integrity. And if past examples are any indicator, I do believe spiritual integrity means taking it up the *** from a male prostitute and doing Crystal Meth. … …. so for now, I think I'll just stick with my regular ordinary integrity. You don't necessarily get to pastor a mega church, but you do get to stay faithful to your wife and your church.
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November 13th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Perhaps this means there are jobs available for all those NFIB-endorsed candidates who got thumped last week. They have real world business experience and know how to roll over to authority. Win-win.
November 15th, 2006 at 6:01 am
Somewhere else on the blog here, David Mackin left a list of recommended reading. One of the titles was “Escape from Church Inc.”
:)
November 20th, 2006 at 10:27 am
The year was 1987. The organization was an Independent Baptist operation in El Paso, vicinity Fort Bliss, TX. The pastor, from the pulpit, as part of his morning “sermon” actually refered to himself as being like the CEO of the “church”. Really? That about says it, eh?
November 22nd, 2006 at 2:27 am
From Shepherd to CEO:
When a local church becomes a business, these are some of the degenerations that we can readily observe:
1- The senior pastor is no longer a self-sacrificing shepherd, but a self-aggrandizing CEO and business operator.
2- The elders and associate pastors are no longer a genuine spiritual team of people servers, they are the CEO’s Yes Men employees.
3- The congregation is no longer a group of individuals to be sacrificed for, it becomes a group of investors and customers who are continually pitched to support the CEO’s ever-expanding vision.
November 24th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
4- Church ministries are not just moments of sharing and blessings between one another and God, they are the products and services marketed to the community.
5- Visitors are no longer individuals / families looking for God, they are potential customers; future stock holders (tithing members) of the corporation.
November 24th, 2006 at 11:40 pm
So how do I “sell” my shares? Or should I ask, “Where are my shares?” I would like to exercise my stock option. Since Yankee is such a good CEO, I’m thinking the stocks should be worth more than when I “tithed” them. Could City Business refer me to their attorney, since I’m sure Wendell won’t be referring his?