“We shouldn’t run the church like a business,” The man said.

I found myself agreeing and disagreeing.  It’s true that we shouldn’t think in terms of dollars and cents, judging effectiveness by cards filled out and people sitting calmly in the pews when the service starts.  In that way, our churches aren’t businesses.  We are in the work of helping people, not lining our pockets and stroking our egos.  We shouldn’t have to make money to have church.  If a church can’t afford a building they can meet in a school or home or community center.  If they can’t afford to properly pay for a full staff they need to evaluate what the staff is there for.  If the mercy funds end up getting used on the pastors, some questions need to be asked.

No, church isn’t business.

But in the same vein, there’s a lot that churches can learn from how businesses are run.  Business is necessarily ruthless when it comes to trimming the fat.  People need to be qualified for positions, not just available.  A church secretary that gossips and files her nails is still thanked for her ministry (what ministry, really?) when a business secretary that ignored her duties to gossip would be fired.  So there are things to be learned there, certainly.

And then there’s a much, much bigger lesson.  That lesson is that you don’t make a product and then try to figure out how to convince people to buy it- not unless you want to lose money.  You find out what people want to buy, and you give it to them.  Sometimes church people get uncomfortable with hearing that ,because they say that we shouldn’t change Christ’s message just to fill pews.  I agree, wholeheartedly.  I also think that Christ’s message IS what people want.  The problem isn’t the message, the problem is the way we go about sharing it.  We shouldn’t be thinking in terms of filling pews,we should be thinking in terms of getting out in our communities and really helping people.  We shouldn’t think in terms of inviting people to the building to hear the message, we should go out into the world and invite people into our homes and lives.  We shouldn’t be dragging people back to home base so that the pastor can give them the gospel, WE should be giving them the gospel.  The problem with church is that the message never seems to impact our lifestyles and thus our culture.  People don’t know what they are buying because it’s not obvious what we are selling.  If we tell people that the Christian life will bring them vibrancy and hope we should be able to demonstrate that by showing them our own lives.

I think we know what the right product is, we’ve even got the right wording on the package, but the package is empty.

That needs to change.