Thursday, January 29, 2009

E Myth (part 4)

As I continue to reflect on the words from Gerber’s book The E Myth Revisited, I am reminded of the value of looking at the church from time to time as a business. Often in my planning and administration I need to view Willoughby Hills Friends Church as a product, sitting on a shelf and competing for the customer’s attention against the whole shelf of competing businesses. There are many other churches trying to attract people. People have needs and are shopping for value. As the Administrator I need to be asking, “Where is the opportunity? What are the needs of my customers?”

One key idea I was taught in business classes is not to start with a picture of the business to be created but of the customer for whom the business is to be created. Without a clear, contemporary, relevant picture of the customer, no business can succeed. Gerber reminds his readers that the customer is a continuing parade of changing wants begging to be satisfied. All the successful entrepreneur has to do is to find out what those wants are and what they will be in the future (74).

For Willoughby Hills Friends to be the church people reach for I must make sure she works better than all the rest. I must create a systems dependent organization that is not people or personality dependent in the future. To develop a “Turn Key Operation” (94) that is need based, that can employ all of our constituents, functions systematically with great consistency, and is uniform (performed in Christ’s name and labored in love through the fruit of the Holy Spirit). Is that not the raison d’etre (92) of the church?

I need to develop a ministry system/model that people can bring to life. The system becomes the tool people then use to meet the needs of others with greater efficiency and will differentiate self from other churches. It is the job of leadership to develop the tools and to teach our attendees to use them. Our attendees need to use the tools and recommend improvements based upon their experience. The future success of the church is not in the employment of highly skilled and educated professionals but in well trained and highly skilled parishioners.

Gerber quotes Alvin Toffler in The Third Wave, “most people surveying the world around them today see only chaos. They suffer a sense of personal powerlessness and pointlessness. People need life structure. A life lacking in comprehensive structure is an aimless wreck and breeds breakdown. Structure provides the relatively fixed points of reference people need today” (103). At Willoughby Hills Friends we need to provide structure for people. We need to look orderly and respond systematically so people think we know what we are doing, can trust the results delivered and assure them they can trust their future with us. We can do it and we must do it for the glory of God and the well being of our fellow man.

Thanks for stopping by!
-----
Adrian

5 comments:

  1. Yo bro!

    There must not be enough to do on that ship! I'm enjoying reading your blog and agreeing with your comments. I still struggle with making "our church" the one that everyone wants to come to. If we minister to the world better than everyone else, then they might come. It seems like if we do get there and they come, then we need to be helping other churches get there also. The idea is to bring people into the Kingdom and help them thrive there and enjoy the spirit of living a Christian life here on earth. If the church would live like the church should society couldn't have so many objections to us. I won't go on, but I feel like we fail in loving people more than anything. It's hard, because people are just plain difficult. Why can't we all just get along!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The difficulty wil lie in the fact that this is not a start-up business. Implementation of the foundational chandes neede to accomplish the desired goals may chase away the current attendees.
    On a side note where does "go and make Disciples", fit into this?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Narrowminded,
    We are the church. We can be the attraction... right? Going and making disciples is living life intentionally. What say you? olllllo

    ReplyDelete
  4. I agree we CAN be "the attraction". Yet does the community find our lives appealing? Do our lives sound like "good news" to those who hear our testimony? Living out our lives, in Christ, individually is evangelism and our ministry, allowing Jesus to appeal to others.

    In context of developing a systems based organization, how does making disciples fit in?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Narrowminded,
    You ask good questions! Tell me Mr. America ... can it be done? Can we create a system "matrix" that makes disciples of Christ?
    I think so. The key is to allow the teachings of Christ to be our doctrine and His behavior and example our practice. This must be the focus of our study and spiritual discipline.

    ReplyDelete