What have you learned recently from business leaders?
Pose that question to many church leaders, and they might say ‘nothing’. And the reasons tend to fall into two categories:
For some it’s a matter of principle: some church leaders think church leaders shouldn’t learn from business leaders. The church should have nothing to do with the world.
For some it’s simply practical; they just haven’t taken the time to learn from business leaders lately.
I’m writing this post to address both reasons.
Here’s the situation almost all of us face as church leaders. The majority of people who come to your church will walk out the door Sunday to go back into the business world Monday.
As a church leader in Western culture, you are surrounded by people engaged in business. And you can learn some great lessons from them; even some surprising ones that can change your ministry for the better.
If you ignore that reality, I think both you and the business community lose.
What If Some Businesses Are More Christian Than Some Churches?
Before you push back on the idea that church leaders can learn from business leaders, a few considerations.
Recently, at the Orange Conference, I had the opportunity to interview two incredibly bright business leaders, Joel Manby, President and CEO of Herschend Family Entertainment, and David Salyers, Vice President of Marketing at Chick-Fil-A. The subject is what non-profits can learn from for-profits. You can read the live blog of our interview here.
When interviewing Joel and David, it occurred to me that the way they run their businesses might actually be more Christian than the way some of us church leaders run our churches.
Joel has integrated 7 principles from 1 Corinthians 13 into his organization to introduce a different leadership paradigm based on scripture. If you want to dig a little deeper, don’t miss this 4 minute interview he does with Fox and Friends describing how his organization treats people. It’s both moving and convicting.
David shared how Chick-Fil-A works hard to create value for people rather than extract value from people. They also see customers as people, not just profits. This video shows the attitude Chick-Fil-A is trying to integrate into every restaurant.
For sure, not every business integrates Christian principles into leadership. In fact, most don’t. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from business leaders, empathize with them or work together to integrate what we believe with what we do.
Some businesses have integrated biblical principles into leadership better than some churches. Click To TweetIt Goes Both Ways
It’s not just that churches should learn from business leaders; business leaders can also learn from church leaders.
David Salyers said “It’s not fair to my competitors that I get to go to North Point Community Church and learn principles from Andy Stanley to use in my business.” If you’re a biblical leader, business leaders will learn from you.
So for sure, the learning goes both ways.
But because the bias in church world (in my view) tilts away from church leaders learning from businesses, I thought I’d start the dialogue with 5 things I learned about how to run a church from interviewing Joel and David.
5 Insights Church Leaders Can Learn from Business Leaders
Here are 5 insights I gleaned from my interview with Joel and David:
1. Never confuse frugality with morality.
There’s a difference between being a good steward and being cheap.
I love what David Salyers said (both he and Joel sits on numerous non-profit boards including church boards)
“In a non-profit world it’s all about being frugal…Don’t confuse frugality with morality. Do we want our epithet on our gravestone to read “We kept charity budgets low?”
It’s a great question. Shouldn’t the church be the best funded mission on the planet? Shouldn’t we invest the best of what we have into reaching the world Jesus loves?
Sure, that’s not an excuse to be reckless, selfish or irresponsible, but most churches are far from that.
2. Start with the size of the vision, not the size of the budget.
Too many God-given dreams die in budget meetings.
We hack away and look at what is rather than what could be.
Please hear me, I have been in countless church budget meetings where we have cut and sliced. It’s necessary and every business does this too.
But if you are waiting for the money to show up to magically fund your vision, you will wait forever.
Vision always precedes resources. Start with a compelling vision and resources will (usually) follow.
God is honored when we do things with excellence. What if we started in church world with the size of the dream, not the size of the budget? As David Salyers said, “the church has the most important message in the world. Why would we get cheap with that message?”
3. Quickly eliminate things that aren’t effective.
Businesses can’t afford to keep things on the books that aren’t effective. If a program isn’t working, they kill it quickly.
Naturally in church, we need to lead with grace. But sometimes in the name of grace we sacrifice all truth.
Joel Manby pointed out that churches rarely act with speed when things fail. Chances are there are programs, ministries and approaches in your church that stopped working years ago. Even decades ago….
Why do you keep justifying their existence?
4. Create value for people; don’t extract it from people.
Too many churches use people as a means to an end. Granted, many businesses do as well.
But that should never be the way Christians operate at church or in business.
Joel and David made a strong case that when you create value for people by how you treat them with love, the entire organization wins…and so do team members.
Stop extracting value from people; start creating value for them.
5. Make your ‘ask’ personally and specifically.
Too often church leaders make a general announcement about a ministry, a need or an opportunity hoping ‘someone’ will respond. And as we’ve talked about before here, someone is code for no one.
When I asked Joel how to engage business leaders like himself in the work of the local church, he responded without hesitation that the best way to ask personally and specifically.
There’s a world of difference between telling a leader ‘you need help’ and telling him or her you seem gifts in them that would be extremely beneficial to your ministry. High capacity leaders almost never respond to general calls. They often respond to specific, personal requests.
I offer these as examples of what you can learn when you sit down and talk (and even pray) together.
