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By Ken Camp
Managing Editor"
Baptist Standard
Churches can learn
from business —the good, the bad and the ugly.
Some best practices
in the corporate world translate well to the
nonprofit sector, including churches, experts
insist. And at the same time, churches can benefit
by looking at some lessons failed businesses learned
the hard way.
Baptists with
expertise in both business and congregational life
note several areas where churches can discover
lessons worth learning:
• Core values and
mission.
“Start with a core
set of values—an irreducible minimum of
nonnegotiable basics,” said Chris Stull, executive
pastor at First Baptist Church in McKinney. “For
churches, those core values are always biblical, and
they are always straight from the heart of God.”
Stull, who earned a
master of business administration degree from the
University of Oklahoma, believes the business world
has “helped churches get their arms around” the
importance of using core values to determine mission
and strategy.
Mitchell Neubert, who
holds the Chavanne Chair of Christian ethics in
business at Baylor University’s Hankamer School of
Business, agreed; for-profit businesses have learned
the importance of understanding their mission
clearly, and churches should embrace that principle.
“That’s a critical
idea that goes to the matter of core identity,” he
said. “From its mission, the business or church
makes decisions about where it invests its
resources.”
A growing number of
churches—particularly congregations that have
adopted the purpose-driven model espoused by author
Rick Warren—recognize the importance of being able
to clearly state their mission, he noted.
The process of
defining values and developing a mission statement
can be a learning experience for congregations.
Phill Martin, deputy chief executive officer of the
National Association of Church Business
Administration, noted churches benefit from the
dialogue surrounding the adoption of a shared vision
and by asking missional questions.
“The hard part is
deciding what are the things that we could do well
as a congregation but that we shouldn’t do because
they are not central to our mission,” he said.
“Saying ‘yes’ to some things also means saying ‘no’
to other things. The mission can become derailed if
the church tries to do everything and goes off in
every direction.”
• Goals.
While a growing
number of congregations recognize the value in
adopting a statement of mission or vision, many
struggle with taking the next step in the business
model—adopting measurable goals related to that
mission, said Neubert, who has been part of
Evangelical Free Church and Baptist General
Conference congregations in the past and currently
attends Highland Baptist Church in Waco.
Granted, some of a
church’s goals—particularly related to the spiritual
growth of its members—may be difficult or even
inappropriate to quantify, but he insists the
discussion generated by setting goals can be
beneficial in itself.
Neubert recommends
churches regularly engage in these kinds of
discussions, paying particular attention to how the
Holy Spirit seems to be leading in affirming what is
important or essential.
“People find it
easier to direct their attention toward goals. It’s
a mechanism to motivate and to measure how far we’ve
progressed,” Neubert said.
Churches and
nonprofit organizations can develop quantifiable
goals by adapting the balanced scorecard approach—a
strategic planning and management system developed
by Robert Kaplan of Harvard Business School and
consultant David Norton—to their mission, he
suggested.
The balanced
scoreboard approach challenges business to look at
their organizations from four perspectives—learning
and growth, internal processes and the customer’s
viewpoint, as well as financial health.
Neubert, who has
consulted with nonprofits and worked five years as a
ministry director with Campus Crusade for Christ,
believes the system can be adapted successfully to a
church or nonprofit organization.
For example,
spiritual vitality may be one component, measured at
least in part by the number of people involved in
programs at the church, in missions projects and in
community ministries, he noted.
Churches also can
learn from business how to develop effective
strategies to meet their goals, Martin added.
A growing number of
churches mirror a trend in business away from
long-range plans to shorter “seasons of decisions,”
he noted.
“You don’t see many
businesses with a 20-year strategy that are not
radically evaluating their strategy every two or
three years,” he said. “It’s OK to have a dream of
what you want to see over 10 years, but a two-year
or three-year strategy for a church seems more
realistic.”
• Accountability
and integrity.
“One of the issues
that’s at the forefront right now is transparency in
accounting and governance,” Martin said.
“Churches are
learning there is a high level of expectation that
churches will be honest with their supporters—with
their shareholders, to put it in business terms,” he
said.
When it comes to
financial management, churches should not shy away
from the same kinds of discussions that happen
regularly in business—topics such as costs versus
benefits and return on investment, Stull said.
“Long term, a church
should not presume upon tomorrow,” he said,
particularly when it comes to taking on inordinate
amounts of debt.
Bob Bass, a retired
general contractor and layman at BonAire Baptist
Church in Richmond, Va., believes churches benefit
from many of the same basic financial practices that
guide successful businesses.
“One of the most
basic is to keep costs and expenses within income,”
said Bass, who has been involved with his local
association of churches and the Baptist General
Association of Virginia.
“Our churches need to
be honest about income expectations,” he said,
noting the danger of church leaders sometimes
interpreting prudent financial practices as lack of
faith.
When churches
encounter financial difficulties, they need to “work
both sides of the problem,” finding ways to increase
income and reduce costs, he noted.
Considering another
aspect of integrity, Bass counseled churches to
avoid promising more than they can fulfill.
“I see businesses
that create artificial expectations in their
advertisements, trying to dupe people into doing
things they shouldn’t do,” he noted. “Churches
should be honest, faithful and not make
unsubstantiated claims.”
• Structure.
Churches should
follow the common business practice of developing
written policies and procedures without becoming
slaves to them, said Dennis Lambert, administrator
at First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.
Lambert, who served
as a congressional chief of staff on Capitol Hill
and worked in city management, believes
organizational structure, clearly defined
expectations and explicit policies and procedures
provide a vital framework for churches.
“Flexibility is a
wonderful quality, but it’s only positive if you
have organization in place. Otherwise, flexibility
only leads to chaos,” he said.
• Motivation.
Churches can learn
from business how to motivate workers—paid or
volunteer, Neubert observed. Obviously, businesses
hold an advantage over churches in one respect. They
can entice workers to work harder by offering more
money, and they can fire workers who don’t meet
expectations.
But, Neubert insists,
extrinsic motivators—tangible rewards and threat of
punishment—generally just generate short-term
results.
“In business, we are
finding some of the best long-term results come from
intrinsic motivation,” he said. “That includes
giving people a sense of ownership, the opportunity
to be creative and the chance to do tasks they find
more interesting, challenging and exciting.”
Of all places,
churches should excel at offering intrinsic
motivation—giving people an opportunity to do
meaningful work that fits their spiritual gifts and
God-given talents, he noted.
“As Christians, we
recognize God has gifted people for different types
of ministry. The challenge for leaders is to figure
out where people fit,” he said.
• Key differences.
For all that can be
learned from business, Martin advises congregations
to remember fundamental differences exist between
the for-profit sector and churches.
“Business is about
making money. It’s about producing products or
providing services,” he said. “For churches,
ministry is the bottom line. … Ultimately, you can’t
measure a church by the sum total of its assets.”
Craig Harwood, a
human resources director with Coca-Cola, leadership
consultant and former bivocational pastor in New
York, stressed the importance of context.
Some of the biggest
“train wrecks” in congregational life occur when
well-meaning lay leaders try to “help” the church by
imposing business practices that do not fit the
character and context of a specific congregation,
said Harwood, a member of Roswell Street Baptist
Church in Marietta, Ga.
Even valid business
principles may be rejected if they are not
translated into terms acceptable to a congregation,
he added.
“There can be a
backlash against applying business language in
churches,” he said. Some members may see discussion
of marketing or performance evaluation as too
secular or as compromise with the world.
“Every principle
needs to pass through the filter of Scripture,” he
advised.
Neubert agreed that
not all business practices can—or should—be
transplanted into church life.
For instance,
although he believes in the importance of setting
goals, he added churches should guard against
viewing the achievement of goals as their ultimate
measure of success.
“In God’s economy,
faithfulness is more important than results,” he
said. |
