UK Christian Business Forum

Hi, everyone,

this has been niggling me for a while... Some leaders try to run churches as business enterprises: number of 'bums' on pews, etc.... What do you think - should the church be run as a business?

Hi, interesting one...

Quick true story, my dad was a traffic policeman, he told me once about how he got put on report for not arresting enough people. The senior officer took this as an indication that he wasn't doing his job, being too soft on people. He accepted that he hardly ever arrested anyone, but also contended that accidents had dropped by x% on his stretch of road and they had much less problems with road contractors and hauliers because he would stop and have a chat and people responded to that.

A lot of skills do transfer well from business to church and finances, looking after the fabric etc. should be done in a professional manner. I think it is where results are concerned though that care is needed. Tools such as KPIs are very useful but should be chosen really carefully, returning regularly to the mission statement to make sure you are not wandering away from the church's raison d'etre. Measuring results is a part of good governance but shouldn't be pursued for its own end.

My main concern with KPIs is that somethings are much easier to quantify than others. It's human nature to measure the things that are easy and give equal emphasis to all, when what we should look at are things that are meaningful, like the amount the congregation feels included and belonging, how interesting and fulfilling they find services, how accessible the church is to others, how effective outreach and pastoral care is, what the community feels about the church, how effctively it relates to other denominations....like you say, just counting the number of bums on seats doesn't tell you much at all.

I don't know what various churches are required to report to their denomination .. it could be that policy and reporting is driving churchs' focus in the same way that SATs results do for schools and aiting lists times do for health care trusts.

Fran

Interesting question - and depends what you mean by 'business'. If you mean "should it be run in a manner that enables sustained operations and growth now and into the future", then absolutely YES. If it is not trying to be here now and in 50 years time then something is wrong. If it is not trying to grow (evangelise) then something is wrong. If it is not trying to ensure that it has the resources to deliver its mission, then something is wrong. I have often heard people using "the Lord will provide" as a euphamism for "I'm not prepared to take responsibility for this".

Or does this question confuse "running a business" with "making a quick buck" - which is not the same? We are, after all, in it for the long term, and in many ways "for long term shareholder value" (i.e. as many members entering the kingdom for the glory of the ultimate owner as possible).

I'm an Elder of a URC church which has like all in it's denomination slowly lost numbers over the years. The URC is a dying denomination and has only grown historically when merging with another group. While our fellowship was blessed with a huge youth/sports centre and had a lot of community groups use the buildings & there was a lot of warm feelings towards the church in the community this didn't translate into a growing church membership. The social gospel approach only went so far and the result has been serious financial issues. The church members were footing the higher percentage of bills compared to rentals but not seeing a lot of fruit from the investment. Financially speaking it was near to shutting the buildings because it couldn't afford the up keep.

The Eldership have had very serious discussions on why we did the things we did, allowed people to use the buildings the way we did and where the cost of running the buildings was going to come from. It was decided that a more professional approach was required rather than the relaxed be nice to everyone style. This meant a rent review and prices increased making a difference between those we saw as Kingdom activities (oppportunities to reach out with the gospel) and those that were purely a commercial let. A change in staff gave us a chance to appoint an Evangelist/ Youth Pastor to put some evangelical passion back into the work. We have began to run Alpha courses & publicise our services/groups, running a new website and mordernising our worship & buildings. All this investment has begun to turn things around we have this year grown in numbers & while we have lost some commuinty groups the fellowship is a lot more lively and exciting to be part of.

The church is a business designed for its non members yes but only if it fulfills the Great Commission as it's first calling.


Colin Mengell

Hi Colin,

It's really good to hear how your church is turning things round.

Fran

Thanks, Colin, for sharing this! This is a great testimony how the church should be run and what to have at its heart! Praise God!!

I think some churches seriously need to look at their 'marketing approach' and getting the right message out there! I don't think a church should be seen like a business but I think a lot of tools and skills used in running a business, can help the church.

Pauline