Monday, October 15, 2007
What Makes A Church?
MMI Links to an article in the Tennessean about church expansion through franchising.
This is, needless to say, a radically different model for church expansion. How is it different from denominational expansion you may ask? Well, it's in the package of what the larger organization provides for the local congregation. Franchising is a business model that sells marketing services to individual operators. The marketing is provided through branding, advertising, and insuring a consistency of product. It then becomes up to the franchisee to produce the product according to specifications while the franchiser delivers the customers through its advertising efforts and advice on local efforts as well. Good franchisers also work to limit competition, protect territories, that kind of thing.
On the surface, this does not sound so bad as a model for church growth does it? It avoids many of the pitfalls of the more traditional approaches; that can't be bad, can it? Well, yes it can.
The first thing we have to remember is that we live in the "already, not yet." Whatever we do is going to have problems, pitfalls, and failures. Radical changes in direction to avoid foreseeable ones will simply result in new ones. Change for change sake is not an option. If something is the best, even if the imperfect way, then we should work that towards perfection instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.
So why then is the older model better? It is simple. The franchising approach seeks to build the church - it's about the organization. The older models come with organization, to be sure, but those organizations are designed to build people, and theoretically propogated through building people. Traditional denominational models work through building clergy that in turn builds laity that comprises the church and brings in new laity.
Simply put, this franchising model abandons the true mission of the church for the sake of building the organization. It smacks of circuit preachers working for a percentage of the plate, it is the root of religious hucksterism.
Better to make one genuine disciple...
Technorati Tags:church growth, franchising, discipleship, denominations, mission, focus, product, marketing
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This is, needless to say, a radically different model for church expansion. How is it different from denominational expansion you may ask? Well, it's in the package of what the larger organization provides for the local congregation. Franchising is a business model that sells marketing services to individual operators. The marketing is provided through branding, advertising, and insuring a consistency of product. It then becomes up to the franchisee to produce the product according to specifications while the franchiser delivers the customers through its advertising efforts and advice on local efforts as well. Good franchisers also work to limit competition, protect territories, that kind of thing.
On the surface, this does not sound so bad as a model for church growth does it? It avoids many of the pitfalls of the more traditional approaches; that can't be bad, can it? Well, yes it can.
The first thing we have to remember is that we live in the "already, not yet." Whatever we do is going to have problems, pitfalls, and failures. Radical changes in direction to avoid foreseeable ones will simply result in new ones. Change for change sake is not an option. If something is the best, even if the imperfect way, then we should work that towards perfection instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.
So why then is the older model better? It is simple. The franchising approach seeks to build the church - it's about the organization. The older models come with organization, to be sure, but those organizations are designed to build people, and theoretically propogated through building people. Traditional denominational models work through building clergy that in turn builds laity that comprises the church and brings in new laity.
Simply put, this franchising model abandons the true mission of the church for the sake of building the organization. It smacks of circuit preachers working for a percentage of the plate, it is the root of religious hucksterism.
Better to make one genuine disciple...
Technorati Tags:church growth, franchising, discipleship, denominations, mission, focus, product, marketing
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