Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Is This A Good Thing Or A Bad Thing?
Here's an interesting piece from Forbes Magazine about how businesses are starting to take notice of church leaders and Biblical concepts for leadership: "There are a lot of similarities between growing and running a megachurch and a business," says Timothy Hoeksema, CEO of Milwaukee's Midwest Airlines--and a megachurch member. "We can all apply a lot of the same principles." And anyway, many CEOs try to improve their leadership through precepts that ultimately have a biblical basis. "In the past, the church would go to secular leaders for leadership lessons, but now, it's vice versa," says Doug Schmidt, senior pastor of Woodside Bible Church in Troy, Mich., one of the nation's fastest-growing congregations, where attendance is more than 4,000 each Sunday. "The secular books I'm reading on this sound a whole lot more like the Bible."The piece then goes on to cite what business leaders can learn from church,a nd to be honest they all strike me as "personal" lessons:
- Casting A Vision
- Modeling “Servant Leadership”
- Practicing Gratitude
These are just some of the examples cited.
To be honest there is much I think leadership in the two realms can learn from each other, but there are fundamental and important differences. The church does not exist merely to attract customers or motivate workers. The church seeks to change people at their very core. Business is satisfied purely with producing action, church wants something very different.
There should be increasing influence of faith in the workplace, but it should be coming through transformed disciples in business leadership positions.
Consider, if there is anybody that runs a business on a church model, it is Oprah Winfrey. And what has she gotten for her efforts? Her own sort of religion. That is not what we are after here. We don't want to turn consumerism into a true idol, it is close enough already.
If some business men approached me to teach them the "secrets" of church leadership, I'd tell them the only way they will figure that out is to commit to a year of one-on-one discipleship/accountability with a sincere Christian.
Then I would watch the world change.
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