Monday, May 11, 2009
How To Kill A Congregation
Years ago, I watched the management team at Nordstrom’s almost commit organizational suicide by their failure to understand this difference. Concerned by slumping sales, they decided to overhaul their stores in an attempt to become more hip and reach a younger crowd. Following the lead of a couple of fast growing new clothiers who had recently burst onto the retail scene, they made significant changes to their ambiance, inventory and marketing in order to draw the kind of people who were flocking to these new retail outlets. (Does that sound like a lot of churches?)Todd, of course draws the inevitable parallel to churches where I think it is even more pronounce. Do the demographics some time in your giving patterns. It's the over 50 crowd that pays most of the freight, and anymore are the only ones that routinely pledge and fulfill that pledge. Wholesale innovation in an existing, healthy but starting to fade church is a recipe for hastening the end. I've seen it happen more times than I can count.
But here’s what they missed. The customers they already had didn’t want the changes. They shopped at Nordstrom’s because they liked the very things that turned off the younger and hipper crowd. And unlike the new startup stores, Nordstrom’s had a huge infrastructure and overhead to support. Losing large numbers of current customers to chase potential customers put them in a near financial death spiral.
Todd is quoting Larry Osbourne who has three points for preservation in these circumstances:
- Whenever possible, innovate at the edge of the organization – or even outside the existing structures.
- Make sure you have both Champions of the Future AND Protectors of the Past.
- Remember, the startup phase ends the moment we’ve gathered critical mass and some raving fans who love what we’ve created.
OK, time to be brutally blunt. The reason churches usually blow this stuff is they view themselves primarily as outlets for the staff's ministry and if they innovate at the edges, how can the staff spread itself that far?
The answer, of course, is that they cannot, and frankly, their ministry is not the point anyway. Staff exists to enable the ministry of the people in the church. The preacher is not the star. The youth pastor is not the coolest guy in the room.
The church has infinite resources, because the resources are not defined by the staff and the budget. I know, I know, volunteers are geeks, they don't get it, or they don't get it "right," they are undereducated, "biblically illiterate," not energetic enough. I've heard it all.
But guess what staffer - you were that way once too.
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