I’ve been reading Jack Welch’s book, “Winning”, and have been taking furious notes. In talking about mission and values here are some values he shared from a business he was studying. I have applied these to the local church. They are all interlinked.
1. Leaner is better-“You can get input from anywhere-and you should listen to smart people from every quarter. But setting the mission is top management’s responsibility. A mission cannot, and must not, be delegated to anyone except the people ultimately held accountable for it.”
2. Eliminate bureaucracy-this would be a board forming a committee which would then form a subcommittee
3. Cut waste relentlessly-every ministry should look carefully at its spending at the end of each year and make tough decisions(I remember a youth pastor spending over $100o a year on Wednesday night snacks. If it’s bringing kids in or keeping them then fine, but if it’s not building the kingdom then cut it.)
4. Operations should be fast and simple-while large expenses may need to be approved it shouldn’t take months or a board to approve it(I’m talking about TV’s, etc. not buildings and land)
5. Value each other’s time-do you observe the one hour rule in your meetings? If not, then is every minute of the meeting supporting your team and your mission.
6. Invest in Infrastructure-if you don’t have a good organizational chart, flow, idea when your church is small then you won’t be ready when God brings the blessing. Do you think God hasn’t blessed our churches because we’re not ready for it?
I will be posting some more thoughts on why I think God is blessing the growing number of megacurches and what the Wesleyan church needs to do to become a growing denomination. After all, if something isn’t growing it’s dead. Personally, I think it starts with putting the Wesley back in Wesleyan, but that’s for another time.