Church is not business...but

I saw this in a comment on YouTube recently. It's worth repeating.

Now we have a quantified aim! Another one! Oh dear me...[this church had a 'target' of 5% pa growth]

Remember Connect09? That was an aim with a slogan. Even worse!! [This was a campaign in 2009 in the Sydney Anglican Diocese of Sydney under Archbishop Jensen: the bright idea guy, I guess]

Remember 'Evangelism Explosion"; the 4 points of salvation; the 2 ways to live? More of the same! All busy work and no true transformation.

The way out of this cycle of ineffectiveness?

Edwards Deming is known in business circles as the great balloon popper of business hubris. He works here to.

Many of his 14 points of management apply to church life:

[My comments are preceded with ">>"]

+ Create constancy of purpose: Focus long-term on improving products and services rather than short-term profits.

>> Always look long term: no instant fixes, no immediate paybacks. Patience and biblical precepts, not cultural accretions. By biblical I mean Paul, James, Peter; by cultural I mean business, reformation,  priestly castes.

+ Improve constantly and forever: Continually upgrade the system for planning, production, and service.

>> Patience must be informed by continual checking and developing practices in community. Church is not a one man or board led operation. The elders have a job to do, but it is not to 'lead'.

+ Institute training on the job: Provide modern, thorough skills training for all employees.

>> Exactly!!

+ Adopt and institute leadership [alas we have an obsession with 'leadership' and ignore 'discipleship' and 'serving'] : Shift management from mere supervision to coaching people to do a better job.

>> Not leadership as we conceive it today, he means as a mentor. Discipleship I think we say.

+ Drive out fear: Encourage open communication, innovation, and trust so everyone works effectively.

+ Eliminate slogans and targets: Stop giving the workforce empty exhortations or zero-defect quotas without providing methods to achieve them,

+ Eliminate numerical quotas: Remove factory floor quotas and numerical goals for management that compromise true quality.

+ Remove barriers to pride of workmanship: Abolish annual merit ratings and systems that rob workers, engineers, and managers of pride in their work.

+ Institute education and self-improvement: Encourage lifelong learning and personal development for every employee.

>> We need to be always training, studying and learning. Christianity was once an intellectually fueled faith, now it is merely 'feelings' fueled.

+ Put everyone to work on the transformation: Make the company-wide shift to quality the job of every single person.

>> Every saint counts.

He could almost have been 'channeling" Paul.