How to Turn Your Church into a Business
In Winning People to Christ?
To implement our new paradigm of a church consisting of small companies, we need a business plan. This business plan consists of a Primary Aim, Strategic Objectives and a Management Strategy. This chapter explains the meaning of these terms and the need for implementing them.
Primary Aim
Higgins maintains that “without a proper mission statement (primary aim), the organization may ultimately be doomed to failure.”[1] The primary aim, or mission statement as some call it, can be thought of in two ways, career related and personal. Why personal when the whole business plan is related to the business of the local church? Gerber, who stands alone from all other writers with his definition of primary aim, emphasizes, “your business is not the first order of business on your agenda. You are.”[2] He goes on to explain that the individual is more important than the business. We should first make a plan of what our personal aims in life are. What will our life look like in five to ten years´ time? Will we have sacrificed our spouse and families for our personal ambitions? He goes on further to say, “in the absence of such standards, your life will drift aimlessly, without purpose, without meaning.”[3] Therefore, our personal aims for the future should be formulated first. After this is done, then we can establish our primary aim for the business. Gerber proclaims in regard to the business, “your primary aim is the vision necessary to bring your business to life and your life to your business. It provides you with purpose. It provides you with energy.”[4] In relation to vision, the Bible emphasizes, “where there is no vision, the people perish.”[5] Therefore, it is necessary to have a vision for the company, or its destiny may turn out like many thousands of businesses each year, in failure.
The aim should also contain “its area of greatest expertise.”[6] This would involve what the firm is best at producing or offering services to the community. In addition, the aim statement should be readable, clear, and understood by every employee. Once our aim has been established, then we are to make “certain that each and every person within the organization, is committed to that aim.”[7] It is most important, right from the beginning, that those who are involved and committed to the project are also committed to the aim. If they are not, then problems can develop along the way because of disunity and misunderstanding among the laity. Tom Watson, the founder of IBM, is reported to have said about a primary aim, that it helps to give a very clear picture of what the company will look like when it is finally done.[8] A suitable aim for a local SDA church could be: helping those with life-style sicknesses and bringing them to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
Strategic Objectives
Higgins expresses that “without objectives, the organization is assured of eventual failure.”[9] Again, the importance of each part of the business plan can be seen. The objectives for an organization can be defined as “a very clear statement of what your business has to ultimately do to make your own primary aim possible.”[10] Higgins further adds that the objective has four components: (1) The attribute sought. (2) An index for measuring progress toward the attribute. (3) A target to be achieved. (4) A time frame within which the target is to be achieved.[11] Jacksack summarizes this by saying, that it is basically a list of short- and long-term goals for the period covered by the plan.[12] In other words, this plan should be “a clearly defined statement as to who you are, what you expect to accomplish, how it´s to be done, and by whom?”[13] As one goes in depth into the definition of objectives, it is clear to see that the subject is not as simple as it appears to be, and therefore requires further analysis and all objectives written down on paper.
Analysis of Services Offered
The analysis of a company would entail an evaluation of the current status, and a comparison of that with the desired status.[14] This has already been studied in our present and historical spiritual condition of the SDA Church in Denmark. Furthermore, the desired status is outlined in the new paradigm for a local SDA church. Gerson concludes that the company analysis should “describe who you are, how you started, what you offer, and who your major competitors are.”[15] This would entail defining our services and comparing them with other church denominations to see if there is a market. If it is found that we are competing with other denominations with the same services, then it is advisable to find out how much they are dominating the market. Through this part of the analysis, it can be determined if it is worth pursuing the services our company is offering or not.
We shall begin with a local SDA church in Denmark, starting at the minimum level of 14 percent of the local church membership, which is a prototype company of four active church members. The service the prototype has to offer the community, according to our study on small companies, is a mobile Balance Lifestyle Program. This would entail studying the book “New Start” by Vernon Foster and the book “Dynamic Living” with the workbook of approximately 50 lessons written by Aileen Ludington and Hans Diehl. These books include the basic principles of living a well-balanced healthy life through diet, water, fresh air, exercise, rest, the spiritual dimension, sleep, sunshine, and balance. Even more a 12-step program is introduced to help people to overcome their bad habits. This 12-step program is adapted from the 12-step recovery program which Alcoholics Anonymous use worldwide. In addition, the contacts reached should develop a personal relationship with God through a Bible course of 30 lessons or more. Finally, the contacts can be trained to serve and help other people with lifestyle sicknesses in the program if they wish to do so. There are no competitors in this area. Consequently, we have the market to ourselves in this area and it is a free service and totally worth pursuing.
Another part of the analysis is the study of demographics, which is finding out who the people are we are going to serve: Are they male or female, young or elderly, sick or healthy, etc.? In relation to our project, our concentration would be made on those people who are sick both physically and spiritually and suffering from an unhealthy lifestyle. This would include at least 80 percent to 90 percent of the population. That is why Christ also concentrated most of His work in this area. Even more, the analysis takes into consideration the study of psychographics, which tells the personal needs of your customers.[16] After having helped with the physical needs, then there is more opportunity in establishing the spiritual needs and providing solutions through Christ. Where can all the information to these analytical studies be found? If a computer is at hand, then some of the details can be found on the Web. If not, then most details could be sought from the local library. Higgins adds even more possible sources for information: government, technology, industry and competition, society, economy, labor (population change), and natural resources.[17]
Having obtained all the necessary information from the above places, then one can proceed to analyze the details. “Strategists observe . . . strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in order to determine where they are, where they want to be, and how they plan to get there.”[18] If the company has some strong points, then it would be advisable to concentrate upon them. Higgins goes on to explain that “strengths are positive internal abilities and situations which might enable the organization to possess a strategic advantage in achieving its objectives.”[19] For example, the local SDA church has a place among other church denominations in preaching the Three Angels´ Messages from the book of Revelation. Furthermore, the SDA Church has a health message which no other denomination has. On the other hand, its weakness is that it has never employed or practiced the health message in evangelism on a large scale. Vegetarianism is not the whole of the health message. However, this can be overcome when the members actually see the positive results it has on other people. There is one internal threat: some medical doctors and hospitals within and without our denomination who do not understand the subject of living a healthy lifestyle could criticize the lifestyle program and prevent people in starting it. This may be resolved through dialogue and recording positive results from the program and then showing them to these people. Consequently, our objective, “in a nutshell, . . . tells the reader why your business will succeed in an environment where countless others have failed.”[20] This new paradigm will succeed because other denominations have not tried it and the services are totally free.
Prototype Objectives Defined
Having gone through the analysis, the objectives can now be determined. What does the local church have to do to make the primary aim possible? It has to develop one to three prototype companies from the 14 percent of the membership who are willing. It will take approximately one year to achieve the launching of the company, so that it will be independent of the local church under the jurisdiction of the minister. The progress of the company can be measured through a number of options. Once the company is formed, the participants’ temperament can be discovered through a Temperament Inventory Test, to see if they complement one another in their personalities. They should go through the book Color Me Beautiful, on what kind of color suits you best when choosing clothing. They should study the books “New Start” and “Dynamic Living,” chapter by chapter. Practical illustrations could be demonstrated, and anatomy elucidated. This should take about nine months.
During this time the company members are taught how to engage in door-to-door communication with health questionnaires and have the opportunity to visit people in their community. In addition, they should learn how to write reports and evaluate their own progress from the number of visits they achieve during each week. Looking at the long-term goals for the company, after a short period of time the dyads should be capable of going out into the community and starting their own companies up, with the aim of establishing a church made up of three companies, totaling twelve active members. They will also be responsible for the teaching and instructing of new disciples. The finished prototype company and the church of twelve active members should stay together for a maximum of three years, before dissolving if they wish to do so. In the meantime, the new disciples should be working to multiply companies year by year in an ongoing process like a pyramid effect.
Management Strategy
There are various kinds of management strategies; therefore it would be wise to define and incorporate the one that is best suited to our prototype, a new paradigm for a local SDA church. Curtis gives a general definition of management as “organizing resources to meet objectives.”[21] This is planning, coordinating, and using what is available in the church to meet our objectives. Many firms may depend upon selecting a successful management team to organize and manage their business. However, Gerber is against this method and emphasizes that the success of the business is not dependent on competent managers.[22] He goes on to say that a manager or owner “must create a system through which this vision will be optimally realized.”[23] What Gerber means is that a management system ought to be created to substitute for a team of managers. Furthermore, “without a system, people have no objective understanding of the nature of their work and what is expected of them.”[24] So what is this management system Gerber promotes? “It is a system designed into your prototype to produce a marketing result. . . . Its purpose is not only to create an efficient prototype but an effective one.”[25] Gerber stands alone with this new idea of a management system which can also save on additional expenses for high management fees. He goes on to say that this “system is a set of things, actions, ideas, and information that interact with each other, and in so doing, alter other systems.”[26] In other words, the business would be so designed that all the employees involved would work in a responsible and harmonious way, interacting with one another, so that they do not need a group of managers looking over them; they learn to be responsible and manage their own work.
Gerber gives an illustration of what he means through a Holiday Inn in California, in which he stayed. He noticed that they were prepared when he arrived at the Inn. When he was taken to his room, everything was neatly in place as near to perfection as one could have it. When he arrived at the restaurant, they had a table reserved for him, and while he ate, there was a beautiful view overlooking the Pacific Ocean. When he retired to his room, a log fire was already lit, and his favorite newspaper was on the sideboard together with his favorite brand of coffee. In addition, a card was left with the words written on it, “If you want any more services, just call the waitress.”
What Gerber noticed is that there were no management personnel. He visited the manager and asked him how he got his employees to work so nearly perfectly without a management team. The manager replied that “the owner worked it all out in advance.”[27] In other words, he had an idea, thought about it, made a plan on paper, and organized every detail right down to the cup of coffee on the table. As a result, he had satisfied employees giving good service to satisfied customers. Finally, Gerber concludes, “your management strategy is that which enables you to fulfill your promises to yourself, your company, your people, your suppliers, your community, and your customer in the best possible way. . . . Without a management system nothing can be truly managed.”[28]
Factors Involved
In drawing up a management system, several factors have to be taken into consideration. Jacksack writes, “you may find it useful to look at your business as if it were a linear process that starts with raw material and ends with delivery to a satisfied customer.”[29] “It may be most efficient to describe how you´re planning to provide services in the same place where you describe exactly what they are.”[30] In relation to our project, the raw material is the local SDA church, and a detailed plan has to be drawn up of the services that are offered and how they are to be delivered to the customer in the community.
Another factor is, “everything you manage produces some sort of result―not just an end result, however, but a series of results along the way, results that must be understood.”[31] These results are like teaching and instructing the members in a company and evaluating what they have been taught. It is to find out if they have really understood what they have been taught. To evaluate, it would be recommended that small tests be given at the end of each session and the members be able to demonstrate practically what they have been taught, wherever applicable. There are three major factors which Gerber incorporates into his management system: orchestration, innovation, and quantification.[32]
Orchestration
Orchestration is defined as “the organization of work into a replicable system so that the results you intend to produce are produced, as often as you wish to produce them, exactly as you wish them to be.”[33] This can only be achieved when all instructions are written down for all participants to read, understand clearly, and apply. Orchestration also includes the elimination of choice, which means if it does not work any longer, change it.[34] In relation to the local SDA church, there are not many people in Europe who are interested in visiting a church building. Church buildings were introduced to the church during the third century A.D. Before this time, “Christians constructed no church buildings. . . . It was built on the community life of the believers.”[35] Snyder asserts, “our church buildings, then, witness to the immobility, inflexibility, lack of fellowship, pride and class divisions in the modern church.”[36] Therefore, the members should gradually eliminate the use of the church building and substitute it for meeting in the members´ homes, just as the early church did. In addition, the church building could be turned into a lifestyle center offering services to the local community.
In Denmark, over half the SDA membership does not attend Sabbath school, and our young people find the church services monotonous and boring. Burrill describes the typical local SDA church on a Sabbath morning: “Parishioners sit in pews or chairs facing the pulpit. They look at the back of people´s heads and listen in silence as a pastor presents a sermon for thirty to forty minutes.”[37] He further adds that “there seems to be no indication in the New Testament of a preacher regularly presenting sermons to a congregation of believers.”[38] If the sermon is not evangelistic in nature, or producing results in increasing the membership, and the New Testament did not use this traditional mode of service, what benefit does it have on the local church if it is to be run as a business? The services should be replaced with something more beneficial and constructive. Consequently, it can be seen that there is not much left for the business of the church to function on.
However, Gerber compares orchestration to glue that holds you fast to your customers´ perceptions.[39] Our eyes should not be set on the organization, the church building, or its services. We should look at the needs of the community and supply those needs, then create our church services around those needs, praying for our customers and praising God in singing psalms and thanksgiving. Hence, our church services would have a personal meaning. The members also have to change the customers’ perception that the SDA Church is a sect or a traditional church with pews. Gerber emphasizes in relation to businesses, “You´ve got to develop a way of doing what you do, that dramatically differentiates your enterprise, your organization, your business, from every other one.”[40] This would entail changing the whole structure of the local SDA church so it would appeal to the people in the community. He further discovered that “no matter what the size of the organization, it is the ability to treat the organization as a small business . . . that produces a profound shift in the mind-set within that organization.”[41] This mind-set not only applies to those within the organization, but to those on the outside as well. This means that the community perception of the local SDA church can only be changed if the structure and form of services is altered. Therefore, a new paradigm of small companies meeting in homes in the community is suggested and serving the community from the homes of the members. Consequently, the community will change its perception of the local SDA church because it will be situated in homes, which are some of the most warm and friendliest meeting places on earth. Therefore, Burrill is correct when he says, “If the early church existed primarily in small groups, it would imply an entirely different way of doing church than is currently used today.”[42]
Innovation
The second factor Gerber uses in his management system is innovation. This is “the ability to create what could be,”[43] through new ideas and methods. According to Gerber, “how the business interacts with the consumer is more important than the business itself.”[44] Therefore, if the local church is in the business of winning souls to Christ, the interaction between the members and the community is more important than the structure of the building and the traditional Sabbath services. This is the most important area one has to concentrate on if the local SDA church is to be successful with the new paradigm. Innovation “is the mechanism through which your business identifies itself in the mind of the customer.”[45]
Some of the most powerful innovations the local church can use in interacting with the community are “a change of a few words, a gesture, the color of clothing, touching etc.”[46] An example of this was related at the Adventist-laymen´s Services and Industries Friday-evening meeting I attended in Grand Rapids, Michigan, during the summer of 2000. Garwin McNielus, the father of the president of ASI, Denzil McNielus, gave an interesting testimony of their lay-evangelistic work in Asia. They went expecting about one to two hundred people in attendance for their meetings. As it happened, about 800 turned up at the first meeting, and every night the number increased until it reached a total of approximately 10,000 visitors. The only thing they did differently from other evangelistic meetings was, that they went from house to house, prayed for the families in their homes, and blessed their children. This is innovation!
Christ used the same method 2,000 years ago when reaching out to the community. All it takes is to make a personal contact, say a few kind and positive words, give a handshake or a touch on the shoulder, give attention to the children and a show of concern for the well-being of the family. “It is not the big things they [people] talk about; it’s always the little things.”[47] This indication of success is not how large the church building is or how many members there are in the organization. It is the little things they do personally to the members of the community that awaken attention and create interest. This alone should be our focus point in reaching out to the community.
Quantification
The third factor Gerber points out that is important to a management system is quantification. This is related to, and is a direct result of, innovation implemented in the business. It is the evaluation of statistics and services to the customer on a daily basis.[48] It has to do with facts and figures that will determine if the services they offer can be used or not. This would involve writing daily reports or going through a checklist already printed out for the member to use. Hence, quantification helps us to analyze and understand the basic needs of the people in the community and how one can best fulfill those needs.
Preparation and Groundwork
When taking all these factors into consideration, we shall now try to develop a management system for the prototype company in a local SDA church. The first step is to approach the church board and give a brief outline on small groups and companies as introduced in this study, then make a request to the board for teaching seminars on the subject and the forming of a four-member company to serve the community. Having obtained the permission from the board, the minister or elder should promote the coming date of seminars. This could be a one-hour meeting during the week or in place of the Sabbath sermon, the advantage with the latter being that there are more members in attendance on a Sabbath than in the week-day meetings.
Furthermore, these first meeting should be done with the aid of dialogue teaching and not sermonizing to the members. It should cover in detail what has been discussed in this book on small companies, and how to implement one in a local SDA church. Emphasis should be made on the local SDA church as belonging to the members and not to the minister. The members are part of one family in the church and they support it annually with their tithe and offerings. Therefore, it is their responsibility if they want to continue in the same traditional church setup as they have done or run it like a business of which they are part of. If they choose the latter, then an information officer should be elected to follow the program and give all necessary information in the local weekly church bulletin.
During this time, materials that are needed for the company to succeed must be purchased. These would include items like a champion juice machine, 4 vacuum sealed thermos, brewers’ yeast, vitamin B12, an enema kit, coffee, a plastic mattress, 2 thermometers, four woolen blankets and four linen bed sheets should be purchased to help with simple hydrotherapy treatments outlined in the Balance Lifestyle Program. The Bible study lesson guides containing the SDA fundamental beliefs should also be ordered in advance before the meetings begin. Policies should be written up in regard to whoever uses the materials purchased and where they ought to be stored. It is recommended that these materials be confined to the company´s use only.
Steps in Teaching during the First Year
The next step is to start teaching the members of the local church in weekly meetings. The major meetings begin with seminars on small companies and how to implement the New Paradigm into a local church. This would take place each Sabbath instead of the sermon. A second weekly meeting should be scheduled after the Sabbath meetings have finished, for example on a Wednesday, for instruction from each chapter of the New Start and Dynamic Living books. This should be followed by instruction on how to administer the Balance Lifestyle program and how to give Bible studies on the 27 Fundamental Beliefs of the SDA Church.
Instruction should be given on how to determine one´s own personal color code. The members would be advised to wear neat clothing, preferably in their color code. Some say it does not matter what color clothing one wears; however, businessmen say that clothing is a very important part of selling the product. First impressions are important and a bad impression can be formed based on your appearance. SDA members are in the business of presenting Christ to the community; therefore, they should adopt a personal color code for their dress. This information can be acquired from the book Color Me Beautiful by Carole Jackson. Although the book was designed for women, it applies also to men and male apparel. This book explains that each person naturally looks best clothed in winter, spring, summer, or autumn colors, according to their complexions. If we are clothed in the wrong color, our customer may reject us as a representative for Christ. This is an important part of our communication to customers.
Having done this, the church members should take part in a temperament inventory test (the privacy of each individual should be respected). The members who are interested and are willing to volunteer full- or part-time for the project should be divided into companies of four and two´s in as natural a way as possible. The local church may end up with only one company of four because not all members have the time to participate. Those members who do not volunteer for the project can support this pioneer company with their personal needs and the purchase of materials needed for the project.
It would be advisable that the members of each company should come from the same ethnic background, skin color, culture, town, and even the same family if possible. They should also be from approximately the same age group. This is duplicating the Disciples of Christ, who came from the area of Galilee and were around the same age. They should also be divided into two´s and checked by the minister for working compatibility from the temperament inventory test previously taken. If there are no volunteers, then student volunteer missionaries could come into the area and help out for two to three years. These would have to be supported by the church with room and board, plus a small stipend.
When a four- or two-member company is formed, they and other interests may meet each Monday for example, to go through the material in this book. This would include information on goal-setting, aims, organizing, motivation, reports and making plans. It would also involve drawing up policies, evaluation, problem-solving, time management, how to train new disciples, and how to start up a new company. Instruction should be given on door-to-door communication. A questionnaire is written out in appendix F to be used when going from door to door. The reason for this is it helps minimize nervousness when speaking with people at the door. In addition, it helps to gather information on whether the customer needs help or not in relation to living a healthy lifestyle.
You could simply begin by saying that you are from the “Balance Lifestyle Health Center” (colporteurs use a similar company name, i.e., “Home Health Education Service”). We are doing a questionnaire on the relationship between sickness and healthy living. Would you like to try it out? If they say yes, then step into their home, sit down in the living room or kitchen and ask the questions. The questions are designed to help people relax and talk about their sicknesses. Please do not spend hours listening because some people can never stop talking about their sicknesses. Then you introduce them to the lifestyle program. If they accept the lifestyle program, a date and time of meeting should be written down.
When one enters the home, it is important to speak positively about the family or home of the individual. The first perceptions can mean acceptance or rejection by the customer. The object of the first visit is to evaluate the customer´s needs. Even more, the following visits should deal with attending to those needs and giving information on the Balance Lifestyle Program and what the program entails. A contract resume is written out in the appendix G for them to agree on before beginning the program. Subsequently, the aim is to be friendly with the people by visiting them daily, administering to their needs, gradually gaining their trust and confidence in you and what you believe in. These visits should be discontinued if the customer feels pressured or that their privacy is threatened.
After each visit, the company member should fill out a short report in a daily calendar and evaluate the reports. If a person is helped, for example, to overcome obesity, then information should be acquired, to check if they have high blood pressure, diabetes, or a high heart rate. This information from the customer should be entered in a report, and great care should be taken to make sure that any exercise program is gradual. This report ought to begin with a checklist examining the customer´s illness, lifestyle, and diet. These alone in many cases may determine the cause of the obesity. Furthermore, personal help should be given through an exercise, lifestyle, and diet program which is made personally for the customer. This can be written in a checklist style and followed up on a daily basis if required. Their progress should be entered in a report and encouragement given with each successful step taken. Consequently, these reports should be further entered into a file and copies given to the customer, so they too can learn to evaluate the report, and maybe teach others how to do it in the future, if they become members.
Sabbath Meetings
Sabbath meetings should be organized in the home of one of the company members or alternating from one home of a member to another. This is where all midweek meetings and Sabbath meetings will take place when the members go out serving the community. The meetings should never take place in a church building. New contacts should be invited to the Sabbath meetings at the beginning of the course conducted in the members’ homes. What should be included in these meetings? White says, “if there were fewer sermons, and more social meetings, we would find a different atmosphere pervade our churches.”[49] So a different atmosphere is needed than the one found in the present system, and a change to social meetings. White goes on to define these social meetings: “Many testimonies were borne, and many confessions made well wet down with tears. It was a profitable meeting.”[50] Visitors must have a chance to relate their experiences of how God is helping them through their health problem in these meetings; then their testimonies become living testimonies.
When new people attend the Sabbath meetings, they want to express themselves as to how they are progressing with their difficulty. This they are able to do in a small-group setting in the home. In addition, they can learn how to give thanks and praise to God during the service. Burrill emphasizes the New Testament teaching on this subject by including the following in Christian worship: “Their [early Christians´] main activities seem to have been devoting themselves to the apostles´ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer, singing of psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, which are all communal activities and not spectator ones.”[51] It appears that the early-church Christians were personally active in their worship of the Lord. In addition, it would be a good idea to have a fellowship meal or a potluck after the services are over. If the customers do not understand the standard Sabbath school lesson study guides, then it would be advisable to go through a Bible book like The Gospel of Mark from the Serendipity Bible using questions, with someone leading out. The whole procedure should not take more than one hour for Sabbath School and one hour for the main service with people giving testimonials instead of listening to sermons. It is also better to have a short service with variation than a long-drawn-out service based on church traditions. In addition, Bible Studies can be given during the week on doctrines which the church believes in. These Bible studies are enclosed in the appendix G.
Launching the Prototype Company
The structure and responsibilities of the prototype company are divided up between the two dyads. After twelve months the company should be officially recognized under the local conference, with the pastor as the overseer. A leader and treasurer should also be elected for the company. It would be advisable that the company elects an ordained elder, so he could administer the functions of communion and baptism under the guidance of the local pastor and conference. The reason for this is twofold. First, it encourages these leaders to continue in the work for souls, and second, it prepares them for taking over a twelve-member church when it is organized.
The four- or two-member company should also meet once a month for fellowship, reflection, and group development with the pastor. The company should meet together with friends and family for Sabbath worship each week. During each mid-week, the dyads should invite their customers along for fellowship, prayer, and Bible study and to the Sabbath services. When the company which the dyad has started up develops into three companies or a twelve-member church, then they should separate and hold Sabbath services in another location. The dyad that developed the twelve-member church should remain and be the leaders of this church for approximately three years. Their main aim in the mission work has been fulfilled, but if they wish to do so, they can begin another three-company church in another locality. Other leaders are trained on the job, as soon as they develop an interest in assisting and helping to build a company up, working full- or part-time. Hence the time-lapse between the twelve months of starting the company to the official forming of a twelve-member church would be approximately two years or more.
Finally, the question arises what if my local church is not interested in lifestyle evangelism? Then find at least another individual who is interested in the project or for example it could be a man and wife team who could work together and supplement each other in their temperaments. This is the least number for the company to work and succeed. Then notify the pastor of your plans and go ahead as a man and wife team or two friends working together. The church may well be interested in the future when you get results. Remember not everyone is interested in lifestyle evangelism and we should not criticize others if they do not understand the subject or are not interested in it.
The question arises, “what is the role of the pastor in this paradigm?” He is the one who oversees that the paradigm is working and combats false teachings entering the church.
Summary
The aim of the church should be explained in a simple mission statement such as, “helping those with lifestyle sicknesses and bringing them to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.” The strategic objective is a clear outline of what the local church must do to make the “Primary Aim” possible. The management strategy is not a team of managers but a system which is created to make the prototype work in a local church. The system would involve orchestration, innovation, quantification, and the launching of a prototype company in the local church. By achieving these principles, one is half-way there to implementing the local churches dreams.
Endnotes
[1] Higgins, 15.
[2] Gerber, The E-Myth, 83.
[3] Ibid., 86.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Proverbs 29:18.
[6] Luther, 27.
[7] Gerber, The E-Myth, 156, 157.
[8] Ibid., 39.
[9] Higgins, 82.
[10] Gerber, The E-Myth, 87.
[11] Higgins, 82.
[12] Jacksack, 25.
[13] Harold J. McLaughlin, Building Your Business Plan (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1985),
[14] Curtis, 26.
[15] Richard F. Gerson, Writing and Implementing a Market Plan (Los Altos, CA: Crisp, 1991),
[16] Gerber, The E-Myth, 92.
[17] Higgins, 77-79.
[18] Ibid., 40.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Lasher, 45.
[21] Curtis, 19.
[22] Michael E. Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (New York: Harper Collins, 1995), 187.
[23] Michael E. Gerber, The E-Myth Manager (New York: Harper Collins, 1998), 99.
[24] Ibid., 99.
[25] Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited, 188.
[26] Ibid., 234.
[27] Ibid., 195.
[28] Gerber, The E-Myth Manager, 171, 172.
[29] Jacksack, 56.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Gerber, The E-Myth Manager, 174, 175.
[32] Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited, 117.
[33] Gerber, The E-Myth Manager, 176, 177.
[34] Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited, 124-133.
[35] Burrill, 148.
[36] Howard A. Snyder, The Problem of Wine Skins (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity, 1975),
[37] Burrill, 124.
[38] Ibid., 126.
[39] Gerber, The E-Myth Revisted, 124-133.
[40] Gerber, The E-Myth Manager, 178, 179.
[41] Ibid., xxi.
[42] Burrill, 124.
[43] Gerber, The E-Myth Manager, 173.
[44] Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited, 117-121.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid.
[47] Ibid., 196.
[48] Ibid., 122-124.
[49] Ellen G. White, cited in Burrill, 205.
[50] Ellen G. White, cited in Burrill, 201.
[51] Burrill, 126.