allow me to rant for a moment…..

if churches were businesses they would be out of business a LONG time ago! and before anyone jumps on me and says that they aren’t business but ministries, just hear me out!

a business would see what they do that is successful and throw their money at it and promote it like there was no tomorrow. but instead we don’t do that. look at a position that a friend of mine is finding himself in. the student ministry doubled in size and the church went down 4%! but yet what position do they cut down to part-time? the youth pastor’s! that makes no sense. if anyone’s position should be cut to part-time it should be the senior pastor’s cause OBVIOUSLY his ministry is not being successful.

at the church that i was part-time at, the student ministry grew 600% in the 5.5 years i was there and the adult ministry grew 2-5% during that time, but yet i was told that there was no justification in moving my position to full-time! but we were growing and not just in numbers of students but i had volunteers up the wahzoo! i had a 3-1 ratio and other ministries were having a heck of a time keeping their volunteers. there were several baptismal services where i was the only having people get baptized and the senior pastor had not one single adult for baptism. but again i was told that there was no justification in my position being full-time!

so where is the church now? they are struggling and in major financial problems. much like my friend’s church. maybe they need to shift their focuses and recognize that they need to act more like businesses and throw their money and promotion towards the part of their church that is successful. and people wonder why the church in american is dying. it is because senior pastor’s can be so full of themselves that they can’t see the forest through the trees. and you can be assured that these are not the only two examples i could give. there are many other stories like this.

now, i know some of you would say, “that the youth account for a very small portion of the receipts of the church and when money is tight those things that currently bring in the smallest amount of income get axed, just like in businesses.” but the question is why are many of the adults/parents staying at that church? could it be BECAUSE OF the student ministry or even children’s ministry? i think we start staffing church’s all wrong, they should hire children’s pastor and/or a youth pastor first then a senior pastor. and i bet the church would grow a lot faster. a lot of parent’s would tolerate crappy adult ministry if they knew their kids/teens were being ministered to.

so why don’t churches operate more like business? i do not know why, other than if they did they would fail with the way they are currently doing things. and, again, i think that is one of the big reasons why the church in america is dying. there are other reasons, but this is one of them.

i apologize to any senior pastor’s who may have read this and i know not all of you are bad, but if i stepped on your toes then why were your toes sticking out in the first place?

make sure you read part 2!