Yesterday I spent several hours with our leadership team talking about emerging church stuff. We used Kimball’s book as a starting point. During the discussion, one of our shepherds had the insight that instead of treating the folks who walk through our doors on Sunday mornings as consumers of religious goods and services, we should treat them as investors of time, talent, and energy. He comes from a financial services background and so this metaphor was obvious to him. When he meets with a potential client, he is meeting with an investor, not a consumer. I wonder if that’s the same mindset the average person has when they walk through the door of a church. Are they thinking, “What do you have to offer me in terms of good worship and solid programs for me and my family?” Or are they thinking, “Is this the kind of church into which I want to invest my life?”
My guess is that here in Tulsa there are more consumers than investors in most churches. My hunch is that most leaders spend far too much time trying to please the consumers and not enough time working with the investors.
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
Wade,
Love the metaphor. Unfortunately, I think the consumer mindset
is the prevailing one here in the Northeast as well.
TK
There’s a balance to it, since this is sort of a “chicken or the egg” kind of scenario. Everyone starts as a consumer, and some become investors. Without investment into both, you don’t get anywhere.
I agree with you, though, Wade – too few churches put intentional time into the investors in terms of specific leadership, encourgement, and vision.
I wonder what would happen to the culture of a church (eventually) if we intentionally treated people as investors, even if they consider themselves to be consumers. How much does our perception as leaders affect the reality of the thing?
That’ll be a mighty big paradigm shift! What if we considered ourselves – instead of leaders or providers of goods & (church) services – as partners; co-investors?
It doth boggle ye mind.
Indeed…
Yahtzee!
At most, I have seen churches “invest” in a brick and mortar capital campaign, but what about investing in a human resource campaign?
Consumers have never consumed enough and investors have never invested enough.
“human resource campaign”
Now there’s a notion… hmmm.
I refer you to http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com
I think it is along the same lines you have been discussing in several of your posts lately.