In my last post, I compared megachurches to McDonalds. Some people will think I meant to be offensive – but I’m really not. McDonalds provides consistent quality, and the food is cheap. It was a vast improvement over some substitutes. If nothing else, McDonalds meets a need.

The same can be said for Megachurches. Your local CommunityChurch has consistent quality. We know what the music will sound like. We know what the preaching will sound like. We know that it will mostly agree with evangelical mainstreams — a mix of Dobson, MacArthur, and Swindoll, with a dash of Osteen or TD Jakes.

And the megachurch is often a vast improvement over common substitutes. I can’t place the source, but I recall reading about an “emergent” christian who went to a “traditional” service, and thought “now I know what Boomers were rebelling against.” By many accounts, the mass religion of the 50s and 60s was formal and rote. The megachurch, by contrast, was exciting, like a Billy Graham crusade.

If nothing else, megachurches meet a need. But the price of standardization has often been the death of flexibility or customization. And after 50 years or so of megachurches, we’re beginning to understand the long-term consequences of a diet of McChurch. More on that in the next post.

How does your church reflect the people who are there?  What can you change without changing the message?

This article, from the Harvard Business review, discusses ‘localization’ for consumers.  Companies like Wal-Mart, and McDonalds, made their fortunes standardizing good content.  If you walk into a Wal-Mart, you know what you’re going to get: necessary goods, low prices.  If you walk into McDonalds, you know what the french fries should taste like (in fact, you can taste them now).

But Standardization is reaching its limits.  “Building more of the same–long the cornerstone of retailer growth–seems to be tapped out as a strategy.”  The authors recommend altering the mix, pricing, and format of the stores to reflect consumer interests.

Now, let’s think about churches.  In some ways, turn-of-the-centurty evangelicalism is the age of standardardization.  Like McDonalds & Wal-Mart, churches (and denominations) perfected mass-market religious instruction.  Churches meet in arenas.  Communion cups come pre-filled, “designed to fit standard communion ware.” Sermon content is pre-packaged as well; a recent WSJ article shows that big names in preaching don’t think Sermons need to be original.  “They are preaching a sermon, not footnoting a term paper,” says Rick Warren.  In other words, you’re not expecting anything customized.  This version of church is a lot like McDonalds’ food:  cheap, standard, and better than it used to be.  Direction comes from the home-office.  Customers are there for the franchise –  the staff and customers have very little influence on the experience.

Should it be different?  And can it be different, without compromising the quality or the effectiveness?  more later…

I hadn’t intended to say much more about Spending God’s Money, but I’d be remiss not to note the (largely) excellent communication going on in the comments to Marty Duren’s review.   Comments from Bob Tenery, Carolyn Curtis, Ray Newcomb and Charles Fuller all provide counterpoints to some of the issues raised by Mary Branson.   There are hints of  raw emotion in the posts (and the book) — but there sure is a lot of factual information being exchanged, and not just in soundbites.
Yet another example of open, helpful communicating in the blogosphere!

A credible, sourced criticism of your administration appears on the internet, or in a newspaper: “Bill uses widows’ mites to buy [luxury good or service]; there is no man more arrogant in the convention.”

This is the best response: “I talked about it with my superiors, and they approved it.”

But, perhaps you cannot give the best response. Which of the following is the second best response?

1. “Here are fifteen people, willing to attest that I have not been arrogant around them, and a list of good things I’ve done in the past.”

2. “This attacker is part of a good ol’ boys network, or a confederation of ruthless bloggers, or both.”

3. “I think its important to be a good steward, too. I think I can justify each of my expenses, and am sorry my board wasn’t kept in the loop –but I’m willing to submit to additional oversight, to build trust and keep my superiors informed.”

Here’s the kicker — good people could give all three responses, but I think 1 & 2 miss an opportunity to advance the ball. It’s a good barometer of leadership skill when you can can pick out (and respond) to the legitimate criticism embedded in an ad hominem attack. I’m not always the best at it, admittedly, but it’s a good skill to cultivate.

My last post criticized Mary Branson’s new book, Spending God’s Money, because it suggests that it is nearly time to give up on the North American Mission Board, and ministries like it, because they are too big to be managed accountably. I don’t think we have that choice — we need size and accountability, together.

But Branson’s book is valuable, too. It lets Baptists know that NAMB is wandering, without purpose. Instead of sustained, organized efforts (which is the only reason for such a large organization), there are lots of short, disjointed efforts (which could be done more efficiently by small organizations) — conferences, radio shows, a thirst for CNN, scads of pens, pencils, and a million beaded bracelets.
In a purpose vaccuum, executives have to measure their own success through self-esteem and power. How was Bob Reccord supposed to know that NAMB was a “success”? It is clear that he didn’t know, and his trustees didn’t either. Reccord only knew how many people bent to his will, or how many movie invitations he received, and how many private jets he could fly. Those were the symbols of success, in lieu of measured achievement toward North American Missions. Even a cadre of talented, congenial ‘entrepreneurs’, like the executives at NAMB, must resort to superficial symbols of success, if there’s no consensus about the goal.
Let me suggest that the goal of NAMB is not to hire ‘entrepreneurial’ leaders as Vice Presidents and then fund their ideas. NAMB needs to identify ‘entrepreneurial’ evangelism opportunities, and give them the tools they need to succeed. In other words, the entrepreneurs need to be in the field, not in Alpharetta. In some sense, Branson’s book shows that the goal has become personal notoriety, rather than evangelism among the masses.

What if other large companies operated that way? What if Toyota existed to help its executives build cars better? What if the power company operated to help executives run turbines better? Why, then, does one get the feeling that NAMB operates to help its executives speak more widely, be read more frequently, be mentioned by name more often? What cause does that help? And does it require a massive infrastructure to do it?

If the goal is funding the entrepreneurial ideas of a few, who needs NAMB? Let’s face it – there are much larger organizations than NAMB that are ’successful’ because they have a goal that requires those resources. Microsoft is huge, because it has a huge task. GE is huge, because it has a huge task. NAMB (and the Cooperative Program) won’t fail because it is too large — but it will fail if its leaders don’t have a vision that requires it.

Mary Kinney Branson has released “Spending God’s Money,” published by Father’s Press — right down the street from me in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. It chronicles Branson’s dissatisfaction with the leadership and fiscal responsibility of the North American Mission Board under Bob Reccord.

There is a lot to criticize, and a lot to appreciate, about the book. Criticisms first: Branson refers to her subjects by first names — Bob and Randy and Nate, instead of Reccord, Singer and Adams. By writing so personally, Branson’s writing sounds less objective; that familiarity gives her credibility as an eye witness, but also could be mistaken for pettiness. And I’m sure that many will (unfortunately) dismiss her observations as nothing more than personality conflicts.
And the apt, but not quite correctly attributed, repetition of Sally Brown’s famous line in the Peanuts Christmas special makes you wonder what else didn’t get fact-checked.

But most troubling was the hopelessness of her conclusion: it’s time to give up cooperating, and decrease the distance from the giver to the spender. Most of Branson’s examples of “right” ministry are relatively small organizations, like Ministry Through Education, where no staff takes a salary, or her own church’s plan to directly support ministry.
There’s two problems with that solution: 1. One of Branson’s complaints about NAMB is the level of micromanagement. Can that be solved by making every missionary beholden to a few large donors? Won’t missionaries on the field be terrified of offending the Pastor of the church supporting them? What if that church starts to take doctrinally unsound positions — could those missionaries speak up? Requiring personal relationships with donors seems like it rewards the convivial, without guaranteeing better ministry.

Secondly, it seems like a false kind of efficiency. Perhaps ETC’s supporters are sincere, and maybe it has unique opportunities to be efficient. But let’s multiply that by thousands of ministries, each with their own committees, each having to find their own projects. And then take thousands of missionaries (or projects), each needing funding, but having to spend time finding a source. Even small inefficiencies, multiplied by thousands, makes the true cost of small ventures rather expensive, even compared to the sickening expenditures at NAMB. And how much time will missionaries have to spend looking for support among these dispersed agencies? In other words, I’m not sure if replacing a relatively small set of greedy bureaucrats with a large number of well-intentioned, but inefficient, ministries, is really better stewardship.
But don’t think that Branson’s book isn’t valuable; I’ll explain why in the next post.