This is a guest post from my brother Brad Rowell who works for DeWALT Industrial Tools and is involved in a church plant called Hillside Church of Southeast Denver. (See photo from last summer to the right). The July 10 issue of the business magazine Fortune has a good cover story entitled The New Rules: Tearing up the Jack Welch playbook that I thought applied to the church. The article basically says that famous GE CEO Jack Welch’s rules for winning in the 1990’s no longer apply today. The article blasts Jack’s 7 rules and suggests 7 new ones that might work.
 |
 |
||
| New Rules | vs. | Old Rules | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Agile is best; being big can bite you. | Big dogs own the street. | |
| 2 | Find a niche, create something new. | Be No. 1 or No. 2 in your market. | |
| 3 | The customer is king. | Shareholders rule. | |
| 4 | Look out, not in. | Be lean and mean. | |
| 5 | Hire passionate people. | Rank your players; go with the A’s. | |
| 6 | Hire a courageous CEO. | Hire a charismatic CEO. | |
| 7 | Admire my soul. | Admire my might |
I thought that many of the "old rules" reminded me of building mega-churches in the 80’s and 90’s and I thought many of the "new rules" are being practiced by the emerging church of today.
Enjoy,
Brad Rowell
Brad Rowell
3 replies on “Big churches take note: Fortune magazine says the rules of business have changed”
Mega-church vs emerging-church. It shouldn’t be a battle. Mega certainly isn’t my cup of whatever, but praise the God of heaven that He uses both for his glory.
Yeah, I see some correspondence and it is good to think about how changing times dictate the need for changing strategies. However, I think the emerging church and the mega-churches have a lot more in common than we might think. The key is probably point #2. Both types have a target audience and seek to gear their culture appropriately. Emergent is just going after the niche group (currently at least).
It is fascinating to me how things move in cycles… large to small and probably back again… formal to informal… inward to outward focused. I think the history of the church reveals many such cycles.
What I find encouraging is that the church actually steps into change, even if it is sometimes initially just a toe in the water. Eventually we see the plunge. As the “body” of Christ, this suggests it may be more alive than we often give it credit for.