January 20, 2008

Roz Tandy told a denominational preacher at a funeral that she led workshops on customer service for corporate clients. The preacher, duly impressed, said: “You ought to do one for our church.”

Tandy, a few years and dozens of workshops later, published “Customer Service in the House of God,” reinforcing the theme that a church is a business and ought to be run like one.

“A church is like a billboard, a business,” says Tandy. “If a business does a good job of advertising, people can expect to go there and get what it said it would deliver. A church has the same responsibility.”

Is this something that our brethren will buy into? Sure it is! There are already many local churches of Christ that make most decisions based upon the public’s perception of the church. “We have to do a better job of marketing ourselves” say some elders who think of themselves not as shepherds but CEOs.

I find that many “younger” men who are serving as elders often preside over a local church more like corporate CEOs than shepherds. Thinking of the church like they do their businesses they seem more concerned with perception and symbolism than they with spiritual substance and biblical doctrine.

Just as the “bottom line” (profits) drives businesses, membership numbers drive some elderships. When “bigger is better” then doctrine and truth are sacrificed in favor of larger and larger crowds; many churches are abandoning doctrine in favor of approval. Let someone begin to offer criticism and elders cave. Let someone threaten to withhold a large contribution and elders give in. “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord,” (Jer 23:1).

In an effort to behave like CEOs some elders are unwilling to address the matter of sin in the lives of church members. Instead they want to drift into a discussion of whom to accept into “corporate fellowship.” A man might be unscripturally divorced and remarried and the question centers not around his lost soul but whether he is allowed to officiate on the Lord’s Table. Whenever a man has unscriptural and wrong beliefs, the needs of his spotted soul are ignored. Instead the questions swirl around whether he can be a full or part member of the corporation (church). “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord.”

The church is not a corporation to be run by CEOs, and elders better begin responding like shepherds instead of executive officers. According to Jesus (Jn 10:1), the church is a sheepfold not a corporation. In corporate America diversity and tolerance are the norm. In the corporate world neither gender, race, ethnicity, nor physical and emotional blemishes can prevent sustained employment. That is, you might be a paranoid schizophrenic and still remain in good standing with the company. Good CEOs just shuffle you around, keeping you from harming yourself or others.

This is what many elderships are doing with those who are blemished with sin. Ignoring the spiritual impoverishment a sinning brother desperately needs to have addressed, some elders simply shuffle him around. “OK, let’s get him to make a generic confession, and then keep him from teaching for a while and see how it goes.” “Listen Bert, there are some members here who are not as open minded as we are about these matters, so just don’t bring it up in class.” Shuffle him, hide him, and let him die in his sin.

Elders are shepherds commissioned by God to watch out for the souls of those under their guardianship. “Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch . . .” (Acts 20:28-31).

Any eldership that ignores sin will receive a stern condemnation from God. Any eldership that neglects to watch over the souls of members of the flock is not being true to the Word of God, and will be held accountable at the Day of Judgment.

Paul reminds elders they are to be “Holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict . . .” (Titus 1:9). Any elder who refuses to exhort and convict a sinner with the word of truth is not worthy of that designation.

“Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers,” (1 Pet 5:2). Peter makes it plain that elders are shepherds not CEOs and they better behave as shepherds. Men better not try to run a local church as a business.

Elders who take seriously their work as shepherds of souls will never get lost in the forest of corporate compromise. They know what sin, false doctrine, and evil talkers are able to do to those under their guardianship. These men will address both the sin and the sinner!

Those, on the other hand, who rule like corporate CEOs are only interested in seeing that things run smoothly. They are more interested in being praised for their pragmatism rather than in addressing sin in the lives of men and women under their care. To do so just might “ruffle a few feathers.”

Instead of dealing with the spiritual wellbeing of a man or woman under their charge some say: “There may be some questions about their marriage but

Shepherds or CEOs