Today is a milestone – the 10^th anniversary of this blog.  In June 2015, I listed 30 bullet points (akin to Martin Luther’s 95 Theses) making the case for modern-day Church reform based on its redefinitions of “church” and its “customer”.  The plan was to write 30 blog posts, one for each of those 30 Theses.  While there are still 30 original points, there are now 310 posts – and counting!

Based on the 30 Theses, the Lord kept revealing insights I’d never read elsewhere.  As I evaluated various aspects of Americanized churchdom against the biblical view of “church” and its “customer”, ideas kept flowing for shedding new light on old topics.  The fundamental, flawed premise – treating those meant to be the personification of “church” like consumers, thereby ignoring the intended “customer” – undergirds nearly every decision most church leaders make.

Throughout the past decade of writing, it became clear why the Lord led me in the 1990s to specialize in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) consulting in the “Big 5” with Fortune 500 companies.  After founding Meet The Need in 2002, I spent the next 13 years working with thousands of churches and pastors across the country.  Had it not been for my CRM background, identifying and defining a company’s (optimal or default) customers, I wouldn’t have discovered the root cause for several readily apparent and concerning trends among America’s churches:

• few were growing and most had plateaued
• those growing seemed to be leveraging business, not biblical, techniques
• many churches were closing their doors
• few were involved in year-round, impactful community ministry
• the perception of churches and Christians was on the decline
• Christian voices weren’t being heard and influence felt like they once were

Only uncovering and confronting the core, underlying issue – the redefinition of “church” and its “customer” – can reverse the American Church’s trajectory.  Dealing with the symptoms, the approach taken by books, conferences, and consultants, won’t turn the tide.  The “root cause” is extraordinarily simple, yet profound.  The logic is straightforward, yet compelling – expressed in these original 30 Theses:

Baseline Assumptions: 

1. A church is not defined as its pastor, staff and buildings.  That’s how we define companies – as its executives, employees, and assets.  Instead, in a church, members and attenders ARE the biblical “Ekklesia”.
2. Who an organization seeks to attract and retain and where it invests the bulk of its time, energy, resources, and dollars determine who it considers to be its “customers”.
3. Churches in America today invest the vast majority of their time, energy, resources, and dollars into marketing, facilities, programs, and services designed to attract and retain members and attenders.
4. Therefore, most churches treat churchgoers as if they were their target “customers”.

 If you agree with those assumptions, the following must be true: 

5. By definition, if members ARE the Church, they cannot also be the Church’s “customer”.
6. Therefore, the Church is investing too much of its time, energy, resources, and dollars to satisfy the wrong “customer”.
7. The entire church – pastors, staff, deacons, elders, members, attenders, facilities, and other assets – should be working together to reach the biblical “customer”.

Further: 

8. Any organization that is not focused on its “customers” or too focused on the wrong “customers” is unlikely to thrive.
9. Customers are always outside of, not internal to, an organization.  So by treating “insiders” as “customers” churches have become internally-focused.  Internally-focused entities of any kind are rarely healthy or impactful.
10. As the definition of “church”, members should be considered Kingdom “employees”.  They should be trained and equipped to pursue the real, intended “customer” – who by necessity are external to the organization.  A company would never send untrained employees out to sell, market, or otherwise interact with customers as its representatives.
11. Jesus modeled discipling, sending, and serving those outside the church – the “lost” who didn’t know Him.  They were His mission.  Although He had the perfect words, His approach was to demonstrate His power and love (e.g. by healing and feeding) to open ears before He said who He was.  No pastor can “outpreach” Jesus, yet most have attempted to do so by not preceding words with action.
12. For centuries, the American Church followed the Prayer/Care/Share model of Jesus, His disciples, the early Church, serving as the food bank and homeless shelter – the proverbial spiritual and charitable “center of town” – allocating a much higher percentage of its time, energy, resources, and dollars to serving the community than it does today.
13. Therefore, churches historically considered the community and “unreached” to be its target “customer”.
14. However, few churches today are externally-focused, allocating only a small fraction of their income and outputs to engaging and serving the community.  Few adequately equip (through discipleship and evangelism training) or effectively serve (through ongoing, relational ministry, not occasional “outreach” events).

So, it stands to reason: 

15. Because most churches in America are not focused on the right “customers”, they aren’t providing good “customer service”.  As a result, the Church isn’t succeeding in terms of overall growth, church closures, influence in society, public perception, or community impact.
16. “Customers” in the communities where those churches are planted feel ignored, wondering if church leaders, members, and the Lord care about them.
17. “People don’t care what you know until they know you care”, so not many Nones and Dones are listening to what pastors and Christians have to say.  Society feels we haven’t earned the right to speak into culture (as Jesus did through His love and compassion).  As a result, the unreached see churches and Christians as more about judgment than justice, condemnation than compassion, self-righteousness than selflessness, and hypocrisy than humility.
18. Concurrently, churchgoers have adopted a consumer mentality since churches mistakenly treat them as the “customer”.  America’s fastest growing churches are those who do the best job of attracting and retaining.  Larger churches can afford to provide better facilities and “customer” experiences than smaller ones.  Overall church attendance is not growing, so churches with competitive advantages and economies of scale are bringing people in predominantly from other churches – not producing new believers.
19. That competitive landscape and declining donations tempt churches to cater rather than challenge “consumers” (i.e. to be discipled and disciple the Church’s true “customers”).  Cultural Christians enjoying cheap grace (belief and presumed salvation without life change) won’t step far outside their comfort zones.  Pushing too hard risks losing them to another church down the road who will cater, not challenge.  However, those eager to grow in their faith will be inspired and excited to adopt Jesus’ mission, resulting in long-term congregation depth and growth.

 Ok, I’m convinced.  Now what?: 

20. Once pastors realize they’ve redefined “church” and its “customer”, they have little grounds for maintaining the status quo by allowing those new definitions to continue to drive decisions.  A head change should produce heart change, leading to church reform.
21. If churches keep treating members as “customers”, the Church’s growth, influence, impact, and reputation will continue to decline.
22. Sending out disciples to serve and make disciples is the ultimate church growth model, decentralizing to take ground for the Kingdom.  The best church growth plan was the first century Church’s growth plan.  Discipling creates leverage.  Sending creates relationships.
23. Shifting from the current definition of “church” and “customers” to the appropriate ones requires new organizational structures, behaviors, actions, initiatives, touchpoints, budgets, and performance measures.
24. For example, hierarchies in the respective roles of pastors versus members should flatten.  As unpaid “employees”, members should no longer leave the heavy lifting to paid “professionals”.  Pastoral burnout would diminish as usurped responsibilities are redistributed, activating every hand on deck to pursue and serve the Church’s true “customers”.
25. The organizational lines in the larger body of Christ in a city should also blur as each church’s objectives take a back seat to overall Kingdom goals, united in their shared mission and joint initiatives.
26. Leaders should hold “members” accountable for a higher performance standard, raising expectations of congregations rather than striving to meet their expectations.  Church health should be assessed based on discipleship depth and community transformation – in other words, its reach not size.
27. Evidence shows that members are more generous when their churches are more generous.  It’s not coincidence that average giving today to churches (2%) is the same as average giving by churches back into the community (2%).

 Does that mean churches should spend less time investing in churchgoers?

28. No, in fact it’s the opposite.  If members are the Church, then leaders should train them as “insiders”, much like a company trains its employees.  We shouldn’t focus less “internally” but dramatically shift our orientation.  Rather than catering through amenities and programs, we should treat members and visitors as the embodiment of Church (and the community as the “customer”), which requires challenging them to serve, evangelize, disciple, and impact those in their neighborhoods, workplaces, and families.
29. Each church leader and member should take responsibility for one-on-one and triad discipleship, releasing the leverage sitting in the pews to exponentially create more disciples, as Jesus modeled.  Multiplication is the Lord’s math – not addition (by asking members simply to invite others to a worship service to hear the Gospel from a paid evangelist).
30. Churches shouldn’t abdicate discipleship to small groups.  Fellowship in those formats may make churches “sticky”, but aren’t personal or intensive enough to produce Christ-followers who obey Jesus at all costs.

When “church” is no longer viewed as a place, pastor, or weekly activity – members are seen as Kingdom “employees” – and target “customers” are those who don’t know Jesus – then church will no longer be the end, but the means.  When we realize those 30 Theses are consistent with biblical mandates and organizational best practices – and adopt them – then we may witness a revival of the Church in America.

It’s Your Turn…

Help us celebrate our blog’s 10^th anniversary by sharing this post with church leaders in your sphere of influence…