The Dangers of a "Church MBA"

Transcription

1 From TeachingtheWord's Bible Knowledgebase Scripture and the Church The Dangers of a "Church MBA" by Dr. Paul M. Elliott Many men (and women) become pastors of today's post-evangelical churches with an education grounded not in Scripture, but in secular management philosophy. The results are disastrous. We now live in the age of the "post-evangelical" church the organized church in which a pseudo-evangelical façade may remain, but the false doctrines of postmodernism have replaced the truth of Christ's Word. Some post-evangelical churches are so-called "legacy churches". They retain the name of the congregation that once met in the building, and invoke the names of the faithful pastors who once preached there. Those men were true saints of God, whose Biblical understanding of Christ's Great Commission committed them to the work of proclaiming the one true Gospel to the world, and building up those who believed the Gospel to live sanctified lives on this earth in preparation for the life to come. They accomplished this work by teaching them sound doctrine through the preaching of the Scriptures. But these misnamed "legacy churches" have in fact rejected the legacy of their forebears. "Re-Branded" Churches In our time, growing numbers of them are being deliberately "re-branded" into something that would cause their founders, could they return from the grave, to emulate their Lord who single-handedly cleansed the outer court of the temple. 1

2 They would also doubtless fashion a whip and with righteous anger drive out the unworthy heirs of these places of worship, who have replaced the Gospel message of Christ's deliverance of repentant sinners from this present evil age to live forever in the perfect world to come, with a broadly tolerant message of curing sin through therapy and social justice, and achieving "your best life" in the here-and-now. Alongside these legacy churches, many new groups are springing up that adopt a world-pleasing "look and feel" from day one. These groups, with their nebulous identities and even more nebulous message, are the main product of churchplanting efforts in our day. Few even call themselves churches. Most adopt some catchy-sounding brand-name such as "The Gathering Place" "The Crossroads" or "The Happening" that is far more palatable to the unbelieving world than to selfconsciously identify as the church of the narrow way and the strait gate. (Do a web search for "places of worship" and see how many of these church brand names you will find.) The "worship" in these places is centered not on God, but on man. The message is not the Gospel of salvation from eternal Hell through the shed blood of Christ, but of feeling better about ourselves by motivational group therapy even though we all make "mistakes." Seminaries Producing Not Servants of the Word, But Masters of Business Why has this happened? One of the main reasons is that the men (and increasingly women) who lead these congregations down the path to perdition have been trained not in Scripture as the sole authority of the Church under the headship of Christ, but in the failed wisdom of secular management philosophy. As a friend of our ministry recently observed, these days most students emerge from nominally evangelical seminaries not with an education in the Word of God, but in the word of 2

3 man what he rightly called a "church MBA," a master of church business administration. This is the approach of many contemporary seminary programs to what is wrongly called "pastoral ministry." The church must be run like a business. The business has paid employees, yes. But beyond that relative handful of people the paid leadership must grow and manage a (hopefully) large staff of volunteer workers the people taking the place of what Biblical churches used to call "the saints". It is the job of those people to bring in even more like themselves and get them into the same church-growth harness, no matter whether the newcomers (or those recruiting them) are truly saved or not. And in fact, dwindling numbers are. A sampling of post-evangelical seminary programs illustrates the postmodern approach. Increasingly, seminary students preparing for the ministry, and existing pastors pursuing advanced degrees, are offered masters' and doctoral programs that involve little advanced study of God's Word, but rather the study of subjects such as project management; leadership skills; leadership evaluation and development; conflict resolution management; mentoring skills; financial management; cultural studies; group dynamics; psychology and psychotherapy. All of these are nothing more than the curricula of secular business schools transplanted to the seminary environment and given a thin whitewash of religious terminology. An Ungodly Mentor Perhaps the most famously tragic product of post-evangelicalism in the seminaries is Purpose-Driven Church Movement leader Rick Warren. He is the founder and 3

4 senior pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, where 23,000 people attend services each week. Warren holds degrees from California Baptist University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (both affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention), and Fuller Theological Seminary. Saddleback Church is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. The man he constantly refers to as "my mentor" is not a godly pastor from an earlier generation, not one of the Biblical writers, not even Christ Himself, but management theorist Peter F. Drucker ( ). At a 2005 conference of the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life, Warren stated: I spoke at Harvard last month. I did a series of lectures for the faculty in the Kennedy School and also in the law school. I spoke to several groups of faculty and several groups of students and I started with this quote from Peter Drucker: "The most significant sociological phenomenon of the first half of the 20th century was the rise of the corporation. The most significant sociological phenomenon of the second half of the 20th century has been the development of the large pastoral church of the mega-church. It is the only organization that is actually working in our society." Now Drucker has said that at least six times. I happen to know because he's my mentor. I've spent 20 years under his tutelage learning about leadership from him, and he's written it in two or three books, and he says he thinks it's the only thing that really works in society. 1 Drucker was born in Austria and grew up in a liberal Lutheran family. After college he moved to England and then to the United States in the 1930s, and later became a Episcopalian. Drucker was a disciple of the 19th century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. 2 Kierkegaard was one of the early fathers of postmodernist thinking. 4

5 His major contribution to postmodernism was his assertion that there is no such thing as objective truth, and he therefore denied that the Bible is a book of truth. Drucker is perhaps best known in secular business management circles for his theory of "management by objectives" in which both management and employees agree on a set of business objectives created through a "shared vision," and focus all activities toward achieving them. In Drucker's theory, there are no transcendent truths or moral absolutes, only objectives or purposes as defined by the thinking of visionary leaders and agreed to by the larger group. Drucker taught management theory in a number of colleges and universities, and conducted a highly successful business consulting practice whose clients included General Motors, General Electric, Intel, Proctor and Gamble, Toyota, and the Ito- Yokado Group, the world's second-largest retailing giant whose holdings include Seven-Eleven stores and Denny's restaurants. Management by Objectives Becomes The Purpose-Driven Church In later years, Drucker turned his attention toward applying his philosophy to religious organizations. Post-evangelical churches and parachurch organizations have paid Drucker and his associates and followers tens of thousands of dollars to learn how to behave more like big business corporations. Drucker's "management by objectives" for big business was morphed into "management by purpose" for churches. Drucker's objectives-based, there-are-no-absolutes "self-assessment" tools for businesses were transformed into "skills assessment" and "leadership assessment" tools for churches. These tools place high value not on faith in Jesus Christ, but on the ability to manage or be managed. 5

6 In a column he wrote for Forbes magazine in 2007, Rick Warren made it clear that he has fully bought into Drucker's philosophy and has applied it to Saddleback Church and the Purpose-Driven Church Movement. Warren said, "The Church, in all its expressions Catholic, Evangelical, Pentecostal, Protestant and many others has 2.3 billion followers" and he called it the largest global management network. He spoke of the church as a "civil institution." Later in the same Forbes column, Warren said this: As Peter Drucker, my mentor for 20 years, used to tell me: "Businesses ought to be learning from churches!" What can business learn from churches? How to the spread the word. My church has, in conferences and DVD training, taught 400,000 pastors around the world. I have also shared my thinking with chief executives. Effective churches know far more about motivating volunteers, organizing by small groups, assimilating new people, casting vision, managing conflict, releasing talent, adopting innovations and communicating widely than most business people imagine. The most difficult leadership task is leading volunteers, because you don't have the wage incentive or the threat of firing. Volunteers only do what you inspire them to do with values and vision...government and business must consider it [the church] as an equal partner...it's time to lay aside our prejudices and work together. 3 It is noteworthy that "spreading the word" in Warren's vocabulary has nothing to do with spreading The Word the Gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ as found in the pages of Holy Scripture but rather with "spreading the word" about how to manage people to achieve objectives. If you are familiar with the ideas and philosophies promoted in contemporary business books, you will easily recognize the same ideas in a pseudo-christian wrapper in the pages of Rick Warren's The Purpose-Driven Church. Rich Karlgaard, 6

7 the publisher of Forbes magazine, wrote an article that glowingly praised the Purpose-Driven Church movement. 4 "Were it a business, Saddleback would be compared with Dell, Google, or Starbucks," he said. "Whatever you think about Warren or his religious beliefs, he has discerned a consumer need out there." Karlgaard went on to say that The Purpose Driven Church is one of the greatest entrepreneurial books he has ever read, and that if you "substitute the word 'business' for 'church' and see what Warren has to tell us" it is a guidebook that can be easily and effectively used in a secular business setting. Karlgaard then cited these lessons, among others, from The Purpose-Driven Church: "Don't be afraid to make it up as you go along" "Sell big!" "Nothing should precede [get in the way of] the purpose of your business." The Ultimate Father of Post-Evangelicalism The Lord Jesus Christ was unequivocal in His condemnation of those who follow the wisdom of the world, and He identified its source Satan himself: If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word. You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. (John 8:42-44) As the Apostle John wrote under divine inspiration, all that is in the world the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:16-17) 7

8 In other words, we are on firm Biblical ground when we say that the postevangelical phenomenon is not the work of God, but the work of the Devil. He is the father of it. Authentic Christianity in Contrast The Scripture-driven church must follow a different course. The Apostle Paul declared to the Corinthian church a visible church that had foolishly mixed the world's philosophies with Scripture, with disastrous results that Christ sent him to preach the Gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." Paul said that the church's focus should never be on secular wisdom or human philosophy, but on "the foolishness of God" Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Furthermore, Paul by the Holy Spirit had this to say about true purpose For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish 8

9 things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that, as it is written, "He who glories, let him glory in the Lord." Paul did not exhort his readers to "make it up as you go along," try to "sell big," or to think that nothing should get in the way of a man-made "purpose" And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. But Paul said that understanding these things requires the indwelling and illumination of the Holy Spirit: However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the 9

10 things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For "who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 1:17-2:16) Clearly, the post-evangelical mindset that equips people with nothing better than a "church MBA" is not the mind of Christ. Its spiritual and philosophical roots are in the wisdom of those "who are coming to nothing," whose father is the Devil. May God's Spirit send revival to the church, raise up faithful men to equip truly saved men for the genuine work of ministry, and by grace produce a faithful remnant of pastors who will truly have the mind of Christ. May all God's people pray to that end. References 1. "Myths of the Modern Megachurch," a transcript of Rick Warren's remarks to the Pew Forum's Faith Angle Conference on Religion, Politics, and Public Life, May 23, 2005, Key West, Florida, as viewed on 10/6/2008 at 2. In 1949, Drucker wrote an essay praising his spiritual mentor titled "The Unfashionable Kierkegaard" which is reproduced at (as viewed on 10/6/2008). 3. Rick Warren, "Special Report: The Power of Parishioners" in Forbes magazine, May 7, 2005, as viewed on 10/6/2008 at 10

11 4. Rich Karlgaard, "Purpose Driven," Forbes online, February 16, 2004, as viewed on 10/6/2008 at sac0109 Copyright TeachingtheWord Ministriesmmmmmwww.teachingtheword.org All rights reserved. This article may be reproduced in its entirety only, for non-commercial purposes, provided that this copyright notice is included. We also suggest that you include a direct hyperlink to this article for the convenience of your readers. 11