Customers

From Bill Easum

I don't like the analogy of customer. Consumerism is at the heart of the problem in the church. customers and consumers are just another word in the church for entitled people. drop the word customer. Another way to look at it is what are the gifts and stories of our people within the church? Discover the gifts within the church and set those people free to be the ministers of their gifts. Im becoming convinced that felt need evangelism needs to be abandoned. This is not to say that we should not know our community and its needs and respond to those needs. But unless we have a story worth sharing both as a church and as individuals, meeting people's felt needs will not transform people. It is time we started thinking of transformed servants and untransformed gentiles. The goal is not to meet the needs of either church member or gentile, but to help all people discover the work of God within their lives and lead them to becoming in Christ what God created them to be.

When I consult, I do take notice of what ministries will reach unchurched people, but I am careful to say, the role of the church is not to provide services. the role is to use services to transform people. Customers are to be served and sold goods. that is not the ministry of the church. Don't look for customers, look for people who are showing signs of spiritual pregnancy, help them birth their gift and send them out into the world to be ministers or begin ministries at the church that will meet needs and provide a platform for these lay ministers to share their journey of faith.

The "customer" perspective comes from industry and specifically from the "Total Quality Management"approach. Total Quality Management assumes that the organization has something that someone needs. this is not the case with most churches. To improve the quality of something that hardly anyone wants anymore is useless. Now, if your church is thriving and freely without strings offers the grace of God rather than looking for members to support a budget and do what the church needs done, then TQM has a place, but haven't seen too many mainline churches that are worth improving. Instead they need transformation. these are two very different processes. Bill