When is a Church Really a Business?
Published by Matt Glover December 21st, 2005 in Emerging Missional ChurchIn this post over at Signposts, Lionfish asked the question, “When is a Church really a business?”
Good question, and one that I think relates to the session on innovation at the Forge Intensive a few weeks ago.
In my mind, if a church is nurturing faith as a revenue raising exercise, then it has lost the plot entirely. It’s like charging people to be part of your community - and while local councils are able to do that by charging us rates, the people of God offer an open, free, invitation from God, for that’s the way it was first offered to them. Having said that, the weekly tithe/offering/gift is seen as the same thing by some, and it does go towards the maintenance of the tools the community uses and paying any full time staff it might need. To me however, if we are to love God with our whole being, then that love will also express itself in the way we use our money - the tithe is as good an expression as any of that. Regardless, I would much rather fail to meet budget each year than compromise the calling placed on me (and us) by God to join him in mission.
Anyway, at the Forge intensive, Paul Steele (CEO of Catalyst Innovations) got me thinking about whether a church can have a business rather than be a business. For instance, the Seventh Day Adventist movement owns the breakfast cereal company Sanatarium and generates who knows how much income for their work in the community. Is this something that a church community should look at to raise money for mission?
Paul was quite right in saying that usually we see business people as ‘wallets’ that bank roll what the church does, and forget that they are disciples of Jesus called to be part of the redemptive act of Jesus in the work place. This call is not merely being a good employee or boss, but shaping businesses so they themselves are tools of mission, feeding the hungry, sheltering the poor, caring for the environment and so on.
This approach requires innovative thought and a determination not to fall into the consumerism mindset of most of the business world. The people my interns met at GreenCollect I think are great examples of this. A group of people with an innovative idea to prmote sustainable living to corporate business while at he same time offering emplyment for the long term unemployed in Melbourne’s CBD. This is the work of Jesus in a place most of us have written off!
So, back to Lionfish’s question. I don’t think the church should ever be a business in the money making sense of the term. Should it be involved in business - absolutely. Generating funds for mission in a way that redeems the business world and offers hope to those that have none. This is the work of God in, for me at least, one of the most unlikely contexts I could imagine.
24 Responses to “When is a Church Really a Business?”
- 1 Pingback on Dec 29th, 2005 at 11:09 pm
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Great post.
On the back of just a few post-exam Newcastle Brown Ales (Lionfish is far from perfect) I will make a few initial points.
1) Matt its great that you have brought this topic up.
2) I hope Lance, Phil Baker, Geoff Bullock, Nilmot, Aboslute Truth and Brian Houston all (respectfully) enter into this conversation.
3) I personally regard SDA’s (although trinitarian) as being “outside the pale of orthodoxy” - by their instance that observance of a Sunday sabbath is “the mark of the beast”…therefore maybe not a good example.
You have got me thinking:
1) What is the Biblical precedent that demonstrtes that the Church itself (not Matt 24) can have a business?.
2) You state that “In my mind, if a church is nurturing faith as a revenue raising exercise, then it has lost the plot entirely” How do you know that a Church has become a business and is no longer a (really) Church (ie. What are the obvious signs)?
To me, the most ideal situation would be a business that provides a church organisation with all of the needed funds to carry out its work.
I was looking recently at how Sanitarium began http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanitarium_Health_Food_Company and it would seem to be the ideal way of generating an income stream for a religious organisation.
Now, a closer inspection of how the company operates probably shows there’s some managing director somewhere earning a seven-figure pay packet. I don’t mind that so much, as long as the church workers are not using Sanitarium to profiteer….that is…using their church as a revenue-raising vehicle….or having the appearance of using their church as a personal revenue-raising vehicle (Hillsong, Revenue etc).
At Sonshine FM, Network Mobile Phones was established, to provide a reliable income stream for the station.
My wish would have been that Network Mobile Phones would have made at least 1 million dollars profit each year, to cover the annual running expenses of Sonshine, so Sonshine NEVER was forced to appeal for money or solicit donations.
I HATED having to beg during the annual radiothon, with a PASSION.
I think the problem is, where there is overlap between the revenue raising, and the ministry itself.
A good example is Hillsong and its worship CD/DVD sales.
The best scenario I see for Hillsong, is that it ends up generating 100 per cent of its revenue through Gloria Jeans coffee shops…. so Hillsong never had to mix money and ministry from the pulpit ever again.
The problem of course being, what if the business makes a loss for the year?
Then you go to the church people and say…….’hey, the business made a loss for the year, can we top up some funds to continue to function as a church?’
But in my view, going to the people you’re ministering to ..should be a fallback position, not your first option.
This half-arsed way that churches do it now, has got to go.
Just as church and state should be separated, business and ministry should be separated.
Hi there. I have been totally removed from Hillsong for 10 years, so, I am now totally unqualified to comment on their present operations. Yes, they a business, and it is a pity that there is not a clear line between what the church is compared to what the church does. Just worth noting a few points. As far as I know Gloria Jeans is not connected to Hillsong in any way. Nabi Saleh is an elder, and Peter Irvine has been part of the congregation for 12 or 13 years.
I have had quite a lot of contact with Adventists. There seems to be two movements within the one.. the old conservatives and the emerging contemporary. Sanitarium really does appear to be a seperate entity. It really doesn’t have anything to do with the church being a church, whereas, Hillsongs enormous revenue is gained from what it does a church, peformed by staff and unpaid volunteers.
I think followers of Jesus should be in the act of redemption wherever they are. The businesses that are owned and run by followers of Jesus should be different in some way. If the church decides to get into some areas of business, it should make sure that it reflects the calling of CHrist rather than the calling of profits.
As one of the founding leaders at Ichthus I know how this can work well, and how it can become a giant mess. Our art lounge was not self supporting, and therefore needed volunteers to stay open which made it very unprofessional. It was not cleaned as it should have been, was often messy, not open on time and often customers were not treated well. We meant to provide a “watering hole” for our neighborhood, but the unprofessionalism hurt that. We wanted to provide a venue for local artists and those that used our community studios to show their work, and that worked well. We charged a smaller percentage commission on sales, and that was well received. Bottom line though, not a good business.
Our vintage clothing store, became a disastor as personality problems betweent the primary owners of the store were poorly dealt with by church leadership. This was difficult as one person was a part of the church but had sold have the store to someone who was not a member. This was not a “church” business, but rather we provided some of the start up capital and helped the set up.
The mural company was very succesful, and still is. But was basically a business run by a church member. But it did allow us to do some art in the neighborhood. This was not started by the church, but was associated by name, and was encouraged, and visioned by the church.
Our desire to have the art lounge be used and full caused us to rent out the lounge to a hip hop event, and spoken word event, and a raver art creation, spiritual discovery kind of night. These events were weekly, they became a source of problem in the neighborhood because of graffitti and noise, but provided enough income to keep the art louge open. SOme good ideas, platforms for relationships, but ultimately were not successful as being a blessing to the neighborhood.
The jiu jitsu studio operated seperate from the church, and was run by me and my two non CHristian friends. It was very successful as far as turning out champion fighters, but we didn’t make much money. I used this as a way to make deeper relationships with many people and saw some people come to the Lord through this business, but I would not call it a church.
I believe people that follow Jesus should be encouraged to be generous. I also think they should help to support the local community. But for the most part I believe if the church got over its desires to be big, complex, entities, we wouldn’t need buildings, staff and the like. There is no reason why the church has to operate like a business, and no excuse for tithing to become like a charge to its customers. The church should not be in the entertainment industry.
the rev
Good comments guys. I will give some thought to this…
A verse I came across this week:
2 Corinthians 2:17: “Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God.”
I agree that the Church needs to be funded. Businesses run at arm’s length and offerings from the congregation.
I literally feel angry and sickened when people are seen to be profiting for the activities of the Church. Church should not have the same feel as a health club.
Ministers should have their needs met, but not make excessive incomes from the gig:
2 Corinthians 2:17: “Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God.”
I think it was Oral Roberts who said, “never touch the power, the money, or the glory” Too bad he didn’t follow his own advice.
What do you guys think about this idea:
When we make leading a church a CEO position, or even a counselor position, and we add so much prestige and power to it we put ourselves in a situation where the pastor, leader, has to be “qualified”. When we do this we require them to get masters degree’s, and serve long apprentiships as youth pastors and then assistant pastors. Then the are ready for the big time. When they get there, they are required to keep a large number of people happy, they are required to be on call 24 hours a day, and to speak like the motivational speakers. Now if you compare the salaries to their business contemporaries they actually are making less or at the most the same.
Now I know that it still isn’t right, but is it possible that the very structure of our churches helps to create this problem? When Paul was traveling from church to church they were small groups meeting in homes, not large million dollar a month budget, organizations.
the rev
Rev,
You make some good points.
Just a few of thoughts:
I would agree that in some circumstances that skilled, high calibre people are required to lead large Churches. I believe these people have to be well remunerated (honoured). Biblically speaking, St Paul gave some guidelines – ‘worthy of double honour’.
I may be wrong, but I would take that to mean twice the average rate of pay…if the average man’s wage is say $60K, then I do not see a problem with a high calibre Pastor making twice that – straight salary. I know that many good Pastors in Churches make much less.
Personally, I have a good solid work history, three degrees, completing my Masters, and have been selected to lead a Programme worth $10M+ over the next three years. I’m on the equivalent of “double honour”. I am content with that…as I was on a lower salary. For me its not about the money.
There are some in the corporate sphere and churches alike whose salaries represent a form of ‘gluttony’. I was inspired recently by a documentary on the Ship Building industry on South Korea. This has largely taken the economy from rice paddies to heavy industry in the space of one generation.
Interestingly, whilst most western countries might think that they are competitive due to “cheap labour” that was not the case. The Ship Builder “workers” were paid the equivalent of $US70K. At the same time the CEO was paid $US150K….not the $USMillions that an equivalent CEO in Western countries may receive for equivalent positions. (Maybe its not labour that is ‘killing’ our manufacturing businesses – rather the costs of Executive remuneration).
Like highly paid CEO’s, Religious leaders who make ‘mega-bucks’ are surely at risk of being out of touch of the needs of the majority of their congregation, society and indeed humanity,
It is easy to boast about giving (say) 25% of your salary away when you may be earning $250K+ per year (especially if much of it is given to tax-effective ministries’). At this level of income you are out of touch with the needs of your people.
A Church is not a Business, and a Business is not a Church.
If I could convince our own customers that God would bless them for giving us 10% share of their wallet for the rest of their lives, if they ‘bought’ our product – I would be promoted to CEO as well. It would not be ethical, and I could not do that…in Business, nor in Church.
Pastors, like monks and nun’s etc – choose a religious life. To serve God and not money. In many respects the mindset of a CEO is not the mindset of a Religious Leader.
I am think whose spiritual advice would ‘profit’ me more? To listen to an excessively remunerated motivational speaker who asks for 10% of my income and charges $100+ for a conference fee…or spend 20 minutes chatting over coffee with the Nun two doors down that spends most of her life working with refugees on a ‘fly-in, fly-out’ basis.
Bro, I actually disagree. I don’t think he should be making $120,000 a year. It makes sense skills and requirement wise, but we are in an upside down kingdom. I think the pastor should make enough to live in a upper working class lower middle class lifestyle. But that is just my thoughts.
My question is, don’t you think the way we structure and do church adds to this screwed up system? How did the grass roots organization that Jesus started, that had being the servant of all as its leadership call, become what we have now?
the rev
“Don’t you think the way we structure and do church adds to this screwed up system”
Yes and No Rev.
It can and does, but it does not have to, and should not.
I wil answer this on the weekend.
Thanks for the comments folks - good to have you here.
Lionfish:
I used to think the SDA movement was a cult, but like Geoff has said, there seems to be extremes under the same title. At one extreme, the cultish behaviour and beliefs. The other is not really any different fromthe rest of us except they meet on Saturday. One of my fellow Forge interns this year was an SDA pastor and I wouldn’t have picked it in a million years.
I suppose you could say Paul’s tentmaking activities could be a business, but perhaps it is more corrct to say it was a way of supporting himself. But I’m not sure that we need to find a Biblical precendent for eveything the faith comunity does - as long as the activity doesn’t contradict scripture then it’s fine. For instance, is there a Biblical precendent for a church to run a soccer competition for refufgees? Not really, but it helps in being pastoral, incarnational and whatever other label you like ot give it.
Some obvious signs of a church that has become a business. Well, for one it would look like a business. The leadership structure would resemble that of a corporate business, with the associated power and influence resting on the shoulders of the leadership team. There’s a church just near me who tries to ‘hide’ this by calling all of it’s staff “pastor”. So there’s an IT pastor, a maintenance pastor and so on (something like 50 or so pastors!) with many of them having nothing to do with dealing with the nurture of faith in the people of God.
ANother sign would be the emphasis on money and giving. I hate the offering sermon…I still think giving is a part of discipleship, but when a certain amount is demanded/persuaded from the front it always sounds dodgy to me. The story of the widow putting everything she had into the plate comes to mind. I think Jesus is more speaking against the system that required her to give everything rather than using her as an example of how we should give.
The business churches I have experienced all feel a bit mechanical too. You have to do certain things (ie take an offering) and there seems little freedom to follow what the Spirit might be saying. There is also a lot of control from the ‘top’ with little allowance for risk taking.
But at the end of the day, I have to say much of what I would use to class a church that has become a business is simply based on feeling. It just doesn’t feel right…
I’m just waiting for the day that one of these churches becomes a publically listed complany and we can buy shares!
I’m paid full time as a pastor of a Baptist church. The role is not particularly traitional and it’s difficult to define. A mix of emerging missional stuff, traditional pastoral care stuff, discipleship training and so on. My salary is based on 90% of the average wage of the area. Thus, on paper at least, there should be half the population that earn mre and half that earn less. It’s not heaps, but enough to survivie on - though I think we’ll struggle a bit when the boys enter their school years. I also work part time as a cartoonist and my wife works a couple of days a week too.
SOmtimes I feel as if I’m an excuse for people in my congregation to get out of some of the hard stuff. Matt’s paid to do this, so I’ll let him do it. But when it comes down to it, most have recognised certain gifts that I can contribute to the community and so my pay is a form of support so I CAN do what I do. They don’t pay me to do. they pay me so I can. Kind of like supporting an overseas missionary but in a local context - not an employee/employer relationship.
Anyway, I’m still grappling with the idea of a church having a business (not being a business) and would be interested in any other stories of successful ones if you have any.
A very merry Christmas Matt! May you enjoy the season - despite its commercialism
Lf - I am a bit surprised at your take on SDA’s. I think you’ll find there are plenty who would slip nicely into your meat and two veg evangelical church - then again is that a good thing
G’day Hamo. We had a great Christmas day - hope you did too.
My wife and I had an ordinary experience with the SDA church a few years ago. It was the first contact we’d ever really had and they fell in the ‘cult’ variety. They held strongly to the teaching of Ellen White, regarding them as inspired as scripture plus they held the theology that was devised after the ‘great disappointement’ when Christ failed to return after one of White’s predictions. We were going to hell and we and had our end times theologies all messed up to boot.
Anyway, happy to say there’s been more positive experiences since then. The SDA church actually has quite a large influence in our community through schools and the like and they seem to be doing a good job.
Having that guy in my Forge group certainly helped too.
Matt
I share your sense of discomfort wih the call to tithe more. However, I can say that during such a sermon I committed to raise my tithe to a more appropriate level. So it did the job it was supposed to do. But when it comes across as a ’sales pitch’ it doesn’t sit well with me.
I think it comes down to the delivery of WHY we should tithe, not because of obligation, but because we are thankful for what God has given us.
Although this is going off on another tangent, this talk of tithing raises the other question of electronic tithing. More than half our church (including my wife and I) now tithe through a periodic EFTPOS/Credt card payment. Are we separating ourselves from the conscoiusness of giving back to God by setting up an auto payment, rather than the weekly process of dropping the money into the plate?
I am a more reliable giver as a result of the auto-payment, but I sometimes feel it would help me think about ‘giving back to God’ if I had to phyically take the money out of the bank each week.
G’day Jeff!
If you can be bothered wading through all the comments, there’s a good discussion on tithing happening over at Signposts.
http://www.signposts.org.au/index.php/archives/2005/12/12/on-tithing/
An interesting thing one of the other local churches does for people such as you and I - they print out cards and have them laminated that say something like “My weekly gift blah blah” (I’ll find the correct wording). People who tithe electronically then place the laminated card in the plate so they can still have a physical action as part of their giving.
Seems a bit weird to me, but it works for some I guess.
Hamo, I did alot of reading on SDA theology in my younger days (I went through a searching journey). We also had some (lovely) SDA’s live next door…they knew I was a Christian…but would give me ‘books’ to read.
Books with dark covers that looked like Stephen King novels and were all about America rising up from its lamb-like origins and making everyone worship on a Sunday…this was within the last five years or so..And Lionfish is still scarred.
There are some more liberal SDA’s, but again as a Church we need to look under the bonnet and ‘pressure test’ the theology.
Back to the topic at hand.
Haha! Sorry to hear that LF
My experience has been nothing but positive and encouraging. I have been surprised by how much we seem to hold in common - and I have asked questions
I guess there are heretical Baptists, Penties and SDA’s all over the place.
I think that the business question here is being mixed with the tithing question. Matt says that a sign of a business church would be the emphasis on money and giving. However, I think this is a totally other (and also often objectional) question, but not one about a business issue. I could conceive for example of a church which had a high emphasis on giving and took living sacrificially as a discipline which would be totally okay, so long as the leadership of the church was committed to living that way as well.
The question of business is different for me. I don’t have any objection to churches finding alternative means of funding themselves, as long as there was an inherent value in the work of the business itself. In fact, I think new models of church need to look at radical ideas for being financially sustainable in a time when institutional loyalty and support is no longer the bedrock it once was. Like Lance said above, the problem comes when there is an overlap between ministry and business. However, I think that the objection that most people have to the business of Hillsong and the like is the commodification of christianity and worship as well as the prosperity model of it, rather than the simple fact that it is a business per se.
At Northern, one of our longer term plans is to explore how we could co-exist with, partner or participate in a cafe (a real cafe with real coffee). It would help create a sense of community for the people who come through our building every day as well as providing an opportunity to create some work training schemes. We don’t have any problem with the idea of the fact that we would be running a business (so long as it doesn’t make too much of a loss) but I would have problems with some other businesses that might be suggested.
Tithing. Business. SDA’s…
Who says that themes are getting mixed up in ths thread!
If it wasn’t 50 degrees C in my study at the moment, I’d start some new threads…suffering meltdown though. Maybe tomorrow.
Phew!
When a condition of being a member is based on whether you Tithe.
Don’t pay the subscription (tithe) cannot be a member of this church.
Speaking from personal experience
I wonder why the NT after christ died only talks of Offerings. hmmmm Maybe their is a reason for this
Hi,
Did anyone see the hillsong mini doc on ABC?I think you can buy the story from ABC.I have recently been involved in starting a Christian school. And in doing so persued many different ideas as to how to create a structure in which it will operate. We settled upon a corporation type model for the following reason.That no indiviual will profit from the school in any way. Now I know a church is a different entity all together. But I have to be honest and say. I think it is a fair way to run it with individuals themselves not profiting. I see money as a type of bartering. We trade our time for credits (money). Now with this in mind,I think it is only fair that everybody can contribute their time to help with the everday running of a church. But in many cases not everybody can contribute for many reasons. And I can see that giving money to the church is merely a way of giving my time, or fair share to the running of a church. Brian houston stated on the hillsong documentary I previously mentioned. That he receives a wage equivalent to the average school teacher in the area. Other ways in which these individuals make money for example, writing books, royalties on music etc, this income does not come out of any money tithed to the church in my limited understanding. I refuse to join the growing band wagon of Christians who have decided to condemn hillsong. Will all the money they have as a church, they can, and do do more for God than most of us. The hillsong hating is just tall poppy syndrome at its worst. Hillsong music has helped me focus on God through some of the toughest times of my life, & I believe God really does use them. And has blessed them. So maybe we should give them a break.
Firstly I would like to say I was raised a Seveth Day Adventist and I still believe in the Faith. However I stopped going to church When the Fremantle Seventh Day Adventist church Spit the Service between Youth and Oldies (I didn’t Agree with that) So I attended Cottesloe Seventh Day Adventist Church. I have stopped going due to Volunteer (SES & Surf Lifesaving) then work commitments. As I know the Sanitarium is a Seperate Entitity to the Church and it Runs it’s self. As far as I am aware the Sanitarium was founded by The Seventh Day Adventist Church I have gone to their website in their words (Exactly)
Sanitarium Gives its Profits for Charitable Purposes
Sanitarium Health Food Company was registered as Australia’s first health food company in April 1898. It was established by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia to promote and produce plant-based health foods based on its belief that plant-based diets are designated by God, our Creator, for the health of the human race1. Worldwide, the Church operates health food industries and health-care services based on this philosophy.
Sanitarium’s enduring mission is to “inspire and resource our community to experience happy, healthy lives”. As such the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and Sanitarium continue to share an explicit common reason and purpose of existence.
Sanitarium is a leader in producing foods of the highest nutritional value and appeal. It invests significant resources into community nutrition education through its Sanitarium Nutrition Services, providing unbiased advice and consultation to both health professionals and the community. The Company is a generous supporter of the community through charity partnerships.
IN RELATION TO SANITARIUM’S TAX STATUS IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THE FOLLOWING:
Sanitarium is proud to be a part of Australia’s essential charitable sector
The Company pays all local, state and federal taxes that apply to Australian companies apart from company profit tax.
100% of Sanitarium’s profits are given to the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Australia, for its charitable activities which include many projects that benefit the community in Australia.
These include health education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, hospitals, educational facilities, financial support for the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), as well as many family services and community projects.
There is no commercial advantage to Sanitarium from its taxation status. An unlimited tax deduction is available to all companies and individuals in Australia that donate their income to an approved charity.
Sanitarium Health Food Company is 100% Australian owned and operated, all profits stay in Australia.
Sanitarium contributes to Australia’s economy through the employment of 1500 Australian’s, the purchase of Australian wheat and other raw materials, and working with many industry associated Australian businesses.
1 Genesis 1:29
As for Ministers I believe they should earn an Average wage of about $40000 a year which is what I earn.
As for those ministries on TV I firmly believe they are all about Profit. When I was going to fremantle Adventist church there was a guy who out of his own pocket video’d the surmans and took them to members who could not make it to church due to illness (This was done at No expense to the viewer) One could also go to the library at the church and view them as well. (i.e.) Loan them out as you would a book at any other library.
There also in any good church needs to be a commitee to set up goals and direction. I may be a bit biased here but the Seventh Day Adventist church is how a church should be set up. I do not believe in confessing ones sins to a Priest or Father etc as the Catholic Church Does as only Christ Jesus can forgive sins thru true and repentful prayer.
Anyway that’s all for now.