On Target With Church Business

I do not know Tony Morgan -- but I probably should. Our Youth Minister, Josh Byrd, put me on to Mr. Morgan's website this past week. His article was entitled: "What if Target operated like a Church?" The thoughts were so good I decided to share them with you this week, along with a few observations on my own.

Morgan wrote: If Target did business like the Church:

• Instead of having men’s and women’s clothing departments, they would be called clever names like Impact and Embrace that are completely meaningless to new shoppers.
• Each department in the store would have its own logo to go with their clever name. And, of course, all those logos would be different than the logo on the front of the store.
• The workers in each department would all have their own t-shirts and flyers to promote what’s available in their departments. The youth clothing department would, of course, have the best flyers.
• The store manager and his wife would be pictured on the front page of the website.
• You wouldn’t actually be able to buy anything from the website, but each department would have its own page explaining why they are such a great department and the the information would be several months out-of-date.
• If you are in the shoe department and have a question about flashlights, the shoe department employee has no idea how to help you because it doesn’t have anything to do with shoes.
• Shoppers would be able to start their own departments so that they can buy the items that they want to buy. Don’t worry…that means there will certainly be a clothing department for singles.
• Shoppers would also be able to appoint their own store manager and then serve on committees and boards to tell the store manager what to do.
• The store would only be open one day a week between 9:00 a.m. and noon and on the first Wednesday evening of every month.

Ouch!

Businesses know what their primary purpose is. Good businesses constantly evaluate their actions in view of their primary purpose. Superfluous actions that obscure their mission or inhibit fulfillment of their purpose are discarded.

But not always. Sometimes businesses hold on to outdated models due to tradition or political constraints, or due to self-imposed constraints. When that happens, the purpose suffers -- and you know what happens to those businesses.

The Church, and every congregation should be aware of their primary mission. Every program and ministry should be regularly evaluated on the basis of how they are helping to fulfill the mission.

More about that next week.