The Church is Not a Business
The Rev. Zach Zehnder has recently posted this video in which he makes an argument for changing the way we train and form pastors based on his experience as a businessman.
Here is why I think he is wrong.
First of all, I don’t think Pastor Zehnder is in the strongest position to influence the LCMS regarding theology and theological training. The congregation he serves is King of Kings in Omaha. This is the parish that our own Dr. Eckardt wrote about in which a “consecration” was done by the lady vocalist of the praise band singing a paraphrase of the Verba Christi while the pastor popped open his snack-pack communion and slurped it down. The congregation themselves put the video up.
This practice goes beyond differences of opinions regarding aesthetics, preferences, or surface issues. This is not a mistake, like attributing a verse to Ezekiel in a sermon when it should have been Isaiah. This is not a lapse of judgment, like deciding to commune an ELCA member on the fly because the pastor didn’t want to make a scene at the communion rail. The planning and execution of a worship service in which a lady layman sings the Words of Institution is a reflection of a fundamental theological disagreement about the nature of the church, the sacraments, and the holy ministry. And the fact that this happened nearly nine months ago with no public statement from anyone involved reflects a broken system of oversight and discipline in our synod.
Ironically, the pastors who are responsible for this abomination are seminary-trained, formed, and certified.
And this is my only critique of the way in which we currently form pastors: not that it is too time-consuming, too difficult, and too expensive, but rather that we could use additional academic and spiritual rigor, and a more thorough and ongoing screening of candidates to ensure that they 1) believe what we believe, 2) know what the heck they are doing, and 3) are not going to be subversive when they get to the parish. Of course, “cooperate and graduate” is always going to be a thing, which is why we need a better structure of oversight and discipline so that it doesn’t take years (or decades) to remove a pastor from the roster for repeated and flagrant deviations from Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions.
But moving on to Pastor Zehnder’s comparison of the church to a business, there are fatal flaws in his reasoning. Now we pastors can indeed learn from the world of business - especially in areas of time-management, leading volunteers, managing projects, stewardship of resources, modern tools to streamline communications, etc. Our own Fr. Petersen has written several such observations.
That said, we simply cannot run the church as a business. They are not the same.
Speaking as someone who believes in the mechanism of the market in the secular world and its unparalleled ability to reduce poverty, encourage the production of resources that people want and need through peaceful cooperation, and make them available at the best cost through entrepreneurship and competition - it simply must be said: the church is not a manufacturer and seller of widgets.
As the great economist Ludwig von Mises observed, in the market, the consumer is the boss. For the desires and wants of buyers impel the sellers to adapt to the demands, and find the most efficient way to supply them - with the price mechanism providing feedback for the manufacturing process. And whether or not the entrepreneur is successful is quantifiable and measurable in profits and losses.
But not so for the Gospel.
At best, we can look at the statistic known as BITP (a crass metric of the number of persons in the pews - or chairs, as some of our more entrepreneurial types might have), but what does this really demonstrate? Is Joel Osteen more “successful” as a “church entrepreneur” than the average LCMS congregation which may only have some 50 people on a Sunday?
And so, when business metrics are applied to the church, it inevitably becomes a game of numbers of people rather than doctrinal or biblical fidelity, hence things like praise band gals taking over the duty of “consecration.” If that’s what the consumers demand, so goes entrepreneurial wisdom, then the supplier had better give that to them, or the competition will “win.”
And this application of entrepreneurial concepts to the church is nothing new. The entire “church growth movement” (CGM), which goes back decades, has taken this tack. As a particularly crass example, former Lutheran pastor and “church growth” expert the Rev. Walt Kallestad coined the term “Entertainment Evangelism” in 1996, thinking he could grow the church by entertaining them the way professional sports leagues do. He and his 12,000-member congregation (which has since dropped to a paltry 10,000) left Lutheranism for greener pastures in the Assemblies of God. The buzzwords may change, but the marketing methodology (and the theology) goes back to Simon Magus and Johann Tetzel. The Pneumatology goes back to Montanus. There is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
The church is different from a business for many reasons. First, we are not selling anything. What we have to offer, we give away. This removes the price system and the feedback of the consumer from the equation, not to mention the profit motive. In fact, we don’t have consumers and we don’t have customers. The pastoral metaphor is that we have a flock. We are not in competition with one another to have a bigger flock, but rather, there is one flock and one Good Shepherd (John 10:16) under whom we work. Jesus established the means by which we give what we have to offer, and the means by which is it received: Word and sacrament.
Moreover, there is great hostility to the Gospel. We can’t take that opposition the way a secular entrepreneur would and make changes. The world reacted harshly to “New Coke,” and the company reverted back to “Coke Classic.” The world hates the Good News of Jesus, but we don’t revert back to Paganism. We continue to offer the Gospel - delivered using the humble means of preaching and sacraments - whether there is high demand or not (2 Timothy 4:2).
What entrepreneur or businessman would instruct his “sales force” to handle objections by cursing the ones who refuse to “buy," as Jesus instructs the seventy-two to do if they are not received (Luke 10:10-11)? Unlike Detroit or Hollywood or Madison Avenue, we don’t look for guidance as to what we offer based on focus groups or what we think will be popular. We have what people need - even if they don’t think they need it. And frankly, most will reject what the church has to offer. The road is indeed narrow (Matthew 7:13-14). But by remaining faithful, by persisting in keeping watch over our doctrine, we can save ourselves and our hearers (1 Timothy 4:16), even if it is a remnant.
Pastor Zehnder downplays the supernatural nature of the church: “Are we going to listen to the market?” he asks. We should be listening only to the Word of God - which, like the church, is a third-article gift that comes from the Holy Spirit. Pastor Zehnder sounds increasingly frightened by the decreasing numbers, and desperate, perhaps like those who stood with their backs to the Red Sea as Pharaoh’s army bore down on the church. Now is not the time to lose faith and hope, to look to take measures into our own hands (like Sarah offering Abraham her slave to impregnate as an innovative way to produce a promised child). Rather, we should resist the urge to see the church as a widget factory and those who hear our preaching as consumers who are choosing Burger King or McDonald’s.
Our Lord Himself was hated by the world, and most of His hearers rejected Him. The Reformation also faced near-extinction during the siege of Magdeburg. Even when the rest of the Lutherans were willing to abandon the faith for a hope of survival, the pastors of Magdeburg clung to our confession even when the days were dark indeed.
I believe that our problem is that we are too cozy with the world, and we want too badly to be liked. We justify it by creating a theology of winsomeness that smooths off the rough edges of Christianity to make it more palatable to unbelievers. We see the more liberal denominations sacrificing God’s Word itself on the altar of the god and goddess of Popularity and Acceptance, and we are not honest if we deny that the temptation exists for us as well. We need to pay heed to the Scriptures! The world is not our ally. In fact, it hates us (1 John 3:13). We should not ape the world, thinking we will win over the world. What actually happens is when the church becomes friendly to the world, the church herself is subverted, not the world. This is why our Lord forbade the marrying of foreign wives who worshiped foreign gods (Deuteronomy 7:3-4). For that kind of evangelism doesn’t Christianize the world, but rather Paganizes the church.
There is a remnant out there that wants what the church has to offer. And ironically, by not watering down the Gospel, by not tailoring what and how we proclaim it to appease the hearer, I believe that we will actually interest more people than we would by just being one more fake institution that markets and manipulates. Rather, the church has something that is timeless and not for sale. It can’t be bought and sold on a market. It can’t be changed with the times. It is delivered by preaching and by the administration of the sacraments. And the sacraments are boring: water, bread, and wine. We don’t offer Perrier, French bread, and Dom Perignon. We offer simple elements, as well as the Word that makes the sacraments effective - along with the faith that receives the Gospel with the elements. And while entrepreneurs may bemoan the lack of innovation and may seek new ways to make the sacraments sexy (like maybe the praise band girl “consecrating” the elements), the church simply does what she has always done: what Jesus has commanded, and what our forebears in the ancient church and the Reformation movement have received from the past and handed on to us.
As for pastoral formation, this is also not a matter of the mass-production of widgets. Pastoral formation is also a third-article matter that involves the Holy Spirit working through the means of the Word to mold a disciple into a successor to the apostles. The entrepreneur’s temptation to reduce the production line into something shorter, cheaper, and easier - so as to pass the savings on to the consumer and pocket more profit for himself - just doesn’t work in the context of the bride of Christ.
In fact, what we ultimately offer is love. It is not for sale. Those who turn “love” into a commodity that can be bought, sold, and marketed are known as “prostitutes.” It is a great temptation to treat the blood of Christ as such a marketable commodity, whether to enrich ourselves or to apply the blessings of capitalism to the kingdom of God by selling that which is given by grace. And it was this very mercantile paradigm that the Reformation opposed.
Pastor Zehnder is trying to de-radicalize Christianity. For indeed, our faith is shocking to the unbelieving world. It is a tough pill to swallow. There is no way to make the medicine go down with a spoonful of sugar - at least not with honesty and integrity. The Gospel cannot be sold by means of a bait-and-switch, or made more attractive by new packaging and branding based on focus-group feedback.
Jesus Himself decries the entrepreneurial model of evangelism with the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-23). For what entrepreneur would direct a farmer to scatter seeds on highways, in rocky soil, and among thorns and thistles? Entrepreneurial agriculture would see this as a waste. Better to test the soil and concentrate one’s sowing there rather than sow where we know that 75% of the seeds will die. This reminds me of a large postcard I once received some 30 years ago asking for donations to an LCMS church plant. It was sold as a good investment, because it was in a rich suburb where lots of young families lived. Indeed, this was good worldly entrepreneurship, but poor ecclesiastical stewardship. The marketeers apparently counseled the upstart church to avoid the old and the poor. They are not a good ROI (return on investment). But the parabolic sower ignores the entrepreneurs and just sows “to men who like or like it not” as Professor Franzmann taught us to sing (LSB 586). In fact, Jesus said to “proclaim the gospel to the whole creation,” (Mark 16:15) without regard to efficiency or principles of husbandry or entrepreneurship.
And again, the world first hated Jesus, and the world will hate us (John 15:18) - all the syrupy talk about “those who do not yet know Jesus” notwithstanding. Our job is not to be entrepreneurial, but rather confessional - meaning to be faithful “same-sayers” of what was passed along to us. The measure of our fidelity is not in BITP, not ROI, nor in dollars in the budget, but rather in our truthful proclamation of the Word and proper administration of the sacraments. And in the short term, we may grow, or we may shrink.
Our Lord promises to be with us in good times and bad times, in feast and in famine. Where two or three gather, He is there with us (Matthew 18:20). And even without an elaborate sound system, spotlights, rock band, and showmanship, Jesus comes to us in the miracle of an altar, bread and wine, and a pastor, who, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, intones the Words of our Lord that accomplish just what they promise. It doesn’t look impressive to the world - but we live not by sight but by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7).
Let us avoid the temptation to be entrepreneurial. Let us instead be faithful.