Are churches properly structured?
At the recent Creative Church Conference at Fellowship Church in suburban Dallas, Perry Noble (Senior Pastor of New Spring Community Church in Anderson, SC) observed, “If you operated an airplane like you operate most churches, you’d have a pilot and his crew in the cockpit, and they know how to fly that plane, they know every instrument — that’s their job.
“But if it was run like most churches, these pilots, or this crew, before they needed to make an important decision, would have to come out of the cockpit and go into first class and meet with a plumber whose cousin was a pilot at one time, an electrician, a housewife, and a doctor and then after they met with those guys, they would take it back to the coach section for a ‘business meeting’ and a vote. Then after they voted they could go implement what the coach section had told them to do. Now my question to my congregation is, ‘How many of you want to fly on that plane?’ But you want to go to that church? That’s why so many churches are crashing and burning — because they are not properly structured.”
Want to weigh in on this question of church structure and organization? Send me your thoughts at feedback@preaching.com. We’ll share some of your feedback in an upcoming issue. (And be sure to note if you do not want your name included with published comments.)