Budget Cuts and Freezes
Salary Cuts and Freezes
Lay-offs
Doors closing… for good.
The church world doesn’t look all that different than the business world right about now. Well, except for the sermon series that the church can teach on faith in crisis to offer hope to the congregation.
We teach and basically throw around verses that remind us that all things will work together for good in the plans that God has for us while renewing our strength as we mount on eagles wings around the strong tower.
And while I bleed my sarcasm on the page, in all honesty I believe those promises. God will work for the good of those who love him. He does give the weary strength. And he is a refuge in the midst of the storm.
However, until the clouds disperse, what are we doing while we wait? Is your church called to cower under the pews until the storm clears, or perhaps is it time to leap out and take some risks?
The current issue of Business Week features the story of Dan Vasella, the CEO of Novartis.
No doubt, most of you have never heard of Dan Vasella or the company he leads. Novartis is a prescription drug company that has defied the competition and against all odds have come out on top. Vasella has lead Novartis to taking some risks, some risks that perhaps were seen as gambles. But these risks have paid off…
to the tune of $3.7 BILLION in revenues last year for just ONE of its cancer drugs.
What’s the risk though? Isn’t true that prescription drug companies make money hand over fist these days? Yes. They do. However, Novartis has risen to Number Four in the industry (ahead of Mereck, Astrazeneca, and Johnson&Johnson) by creating drugs for diseases that may only affect a relatively small number of people, but diseases for which those drugs were desperately needed.
“Vasella’s boldest move came in 2002, when he abandoned the traditional drug-development model. He declared that Novartis would investigate only diseases for which new drugs were desperately needed and where the genetics of the tart illnesses were well understood. While other CEOs saw the pursuit of rare diseases as commercial suicide, Vasella believed many of the illnesses shared the genetic underpinnings with more common ailments.”
Vasella is a leader changing the way his industry will do business in the future.
In the following article, “Hunting for Growth,” the author expresses what Vasella is doing:
“…the Great Recession might be one of those rare periods when the wisest move a manager can make is suspend his natural instincts.”
Vasella made the choice of not being a prisoner to the status quo and expected methods for doing business. Rather, he decided to change them and create different expectations.
What does this have to do with ministry?
No doubt, most of us are dealing with decreased or stagnant budgets. We have a job to do, but resources are such that we need to get creative. We may need to risk and leap out in faith to change the way our churches have done ministry for the past several years.
Every year for the past several, we throw some large-scale celebration events that took up a good portion of our budget. They were fabulous events, but we need to watch our wallets and tighten our belts. We’re planning on taking these events and rethinking the way we can stage them. From volunteer celebrations to our family Christmas shindig, we need to save some money, but we can’t loose the excellence. In fact, I’m hoping that by starting from scratch and changing the rules, we’ll end up with better events that impact more people.
Rather than embark on another portable campus, our congregation approved the purchase of a building for our next campus. This was a risk. We’re not launching this campus until 2010. However, the elders saw that the price was right (read: VERY inexpensive) and the location is PERFECT. We pray the risk pays off with a successful launch that will increase the ministry potential of Ada Bible Church. Exciting times ahead, for sure!
Risk and faith need to merge. We can fear, or we can trust. We can view our situations with fresh perspectives and risk the comfortable in favor of the better. If you really think God is asking you to jump off the cliff, seriously, JUMP! The risk will be worth it.
How have you needed to rethink your ministry in light of the changing economy? What risks are you taking? I’d love to hear your ideas!
Filed under: leadership | Tagged: ada bible church, children's ministry, children's ministry blog, church blogs, dan scott, dan vasella, danscott77, great recession, kid min, kidminlife, ministry blogs, ministry opportunities, rethinking church, rethinking ministry, risk in ministry, risky church, taking risks in the economic downturn
Dan:
Incredibly good, well written, and challenging article. Thanks for sharing this, it makes me think in some great directions, as well as reminds me of things I already “know” but easily loose site of in the face of fear.
Hope you are well, it’s been to long – keep up the great work!
Of course, sometimes the risks needed aren’t even financially constrained. They’re just things that we struggle to change because they’re different than “the norm”.
Tack a budget crisis on top of the vision crisis and you’ve got yourself some fear that will keep the faithful from leaping….
Good words, Dan. Thanks.
And your road trip CD is on your desk
Dan,
I’ve been reading your blog for a while now but have never commented. I’m glad to hear that you Ada is taking some risk. Here’s one for you. I just spent 3-1/2 hours in a room with 13 female volunteers brainstorming some changes for our children’s ministry. We’re moving into a new building in August. While most would say keep things the same until after your move, we’ve decided to mix everything up.
While I’ve already announced schedule changes for the new year, we decided to change the way we teach kids in such a way that I’m going to have to have about 50% more volunteers than our current numbers. On top of that, I’m going to be asking 1/2 of those volunteers to make a 3 year commitment, instead of just 1.
We’re doing this because we’ve made a commitment to elevate both community and creativity. Thanks for being an example of excellence through your blog.
BTW – if you want to send your muralist our way, we’d love the help. =)
Great discussion. We, too, look at things through a different “lens” right now. Our attenders want to see us be wise with resources, especially in this economic season.
The risks we take are in the areas of missions. Our goal for the next 2-5 years is to focus on a single economically challenged area in our community. Not with the intent of throwing dollars that direction in order to ’scratch and itch’. But to focus an inch wide geographically and go a mile deep relationally. This doesn’t take a lot of dollars. It takes people. People changed by Christ that have a desire to see others changed by Christ.
If the risk pays off, we’ve changed an area of our city, and innumerable people on both sides of the playing field.
We’re actually taking the opposite risk right now – we moved out of our building that was an enormous financial drain and are going portable once again. We are seeing all kinds of creativity in our congregation as we try to worship God and share Christ with our community in new ways. It’s a huge risk for us but exciting to see where God will lead. Thank you so much for your encouragement in this area.