The Founding Story
It all started with a text message from my long-time friend, Ed, in late September of 2017: “Got time to chat later today?” So chat we did. Ed had just opted for early retirement from his long-time gig in pharmaceutical IT leadership, and felt like God was leading him to pursue his “next” – serving as a Christian life coach for business leaders trying to make sense of – well, life. He wanted me to come along on the ride, and help him revise, test and execute his ideas.
Little did Ed know that his invitation got my own wheels spinning as well. I was also in tech at the time. In 2003, I launched a garage business that provided streaming services for collegiate athletic departments.
Over the course of nearly 15 years, Stretch Internet grew from the garage to a team of 20-plus, while eventually serving nearly 600 colleges and universities across North America. We worked with schools of all sizes, but our niche became NCAA Division II and III and NAIA schools. (If there’s ever a Jeopardy category called “Small School Mascot Names,” I’m gonna rake. “For $600, they’re known as the Geoducks." “Who is Evergreen State College?" Thank you very much.)
Changing times
But times, they were a-changin’. As we rolled into the second half of the last decade, competition increased. Live streaming became ubiquitous. What used to be a specialized industry that required unique expertise could now be leveraged for free through other platforms. One of the scariest days of my life? When YouTube announced they would offer live streaming for free. (Side note: we survived – and actually thrived – but that’s a story for another day.)
But underneath the evolving business variables was a restlessness for my own “next.” And, Ed’s story surfaced that tension. Why not me too? How can God use me in new and exciting ways? So, within weeks of my intersection with Ed’s life-changing moment, I prayerfully began my own journey. I enlisted with an M&A (mergers and acquisitions) broker, and began planning for an exit from the business I had birthed 15 years earlier.
On May 2, 2018, the journey concluded. We completed a sale of Stretch Internet to a global venture capital firm based in Boston. (Coincidentally – or probably not – my wife and I had decided the night before that our family would move to Las Vegas in the summer of 2018 to accept a “divine call” for her to lead the vocal music department at Faith Lutheran Middle School and High School.)
Can ministry and business intersect?
It was during those crazy months that a question kept popping back into my head: why don’t/can’t churches and other Christian organizations think (and act) more like businesses? I understand ministry. I’m a pastor’s kid. My wife is a Lutheran school teacher. I’ve served as an Elder, and in various leadership roles at churches in California, Arizona and Nevada. I’m on the Board of Regents at Concordia University Irvine.
But I also get business. I helped lead Stretch Internet to double-digit revenue growth in 14 out of 15 years, and garnered recognition on the Inc. 5000 list in 2017 as one of the fastest growing privately owned businesses in the country. I implemented a system of strategic planning and business organization that fueled that growth, and ultimately led to a successful exit.
Over the years, I’ve seen too many pastors and ministry leaders once inspired by the passion of ministry now worn down by the weight of the “business” side of things – organizing and managing their teams, running meetings, executing plans (or even developing plans!), intentionally collecting stakeholder feedback, crafting messages, etc. In too many cases, one of two things happens:
the leader ignores the “business” side of things, continues to focus on day-to-day “ministry,” and the organization stagnates, or,
the leader tries to figure out the business side of things, but gets overwhelmed by the additional demands and suffers stress and burn-out.
So, the “problem” (a requisite for almost any new idea) became clear to me: many leaders of Christian organizations are becoming worn down – or simply discouraged – because they don’t have either the time, the desire or the knowledge to help their organizations think more like businesses. The numbers don’t lie:
•75% of pastors report being “extremely stressed” or “highly stressed” (1)
•90% work between 55 to 75 hours per week (2)
•On average, seminary trained pastors last only five years in church ministry (2)
•91% have experienced some form of burnout in ministry and 18% say they are “fried to a crisp right now” (3)
•80% believe their pastoral ministry has negatively affected their families and 33% said it was an outright hazard (1)
•53% of pastors feel that seminary or Bible college did not prepare them adequately (2)
•90% say they have not received adequate training to meet the demands of ministry (2)
Joshua, the businessman
It’s taken a couple years since that business exit for me to fully flesh out the ideas that will now be known collectively as Seven Marches. Seven Marches as in the story of Joshua and the walls of Jericho. Go read Joshua chapters 1-6 when you get a chance. When I re-read that section of scripture in early 2019, it dawned on me that Joshua was a businessman! No, he didn’t wear a suit and tie or sit through Zoom calls, but look at what he DID do…
•He provided a road map for his people (1:11)
•He executed strategies to achieve momentum (2:1; 3:14-17)
•He organized and led effective “meetings” (1:10-11; 3:9; 4:4)
•He carefully crafted messages for his “stakeholders” (1:12-15; 3:5)
•He effectively led his people (4:8, 6:6)
Of course, there’s another prominent element in the story of Joshua and the fallen walls of Jericho – a deep, profound trust in God and His plan. God commanded Joshua not once, not twice, but THREE times to be strong and courageous. God knew the mission wouldn’t be easy, but he uniquely equipped Joshua with the abilities to fulfill the mission.
This isn’t meant to be a theological treatise, but Colossians 1:16 makes it pretty clear to me that ALL things – and best practices and principles used in business are inevitably included in “all” things – were created by God to be used for His glory. I come from a Lutheran background, and we like to call these “First Article gifts” (as in the first article of the Apostle’s Creed) – those natural, earthly gifts bestowed on us by God the Father.
So, why can’t we unapologetically integrate these “gifts" into ministry? Why can’t we, for example, consider how churches would interact with our worshipers differently if we viewed them as “customers?” Why can’t we consider how public relations strategies can lead to more effective communication and messaging? Why can’t we create structured rubrics that help us hire, evaluate and fire (yes, Christian organizations should fire!) people?
A new perspective
In short, Seven Marches is designed to marry the world of business with the world of ministry. Our mission statement says it all: “Equipping ministry leaders with business principles for missional momentum." So, I’ve spent the past 18 months or so developing the mPower Model, a ministry system comprised of – you guessed it – seven modules or “marches” designed to help churches and Christian non-profits operate more like effective businesses.
Nearly every consultant or coach in the “church improvement” space has a background in full-time church work. I don’t. And I’d like to think that’s a good thing in this case. The Seven Marches framework will introduce new ideas and new ways of thinking. Rather than looking to other Christian organizations for best practices, we’ll pull ideas and concepts from Disney and Amazon and Intel. We’ll infuse ideas from “business" authors like Daniel Pink and Chip and Dan Heath. We’ll tap into the knowledge and experience of business leaders like Ed Catmull (Pixar CEO), Marc Randolph (co-founder of Netflix) and Bob Iger (former Disney CEO).
At the end of the day? It’s my hope that the concepts we implement help the walls holding back so many ministries come a tumblin’ down!
Sources:
(1) David Ross and Rick Blackmon’s “Soul Care for Servants” workshop reported the results of their Fuller Institute of Church Growth research study in 1991 and other surveys in 2005 and 2006.
(2) Francis A Schaeffer Institute of Church Leadership Development research studies in 1998 and 2006.
(3) Leadership Journal poll of readers, 2013.
