Churches are not businesses.
Now, this doesn’t mean there aren’t budgets to balance, resources to steward, or even that insights from management might not sometimes help. But it does mean—clearly and unequivocally—that the church is not to be run like a business. It is not about profit, performance metrics, or branding strategies. It is about people—image-bearers of God—and the gospel that calls them into a community of grace.
When churches adopt a business mindset, priorities shift. The wealthy donors become more valued than the widow offering her two small coins. Success is measured in numbers rather than in faithfulness, and those who don’t fit the brand are subtly—or not so subtly—pushed aside. The vulnerable, the inconvenient, the ones who don’t enhance the church’s public image or financial stability can be left behind. Leadership may become about power and efficiency rather than service and truth. A curated, controlled narrative replaces the messy but real testimony of a people being transformed by grace.
Scot McKnight speaks of the church as a fellowship of difference—a people drawn together not by shared preferences or demographic alignments, but by the Spirit of God. The church is not a homogeneous brand designed for seamless consumer experience; it is a gathering of the broken, the redeemed, the struggling, and the hopeful. It is a people who sit together at the Eucharistic table, not because they all fit some marketable mould, but because Christ has invited them.
In a world where efficiency and image-management reign, the church is called to be something radically different. A place where truth is valued over optics. Where people matter more than performance. Where the last, the least, and the lost are not liabilities to be managed but brothers and sisters to be loved. The church is not a business. It is the body of Christ. And that changes everything.
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