Church leadership specialist Dr. John C. Maxwell has used the story of the McDonald’s chain of restaurants to share with us the difference between accidental and purposeful growth…
“In 1940 two brothers, Dick and Mac McDonald, started McDonald’s Barbeque Restaurant in San Bernardino, CA. Typical of the drive-ins of its time, McDonald’s offered an expansive menu from which customers could order and then be serviced by carhops. Through time, the brothers noticed a trend in their sales. A small number of items on the menu accounted for a bulk of their restaurant’s profits.
Struck by the trend, the brothers embarked on a bold strategy to streamline McDonald’s. They temporarily closed their doors, remodeled the restaurant, and did away with the carhops. Three months later McDonald’s reopened as a self-service drive-in specializing in fast service thanks to a simplified, nine-item menu. The combination of low prices and speedy service made the new McDonald’s a smashing success with motorists, who flocked to the restaurant en masse to buy burgers and milkshakes.
Accidental Growth
Despite their impressive innovations, the McDonald brothers never put together a growth plan to spread their concept of fast food across the country. Over the next few years, the brothers haphazardly agreed to open a handful of franchised McDonald’s. However, the isolated additions were largely unintended, and they barely scratched the surface of the restaurant’s potential to expand.
Purposeful Growth
It took the genius of a traveling salesman to put McDonald’s on the map nationwide. Ray Kroc became intrigued with McDonald’s when the restaurant ordered eight of his milkshake mixers. Curious why anyone would need to make so many milkshakes at once, Kroc traveled to San Bernardino to see the restaurant firsthand.
Fascinated by the efficiency and affordability of McDonald’s hamburger stand, Kroc imagined the restaurants dotting highways across America. Grasping the strengths of the business model the McDonald brothers had stumbled into, he reached an agreement to be their franchising agent. Immediately thereafter, he built an aggressive growth plan to expand the brand.
Central to Kroc’s purposeful growth strategy was his decision to treat franchisees as partners rather than debtors. Touting minimal upfront risk, Kroc quickly recruited eager restaurateurs. In short order, McDonalds exploded, adding burger joints at a dizzying rate. By the time Ray Kroc passed away in 1984, McDonalds spanned the globe with over 8,000 stores in more than 30 countries!”
Like the McDonald brothers, most churches in today’s world have experienced accidental growth. We have experienced growth because of a chance meeting, a historical event, or the growth of a local community. Churches grew in the fifties, not because we were doing something right, but because the nation was in alignment with the values and principles of the church. This has happened in countless communities and across the generations.
In the small town where I grew up, the local Baptist church grew when other local congregations went through difficult times or controversy. I seems like the growth strategy of the small town church was to wait for the Presbyterians to implode and then recruit their former members. I have seen other churches grow (or at least expand) due to the closing of a sister church or other changes in the local community.
These growth trends have nothing to do with the intention of the church or its minister. The churches were simply in the right place at the right time, and sadly these “growth” spurts rarely were the result of introducing new people to salvation in Jesus Christ. “Growth” in this scenario is really a shell game where the people are moved from place to place with one church benefitting from the destruction of another. While the local church may feel good about itself for a time, the Kingdom of God did not grow, and sadly often was irreparably harmed in the process.
This “accidental” growth is unacceptable for the Church. Purposeful growth is realized when we understand what we really have to offer to the world. Purposeful growth occurs when the local church embraces the true call of Jesus Christ to transform lives and heal relationships. Purposeful growth occurs when each member participates in the ministry of Jesus Christ as disciples and shares the grace of God with our friends and neighbors.
Ray Kroc didn’t create McDonald’s, but he did make it what it is today. He understood that the McDonald brothers had hit on a formula that could become a world-wide franchise. Ray Kroc saw the potential that was trapped in the Californian mom and pop burger chain. In the same way, hundreds of local churches are sitting on “lightning in a bottle.” We didn’t create it, but we have been entrusted with the franchise (for better or worse). Within the Church are answers to the most perplexing questions of life. The Church can help thousands of people who are troubled by the loss (or lack) of true community. The Church can be a venue for spiritual inquiry and social change. But this will only happen if we are willing to give up our control and trust our brothers and sisters in Christ to take ownership of the work of the Church. This will only happen if we trust OURSELVES to take ownership of the work of the Church.
The explosive growth occurred when Ray Kroc started to treat franchise owners as “partners not debtors.” This is exactly what Jesus wanted the Church to be. When he called his disciples to ministry he told them that “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15
Jesus trusted those whom he called to lead. He entrusted them with the “keys to the kingdom” and he called them to do His Father’s work. We must give the same trust to the people of First Baptist Church (and those whom we gather as members and friends). For this reason I will be asking more of you in the coming weeks and months. I do not want you to follow blindly, but to act and live as if you had a stake in the work. For indeed you do.
God has called each of us to follow. God has called each of us to reach out. God has given us the gift of love and the message of salvation to share with our local community. Share it. Give it away. Show them who we are. Show them who you are. Show them Jesus. This is a purposeful life, and it will result in purposeful growth; in the Church and in you.
Of course, you can just wait for the Methodists to implode, but I would prefer that we look to grow the old fashioned way, by reaching out to others in the Spirit of Christ the Lord.
Purposefully reaching out,
Pastor Dan
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