Mistakes The Church Can Learn From The Auto Industry…Part One
Vehicle sales in the United States were sharply lower for nearly all auto companies, and the two largest U.S. manufacturers reported the lowest number of sales in nearly five decades.General Motors reported Monday that its sales dropped 31 percent in December, and fell 23 percent for all of last year. It sold fewer vehicles in 2008 than any year since 1959. Ford says its U.S. sales plunged by almost one-third between November and December, and about 20 percent for all of 2008, the lowest number of sales in 47 years. Chrysler reported a 53 percent plunge in December. For the full year 2008, the company's sales slid 30 percent.
1. They Were Focused on the Wrong Message
While the auto industry was spending time and millions of dollars telling people to buy American made cars what they should have been doing instead was spending that same amount of time and that same about of money actually making better cars that people across the world would actually want to purchase.
The same thing can be said about the church. Many times we can get too focused on, “please bring people to church” “get people to church” “do whatever it takes to bring people to this place” rather than creating a worship experience that exalts the name of Jesus and promotes life change to such an extent that people actually want to bring friends to church. We should focus way more on what is happening in our services than advertising about them.
AND…another danger as a church is getting focused on ANY other agenda other than Jesus and His Kingdom. More on that at another time!
You focus on your worship and your singing, and your preaching and your fellowship and you focus on your teaching. If we love these things we will invite others to share with us our love for Christ and the church.
2. Trusting in Tradition
One of the mistakes the auto industry made was thinking because of our strong and successful past we will always have a strong and successful future. People have always been loyal to us therefore people will always be loyal to us. While they were basking in the glory of their tradition, up-start car companies came along and surpassed their quality of excellence and relevance in the society in which we live.
One of the mistakes we can make as a church is to begin to trust in tradition and think because we had a strong and successful past that we, our particular church, will always have a strong and successful future. The past is something that should always be celebrated. The past is something to be thankful to God for. But the past is not an indicator of our future. The past is merely and reflection of God’s faithfulness and God’s faithfulness will continue in the future not as we embrace tradition but as we embrace his leadership through his Holy Spirit.
Another mistakes we can make is to think our tradition of the past even when the results have resulted in failure will in some way get us a better future. Our focus is to be on Christ and His faithfulness and not focus on the traditions of the church.
