Perry Noble did a recent 3-part series in which he found 7 mistakes the automotive industry made and explained how the church can often be guilty of many of all of these same mistakes. I found his insights very helpful and eye-opening.
As 2009 gets underway, are you assuming “business as usual” in your personal or professional life? How about in your spiritual life? How about in your church? Look over these 7 things and reflect on how they impacted the Big 3, then take a moment to think about how easily they could also apply to us.
- They Were Focused on the Wrong Message
- Trusting in Tradition
- Refusal to Confront the Brutal Facts
- Placing the Blame on Externals Rather than Internals
- Comfortable Leadership
- No Plan To Embrace Change…DESPITE the Dooming Facts
- They Neglected Creativity and Innovation
I believe every organization needs to continuely examine itself from an outside perspective. This can be a very difficult thing to do for sure. This is especially true of churches where tradition and resistance to change can often be way of life.
At Fellowship, we recently brought in an outside consultant, Anthony Coppedge, to help give us an outsider’s view of ourselves and to make recommendations both in technology (equipment, tools) and in process (methods, people). It is never easy to hear about what you can do better, but if we are serious about improvement and not being like the auto industry, it needs to be done.
Read Perry’s comments on these 7 mistakes here, here, and here.