Bethany Fosdyck by Michael Danner via michaeldanner.net
I hear this all the time.
“Churches need entrepreneurial pastors.”
I never knew what to think about that – until I read Seth Godin’s January 16, 2018 post “The four elements of entrepreneurship”.
Like most of Seth’s work, that post was brief, to the point, and helpful. In that post, Seth talked about four things people do when they are acting like entrepreneurs.
1. They make decisions.
2. They invest in activities and assets that aren’t a sure thing.
3. They persuade others to support a mission with a non-guaranteed outcome.
4. This one is the most amorphous, the most difficult to pin down and thus the juiciest: They embrace (instead of run from) the work of doing things that might not work.
If that is what people mean when they say, “The church needs entrepreneurial pastors!” I’m all in. The church in post-Christendom America definitely needs…
- Pastors who make decisions (especially hard decisions no one else wants to make)!
- Pastors that are willing to invest in activities and assets that aren’t a sure thing – especially people.
- Pastors that persuade others to support (and participate in) a mission where the outcome is unclear and not guaranteed.
- Pastors that embrace the “work of doing things that might not work.”
Pastor, do those four activities describe what you do as you lead your congregations?
This is very helpful, Michael. I read Godin’s post and thought about it in the same way. Thank you for restating the four entrepreneurial actions for pastors. I even think this concept is important for congregational leaders along-side pastors.
Yes, definitely! I think when I first became a pastor 9 years ago I was afraid of over-stepping my authority in decision-making as a pastor, and therefore spent too much effort consulting too many others around too many of the decisions that needed to be made. As I’ve grown in my pastoral identity and my leadership skills, I’ve been able to distinguish when a process of decision-making involving many is really needed; and I’ve also become more willing to just make a decision myself recognizing that that is part of the burden of leadership.