Franchising the Church
This post on Out of Ur, McChurch, ruined my Friday.
The pastor of North Point Ministries in Atlanta has created a three month training program for pastors to educate them in opening up a North Point franchise. They get a training manual and a scripted plan of how to make a church just like North Point Ministries of Atlanta in any city or locale! One of the pastor-trainees who has headed to Nashville to start a franchise church said he sees himself as an owner/operator of Cumberland Church, his local North Point, just like he would be if he was in charge of a Chick-fil-A. Not only is a Starbucks mentality of church simply an egregious over expansion of consumerism into the dynamic, worship filled Body of Christ, it is simply one of the worst paradigms of church leadership I have ever heard about. The church is not a meat-packing factory or a Ford assembly line. I want no part in a religion that exists to create a product for consumption and discarding, that sells some materiality and service in order to make a profit…because that is really all that is going on in some capitalistic McChurch concept.
At least this gave me a good topic to discuss during a church leadership discussion tomorrow morning.
1 Comment
Submit a Comment
SUBSCRIBE:
I Support
I guess I understand the concept and appreciate the desire to start new churches. But, as a lawyer I’ve been involved in some franchise cases, and I really can’t see that as a useful model for the Church.
When you own a franchise, you don’t really “own” very much — basically you have a kind of contract called a license to use some things, most significantly:
– a trademark (a brand name);
– product designs or recipies;
– an exclusive territory;
– a share in local cooperative advertising money (e.g., the “Bob’s Chevy” ads you see on cable TV);
– group purchasing discounts with other franchisees on supplies (e.g., bulk french fries);
– training in the franchise production and sales methods.
The Franchisor (the corporation that licenses the franchise to the franchisee) retains essentially exclusive control over the brand, product formulations, and major advertising. The Franchisee’s main job is to sell product in his/her local territory.
Like some other commentators on Out of Ur, I’m not sure it’s necessarily problematic that there is some central control over a local congregation. That is, in fact, what denominations with a heirarchical structure do.
BUT, and I think this is cruical, those denominations usually tie their structure to a deeper ecclesiology and theology of authority and accountability that mediates among the local, regional, and global levels. A Bishop or Priest in the Roman Catholic Church is by no means analogous to a franchisee. The Priest is under authority of the Bishop and the Bishop is under the authority of the Pope, but there is a principle of subsidiarity by which each is downwardly and upwardly accountable (even the Pope is accountable to Christ). Moreover, there is a long tradition of ecclesiastical law (canon law) that works out the relationship of checks and balances among various aspects of leadership.
There is no way that a contract-based, brand-driven “franchise” model, IMHO, can capture this kind of structure. It seems more likely to be a shallow branding concept and/or a means by which a charismatic leader can exert his influence over satellite congregations without the accountability of a true heirarchical leadership structure and eccleisal tradition.
But then, I really do like the videos North Point produces, so I wouldn’t knock them on that (seriously).