Patrick O'Connell

The Business of Church

Lest you forget...

There is a business element to church planting. Some may scoff that the church is a business. I am open to a dialog about what sort of a business a church really is. But for now, because it's a legal entity, there are many issues a church must address. The business of a church is a reality and therefore there are innumerable considerations regarding legals, fiance, accounting, licenses, taxes, payroll, etc.

This is usually the realm of the church business administrator.

That's one of my roles at Restore. Although I have a pretty decent handle on investments and financial planning, I needed to brush up on my understanding of current tax issues pertaining to churches.

And so I spent all day Friday at a seminar in Overland Park sponsored by Keller & Owens, LC. The featured speaker was Dan Busby, CPA. Dan is the author of many books about church business and financial matters. He heads an organization called the Evangelical Council of Financial Accountability. I learned much during the conference and was reminded at just how important it is for churches to remain diligent regarding these business issues.

I had a blast. I gained a better understanding of the financial structure and organization of a church. I was reminded that without these administrative business types, church as we know it wouldn't happen.

It was great spending the day with other church business administrators and managers getting to talk shop and learn about how they handle some of the same issues I am facing.

A big thank you to Jamie from Legacy who invited me to the seminar. He and I had a chance to go to lunch together and swap stories which made the day all the more enjoyable.

 

Appreciation

(I wrote this one some time in August 2006 after attending a workshop about 'Appreciation.' Not sure why I didn't post it then but here it is. I will eventually post the lists I refer to. In the meantime, make sure you're telling everyone how much you appreciate them.)

I recently attended a workshop that focused on values in the workplace. The experience was positive and I learned much. But there was one bit of information that was quite beneficial. It concerned appreciation and its importance in our relationships. We conducted several practical exercises that were designed to help show us how we could show appreciation to others in the work-place. Showing intentional appreciation for what others do can have enormous benefits in our lives.

I soon begin wondering why not try and implement some of these ideas at home. The organizers of the workshop were one step ahead and provided all of us a list of appreciation statements that we might use in our private lives. It's called 30 Days of Appreciation from Parents to Children and 30 Days of Appreciation for Spouses.

I am going to use the list to generate statements for each member of my immediate family. I'll try and provide you their responses. At some point I'll post the entire list.

The Long Tail and the Economy of Abundance

Whether you know it or not, you are more than likely participating a new model of business: the economy of abundance.

If you don't know what I am talking about that's ok. If you've read a blog, bought something over the Internet, downloaded a song or any number of other Internet activities, you are participating in the economy of abundance.

Chris Anderson, Editor of Wired Magazine, has written a most interesting book about this, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. What Mr. Anderson argues is that the Internet has transformed you and I as consumers. We now demand UNLIMITED CHOICE. What Anderson states most eloquently is that our insatiable appetite for just about everything has empowered a host sellers whose combined sales equals the top hits. Anderson calls this phenomena of distribution, the Long Tail.  Wikipedia entry about the Long Tail

He explains:

In statistics, curves like that are called "long-tailed distributions," because the tail of the curve is very long relative to the head.

And later, Anderson writes about why this is happening:

Seen broadly, it's clear that the story of the Long Tail is really about the economics of abundance--what happens when the bottlenecks that stand between supply and demand in our culture start to disappear and everything becomes available to everyone.

Anderson uses his investigation of Rhapsody music downloads in 2005 to illustrate the Long Tail. Sure, the hits account for a great deal of the downloads, But so do many thousands of other tracks. In fact Anderson found that:

A very, very big number (the products in the Tail) multiplied by a relatively small number (the sales of each) is still equal to a very, very big number.

Anderson finds that the Long Tail is possible because of three forces:

1. The democratization of production: That is tools that allow for many producers. These include blogging software, video/music production software and equipment.
2. Democratize distribution: These are the aggregators that you and I rely on to siphon through all of the producers. These include sites like Amazon, iTunes and Netflix
3. Connect Supply and Demand: These are all of the filters out there like Google, blogs, recommendations and best-seller lists.\

Of course it's people that are responsible for the Long Tail. Anderson says that we want choice and the subsequent explosion of variety that the Internet makes possible. This has produced a niche culture (again using books and music as examples) that has caused mass culture to break apart and fragment into millions of micro-cultures. Anderson says that we have formed ourselves into tribes of interest and no longer confined by geographic proximity.

The only criticism I have is when Anderson attempts to apply his theory to everything. This simply goes too far. His theory is most compelling when used to examine the entertainment industry. Still, it's a book absolutely worth your time if you're at all interested in contemporary business trends,

Here are several links that might explain it better than I did.

1. Wikipedia article on the Long Tail
2. Link to Chris Anderson's blog

 

Bible Publishing Is BIG Business

Found this post on the ESV Bible Blog about a recent article in Publishers Weekly summarizing the state of Bible publishing.

Amazing to learn that annual revenues from bible publishing are estimated at approximately $425 million (Harper San Francisco) and $609 million (Zondervan)!

ESV is the acronym for the English Standard Bible, a translation that I really, really enjoy. (I'd be curious to know if any of you have ever read it and what your opinion is?) Anyway, the ESV Blog is really interesting and you can see it for yourself by clicking here.

Customer Service Trouble

Had a couple of bad customer service experiences recently.

I was having trouble accessing content on some webpages so I called Comcast, my ISP. They insisted it was their router even though my other computer was working fine. I appreciated the fact that they wanted to come out and fix it, but I knew it wasn't there hardware. Still, they set up an appointment to send someone to my house.

So I called Dell. Sat on the line with the Rep for at least an hour troubleshooting, installing, reinstalling etc. After all of this, I still had my troubles and they had no solutions. When I mentioned that my ISP was coming out they in effect said that it wasn't their machine or any of the software.

Comcast came out the next day. They checked their equipment and told me it wasn't their router. (I wanted to tell the guy I told you so--but I didn't.)

I sat down with the machine; started adjusting the settings etc and bam--fixed the problem. It had something to do with my browser settings. Took about three seconds to fix it.

The moral of the story: Even though Dell and Comcast tried to help, they have a protocol that they will force you through when troubleshooting your problem. This prevents them from thinking out of the box and therefore wasting alot of my time. You can't script a customer service experience.

Love Is the Killer App

I found this article on Fast Company by Tim Sanders, the author of Love Is the Killer App. The article highlights the Big Thought of the book. Check it out.