Are You a Customer Keeper or a Rule Keeper?

Orginally published on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 6:41 AM
by Todd Rhoades

Alan Nelson writes, "The other day we were in a restaurant that created a truly enjoyable experience. The waiter went out of his way to bend the menu rules in order to satisfy our preferences. Then he continued this empowering table service by providing us with a taste test of a dessert and finalized it by taking an item off our bill because it wasn't quite right. Compare that with the typical service you get at any number of eateries where the frontline people provide less than enjoyable service because they follow their workers manual to a T.

The big question is "Are you a rule keeper or a customer keeper?" An empowered team understands the importance of providing front-end people with the authority to make the right decisions for the customer in a given situation. Translated to the church, the question becomes "Are my team members told that they're empowered to make decisions that make sense?" Do you affirm this by telling stories of people who do?

Every church culture is different. I've been in some churches where I could tell that the fear of the senior pastor, board, or treasurer thwarted people from being creative, flexible, and responsive to people as needs arose. Of course, the antithesis of this is a church where there are no rules and everyone just sort of does his or her own thing...

The typical result is mediocrity, sloppiness, and haphazard ministry. But there’s a powerful place in the middle where you don’t have to create a million rules to follow but keep it simple.

One of the ways my wife has done very well in our home is by conveying to our sons these three primary principles:

1.  We don’t hurt people.

2.  We don’t hurt things.

3.  And we don’t hurt ourselves.

Pretty much everything can fit into one of these three categories. Teaching these simple principles is far more effective than teaching a multitude of rules.

One time I was on staff at a large church in the Midwest. I coordinated the first Super Bowl party they’d ever done, as a community outreach. When the crowd overwhelmed the seating, I instructed the team to go into the halls and push in the comfy couches from the lobby. The next week in staff meeting, I heard about it. I responded, “It seems like we care more about the furniture than we do about people.” My brashness may have been unnecessary, but the point was true. I later convened the first fun day on the well-groomed lawn of the church, located on a busy street, to help create a buzz in the neighborhood. People loved it. Administration frowned. Needless to say, my tenure at that church was short.

So what are you doing, inadvertently, that promotes rules over people? What do you do to make ministry difficult in your church? Have you empowered your team to do what is needed to get the job done, as needed? Accountability means you deal with a misuse of freedom, but not by creating a list of rules and restrictions. Develop customer keepers, not rule keepers.

Alan Nelson is the executive editor of Rev! Magazine, the author of a dozen books, and has been a pastor for 20 years. email him at .

You can read more of Alan’s work here...

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Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.

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