Category: Leadership

Best Business Practices for Churches and Small Religious Organizations

man in white t shirt and white pants standing beside white van
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A single-day seminar on how church and other small religious organizations can improve their strategies, operations, and fundraising.

By Mark D. Harris

Welcome! The team at the MD Harris Institute is glad that you have chosen to attend. We are thankful that President Khmyz and his team at the Kyiv Theological Seminary arranged this seminar to help Christian leaders throughout the region improve their business and fundraising practices. The information here will improve how these leaders acquire, use, and increase the resources that God provides.

The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church of Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:17-19). No nation, no matter how powerful, populous, or prosperous, can stand against the work of the preacher from Galilee. No religion, no matter how large or how violent, can quiet the still, small voice of the Almighty. Followers of Christ have the Spirit of the Living God dwelling within, have been set free from sin, and have a guarantee of eternity with the Creator. Of all men, Christians should be the most joyful in their lives and most effective in their labor.

Some Christians engage the world with optimism and faith, believing God to accomplish His will, though often believers do not see this victory. Christians perceive legions of enemies, a dearth of friends, a paucity of resources, persecution, and personal weakness (Marsden, 2020). There are more points of discouragement as well. Believers feel pressure from the government, the media, business, and academia (Barnes et al., 2020). Christ-followers look at needs within and without and faint before the task of making disciples. Simultaneously, forgetting that the Father owns the world and everything in it (Psalms 24:1) and believing the lies of a world that hates God, some Christians struggle to survive.

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Paul, Leadership Under Fire

Leadership under fire in Corinth
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The Apostle Paul faced a tough task in writing to the wayward Corinthian church, bringing them back to the Lord while they assailed him. In a time when leadership is under fire across the globe, Paul can shed some light.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Corinth was a hotbed of scum and villainy in the first century Roman Empire. Located on a narrow strip of land between the Aegean and Adriatic Seas, Corinth grew rich and fat on the wares of merchantmen passing between the east and west of the Empire. In the AD 40s, God used Paul and his companions to plant a church in Corinth (Acts 18). Though it grew, the church stumbled from sin to sin and heresy to heresy. Writing from Ephesus in about AD 55, Paul confronted his wayward church in 1 Corinthians. The list of sins was long:

  1. The Corinthians abandoned Christian unity and were riven with internal strife (Acts 1).
  2. They were competing for status among themselves (Acts 1).
  3. They were abandoning godly wisdom in favor of worldly wisdom (Acts 1).
  4. They were denying the work of the Spirit (Acts 2).
  5. They were boasting in men (Acts 3)
  6. They were judging each other harshly at times and weakly at other times (Acts 4)
  7. They were tolerating blatant sexual sin (Acts 5).
  8. They were suing each other in secular courts (Acts 6).
  9. They were denying intimacy to their spouses, divorcing, committing adultery, and simultaneously emphasizing marriage over mission (Acts 7).
  10. They were using their Christian freedom without care for how their conduct harmed others (Acts 8).

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Business Models for the First and the 21st Centuries

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Businesses and other organizations can be understood in three different types. Facilitated Networking, Value Added, and Solution Shop business models, and combinations thereof, have existed since before Rome ruled. Modern entrepreneurs will benefit as they think of their endeavors in these ways.  

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Several women at a baby shower share stories about giving birth, providing tips to an expectant mother on how to make delivery easier and less painful. One older woman provides a beautiful baby dress, while another shares the address of a bargain store.

A farmer plants acres of grain. He and his family labor over their fields for months, watering and weeding while the crop comes in. In due time, they harvest an abundance. They keep some grain for their own consumption and sell the rest.

Two colonels pore over a map on a battlefield, discussing how to defeat the enemy dug in on a ridgeline nearby. They are not sure of their opponent’s strength and disposition, but they are losing the initiative and need to act soon.

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ACES Framework of Organizational Development

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A useful organizational developmental framework derived from military sources and adapted to business needs. 

By Mark D. Harris

From being the Commander of a small US Army clinic in Schweinfurt, Germany, to being the Chief Medical Officer for all of military medicine in the National Capital Region at the JTF Cap Med, I have led organizations. To train my colleagues, I have developed the ACES Framework of Organizational Development. It is based on the military model.

I have posted it here because some have found it useful in the past and others find it useful in the future. Happy reading!

ACES Framework of Organizational Development

What to do with Tradition

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Our ancestors struggled with many of the same problems that we face. Their solutions are not always the best, but not always the worst either. Newer is not necessarily better. Find out why! 

By Mark D. Harris

Last week I was on a mission trip to Chicago with the youth choir from our church, and one of my favorite parts was the chance to talk with the kids. I have been going for several years and have seen youth born since 1993 on these journeys. Also for the past three weeks, my family and I have hosted three women in their early to mid-20s working in Washington DC as part of a journalism internship for World Magazine. These groups represent the last half of the generation that demographers call the Millennials, roughly defined as people born between 1980 and 2000.

As we talked, one theme that arose was a tendency among some to dislike tradition. This theme is at odds with some data indicating that Millennials seek tradition, but the difference may be in semantics. Since in the course of normal conversation few people clearly define their terms, and we didn’t either, it is not certain what each person in my non-scientific sample meant. However it was apparent that each speaker had a slightly different definition, many relating the word “tradition” to the phrase “we’ve always done it this way.” Since authors from Tom Peters (born 1942) to Colin Powell (born 1937) have warned readers not to blindly adopt traditional ways of doing things, it is worth asking ourselves“What should we do with tradition?”

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