In a 25 page article by Peter F. Drucker in the October 1998 issue of "Forbes
Magazine" (pages 152-177), titled "Management’s New Paradigms," we can
read about the philosophy that is directing nearly all LCMS District Offices. At age 90,
Peter Drucker, the author of 28 books and numerous articles, reorganization consultant to
Fortune 500 companies, columnist for the "Wall Street Journal," and the foremost
expert on non-profit corporations, is the management genius of the 20th Century. Many
Japanese regard him as the greatest living American. His name appears more the 43,000
times in the Harvard School of Business Library. His ideas, adopted by Fuller Theological
Seminary, spawned the Church Growth Movement. He is also the great management thinker
behind the Church Growth Movement and The Leadership Network.
Drucker has become the guiding light of the LCMS Council of District Presidents (COP).
They study his books, attend seminars conducted by his protégés, and apply his
management philosophies to LCMS congregations in their Districts. He is quoted in District
papers by past Michigan District President John Heins, Texas District President
Kieschnick, and many more. Dr. Norbert Oesch has been selected by the COP and funded by
the LCEF to retrain 225 LCMS pastors in Drucker’s leadership principles for service
in LCMS mega-churches
In a presentation to the May, 1998, Michigan District Pastors' South and East
Conference, Oesch noted that "Peter Drucker led the church in America to develop a
Purpose Statement." One would like to ask Oesch and company why this accolade is not
given to Jesus Christ in Luke 24:47 "And that repentance and remission of sins
should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." And
in
Matthew 28:19-20 "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, [even] unto the
end of the world. Amen."
Drucker is not a Lutheran. We have no indication that Drucker is a Christian, yet his
ideas now have more clout in the LCMS than the log-cabin-era theology of C.F.W. Walther,
discarded by the COP.
Drucker’s basis for emphasis on the importance of management in the church over
the doctrine is as follows:
"That the center of modern society, economy and community is not technology. It is
not information. It is not productivity. The center of modern society is the managed
institution". (Page 176)
In the 25 page article Drucker spends most of his time talking about the history of
management theory, Marxists, old assumptions about management that are no longer true,
management as a discipline, corporations, government, non-profits, the Mayo Clinic, the
Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, Ford, General Motors, Japan, Rockefeller, Sloan, Siemens,
Deutsche Bank, General Electric, multiple organizational structures, Caterpillar, Exxon,
Unilever, Merrill Lynch, Douglas McGregor, Abraham Maslow, data processing, German
electric and chemical industries, Bell Labs, the pharmaceutical industry, steel companies,
Carnegie, St. Ignatius, Elihu Root, AT&T, mega-churches, Japanese telecommunications,
keiretsus, William C. Durant, Sears Roebuck, HMOs, Fiat, Opel, the Protestant Reformation,
and the importance of outside information sources.
Drucker says churches must change because society is changing.
"In a fast-changing world, what worked yesterday probably doesn’t work today.
One of the fathers of modern management theory herein argues that much of what is now
taught and believed about the practice of management is either wrong or seriously out of
date." (Page 152)
Drucker shows that conflict may be necessary for changing churches, and church
leaders must take risks.
"Follett (1868-1933) preached the use of conflict to create understanding....Yet
we now know that Follett was closer to reality about society, people and management than
were the theorists and practitioners who ignored her work." (Page 152) ...Mary Parker
Follett...never differentiated between business management and non-business
management." (Page 156).
Hence, the conflict necessary to build and maintain major corporations is also
necessary to build and maintain non-profit corporations called mega-churches.
Surprisingly, Drucker believes that non-profit organizations like churches and
charities have a great deal to teach corporations.
"The first practical application of management theory did not take place in a
business but in non-profits and government agencies." (Page 154)
Drucker’s assumptions about church structure are based on social relativism,
not unchanging doctrine.
"The social universe has no ‘natural laws’ as the physical sciences do.
It is thus subject to continuous change. This means that assumptions that were valid
yesterday can become invalid and, indeed, totally misleading in no time at all. (Page 154)
..."But the difference between managing a chain of retail stores and managing a Roman
Catholic diocese are amazingly fewer than either retail executives or bishops
realize." (Page 156)
Therefore, there are no constants in the structure and order of churches. From
Drucker’s and the COP’s view, Christ’s words in Matt. 16:18 "And
I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" have no permanent earthly
reality because the society in which Christ built His church is constantly changing.
By the same conclusion, Walther’s search in the Scripture for eternal divine order
for the LCMS in his "Church and Ministry" was at best a pious delusion, as
follows:
"Thesis IX A. To the ministry there is due respect as well as
unconditional obedience when the pastor uses God’s Word. B. The minister must not
tyrannize the church. He has no authority to introduce new laws or arbitrarily establish
adiaphora or ceremonies. C. The minister has no right to inflict and carry out
excommunication without his having first informed the whole congregation.
Thesis X. To the ministry of the Word, according to divine right, belongs also the duty
[Amt] to judge doctrine, but laymen also possess this right. Therefore, in the
ecclesiastical courts (consistories) and councils they are accorded both a seat and vote
together with the clergy."
Drucker believes that non-profit corporations such as churches are lacking good
management skills.
"So the non-profit social sector is where management is today most needed and
where systematic, principled, theory-based management can yield the greatest results
fastest." (Page 158)
Good management skills require constant study and examination of the
corporation/church. They must constantly be updated or face statistical death.
Unlike Walther quoted above, Drucker believes that well run organizations must have
hierarchy, a boss, or a board who runs things from the top. This is music to the
COP’s ears.
"For example, one hears a great deal today about ‘the end of hierarchy.’
This is blatant nonsense. In any institution there has to be a final authority, that is a
‘boss’--someone who can make the final decision and who can then expect to be
obeyed. (Page 158) ... Hierarchy, and the unquestioning acceptance of it by everyone in
the organization, is the only hope in a crisis." (Page 158)
Drucker appears to reverse himself on hierarchy, as follows:
"One does not ‘manage’ people, as previously assumed. One leads them.
The way one maximizes their performance is by capitalizing on their strengths and their
knowledge rather than trying to force them into molds." (Page 166)
However, this is only an apparent contradiction. What Drucker means is that top-down
management will get further if it works with peoples’ strengths rather than behave
as a mindless dictatorship. He is really the proponent of benign or enlightened
despotic management aimed at maximizing performance.
Drucker applies all these theories to what he calls the large "pastoral
mega-church." "Pastoral" is his expression for the
self-styled leader of the large cell-group based non-denominational church of 3,000 or
more members.
"Consider the pastoral mega-churches that have been growing so very fast in the
U.S. since 1980 and are surely the most important social phenomenon in American society in
the last 30 years. There are some 20,000 of them, and while traditional denominations have
steadily declined, the mega-churches have exploded. They have done so because they asked,
‘What is value?’ to a non-church-goer and came up with answers the older
churches had neglected. They have found that value to the consumer of church services is
very different from what churches traditionally were supplying. The greatest value to the
thousands who now throng the mega-churches--both weekdays and Sundays--is a spiritual
experience rather than a ritual." (Page 169-170)
"The emergence of the Knowledge Society today has led to the explosive rise of the
new, large nondenominational, pastoral ‘mega-churches.’ It has also led to an
explosion in Pentecostalism, attracting largely the less educated and less upwardly mobile
members of modern society while the mega-churches have tended to attract knowledge
workers." (Page 174)
"The paradigm holds for universities, churches, charities and governments, as well
as business enterprises." (Page 176)
Drucker, who is no theologian, makes an insightful analysis of mega-churches and the
Church Growth Movement. People who attend them believe there is more value in
"spiritual experience" than "ritual". In other words, they want
"feelings" over unchanging doctrinal facts and liturgy. He couldn’t be more
correct. Here he outlines the collapse of the LCMS. This is what the COP is struggling to
bring about with PLI the defeat of doctrine and the victory of felt needs with leadership
training.