George Bernard Shaw wrote the play “Pygmalion” in 1913. It tells the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics who bets his friend Colonel Pickering that he can successfully pass off a Cockney flower girl by the name of Eliza Doolittle as a refined society lady. He proposes to do this by teaching her how to speak with an upper class accent and training her in etiquette. In teaching Eliza to surround herself with expectations of a better life, he believed she would be inherently drawn toward becoming a woman of high society.

The story makes the point that expectations and environment play a critical role in outcomes; this came to be known as the Pygmalion Effect. Ministries and faith-based organizations in America can learn from this.

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For over ten years I have been an outspoken advocate for ministries expanding their revenue models beyond the confines of a donor-based model.

Some time ago, when I was President of a publicly traded company working in the faith-based space, I was chided by many for “enriching the pockets of shareholders at the Lord’s expense.” This really bothered me and I spent a lot of prayer time seeking discernment in this area.

Soon after, I found myself waiting to meet the President of another well-known national ministry. While in his assistant’s office waiting to see him, I noticed that her office was about seven times larger than my own. Her office walls were lined in cherry wood, while mine had plasterboard walls. I am for or against one wall treatment or another; my question is regarding the practices of a nonprofit ministry versus a for-profit company. Where is the stewardship in expensing high costs using donor dollars, then being critical of a public company when they run leaner than you? Read More »

If you are not familiar with ICRS, it stands for International Christian Retail Show.  For those of us who have attended the show for years we still refer to it as “CBA” which it used to me known for.  Next week many of us in my firm will be attending this year’s conference in Orlando.

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It is always an interesting experience to me when I travel to a place where the culture and the language are different from home.

Last week I returned from Tanzania where, of course, the culture was dramatically different from here in Colorado.  At the start of my trip the language divide was stark.  But, as I’ve found on previous trips, by the end of my travel I saw far more similarities in the people than differences despite the language and cultural divide.

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Kanakuk Kamps is well known in evangelical circles for providing and managing first class camping experiences for young campers.  They have successfully created a reputation of excellence and managed their brand very well in the marketplace.

What you may not know about Kanakuk is their policy for the relationship of ministry to business.

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Paul Weyrich, a well-known Christian activist inside the Washington beltway, started a movement with an idea for a weekly lunch meeting hosted in his office. He invited peers to join him once a week to discuss the need for some political coordination in fighting a growing trend toward the degradation of cultural values in federal legislation.

This weekly meeting group grew into the Moral Majority—the precursor of the powerful Christian Coalition. For nearly twenty years Christians flexed their political muscle in their quest for influence and cultural change.

Years later Weyrich wrote a note to his peers saying “We have lost the culture war” in a bid to inspire a renewed activism effort. His letter met with mixed results.

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