Entrepreneurial Church

A Commentary of Entrepreneurship and Paul's First Letters to the Corinthians

By Michael Richards

The purpose of this and future articles is to discuss church leadership. A lot of people assume that church leaders, namely the pastor, are in need of some sort of management training. However, the pastor is not a manager of the church but the entrepreneur of the church. Those who are untrained in economics may not know the difference but a manager and entrepreneur are not the same thing. A manager is someone who deals with the day to day tasks of running an organization. An entrepreneur, on the other hand, is the one who must allocate resources in a world marked by uncertainty so that the organization may be successful.

The entrepreneur is one who owns the resources that are to be allocated, and must allocate them efficiently so that the organization may profit. Uncertainty means that an entrepreneur does not know that his plan will succeed with total certainty. He speculates as to which plans will make profit and which ones won't only knowing after the fact if the plan actually worked. Managers mainly look to the entrepreneurs for tasks which must be completed and thus know whether or not they will successfully complete their tasks beforehand.

This does not mean that a manager cannot be creative and give advice to an entrepreneur. In the end, however, it is the entrepreneur who has the final decision in how resources are to be allocated. In this case a pastor may delegate to someone else the duty of entrepreneurship. But for the purpose of this commentary, a pastor is synonymous with an entrepreneur.

This in no way means that the church does not belong to God. God appoints His pastors to be entrepreneurs for Him. Meaning, He has given the pastor authority over the resources of the Church. If the pastor excepts this responsibility, then he is an entrepreneur and owner of those resources. Thus the pastor owns the resources and God owns the pastor.

Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians provides the best example of how a pastor should run his church most effectively. This commentary will mix some economic theory from Peter Klein's book, The Capitalist and the Entrepreneur, with sound biblical doctrine so that pastors in the U.S and the world can obtain a better understanding as to their role in the church. This commentary will also focus on the individual church in its role as a member of the Universal Body of Christ.

Chapters will be organized based upon the chapters in Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians. Further, no direct quote will be taken so that the reader may use his or her own Bible to follow. Citations of verses will be made available for the reader so they know exactly which part of the letter will be focused on. If there is a quotation it will be from the King James Version and will only be used in case I cannot find a better way to convey Paul's message. This commentary will hopefully not require the reader to have his Bible, but it is strongly recommended so the reader may gauge for himself the authenticity of this work.

I thank you for reading this and hope that you enjoy my commentary.

Entrepreneurial Church by Michael Richards is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.