Imagine waking up tomorrow with the dream to start a fast food chain that’s entirely different than McDonald’s, Wendy’s, etc. I mean, you’ve had a revelation concerning fast food and you decide that the real key to success is to approach fast-food with an attention to detail usually reserved for a fine dining. This restaurant will have burgers like Red Robin, Chicken like Boston Market, and fish like the bonefish grill! Only fast! And not just that—the staff will also treat the customer with respect and honor and really try to understand them. They will always go the extra mile. Communication will be clear, and any mistake will be our fault, not the customer’s.
Immediately, you begin to make plans for how to have top notch food and for living out the operating values that you’ve always dreamed about.
Imagine the possibilities!
Customer relations people will always be scanning the horizon to make sure that the patrons have everything they want. We will get their trash for them, clean up for them, ask them if there is anything else we can get them—the whole nine yards! You want their experience to be so good that they won’t even think of going anywhere else.
Yep, with this thinking and planning, you are on the fast track to success! You’ve determined to be a fast-food place, NO, a ‘restaurant’ with a conscience!
You with me so far?
Ok, just checking. So, you start your business and celebrate in the fact that everything is unfolding beautifully! That is…
Until you hire your first group of employees!
They don’t seem anywhere near as excited as you are. Passion? Forget about it. What they have would never bring to mind the ‘P’ word. And, to make matters worse, they think you’re way over the top. It drives them crazy that you walk around the place like the ‘lint police.’ You manage to see things out of place that no normal individual would ever care about. They just want you to chill.
But you can’t, and seeing their complacency just fuels your sense of urgency and actually starts to make you recent them a bit.
Around and around you all go. It’s a vicious cycle.
What in the world is going on here?!
Are the employees to blame? Did you get a bum staff? Is this a case of invasion of the body-snatchers? Do these folks secretly work for Burger King or McDonalds or someplace? No, what’s happening is something pastor, Bill Hybels refers to as an absence of ‘Vision DNA.’ And when this is missing, you can do everything else right and still fall flat.
Sadly, it happens with church plants more often than not. Someone gets on fire for God, feels called to start a ministry, does everything right (or so it seems) yet, within a few short years the church is no more.
It’s heart-breaking. Especially since it is entirely avoidable.
We’ll talk about how over the next few days.