Leaving the Ninety and Nine

This little news nugget caught qb's eye this morning. Substitute...

..."local church" for "Sprint Nextel;"

..."members" for "customers," "clients" or "subscribers;"

..."church" for "service;" and

..."elders and pastors" for "customer service."

Making those substitutions, you end up with a pretty good snapshot of the current, corporate state of the evangelical megachurch.

I Corinthians 12 notwithstanding, the bottom line in this church paradigm is: people are expendable. People are fungible. People are what they do (/give). Lose one, gain another. Easy come, easy go. Fly with the eagles; avoid the turkeys. (Yes, that last one has been said, in so many words. Here in Amarillo. At my home church. By a senior member of leadership.)

And you know what? Nobody who derives his living from running the machine will deny it, because "expressing concern about the agenda" and "disagreeing with the leadership's direction and vision" are blithely equated with "complaining," and then the people lodging the "complaints" are dismissed as so much dead weight. Who needs 'em? We've got work to do, ground to cover, facilities to build!

It's all so tidy, so inpenetrable, so soulless.

Jim McGuiggan has written wonderfully on related matters. Check out http://www.jimmcguiggan.com/reflections3.asp?status=Church&id=644 for a brief glimpse of his thinking.

qb

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Sprint Hangs Up on High-Maintenance Customers

Monday, July 09, 2007

Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) is breaking up with about 1,000 subscribers the company finds to be too high-maintenance, according to news reports.

The third-largest wireless carrier sent letters dated June 29 to the dumped clients stating: "The number of inquiries you have made has led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs," according to reports.

The disconnected customers called customer service an average of 25 times a month, a rate 40 times higher than average customers, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Customers have been given until the end of July to find new service.