As a Wharton MBA, how do you view the use of business principles to run megachurches?
It is not uncommon for small and medium-sized churches to view larger churches as a business. I think that is unfortunate. But the other side of the coin is that when you take up money and spend money, if you don’t have sound business principles in place, you go to jail. It is unfortunate that we’ve created this canyon between what is spiritual and what is practical. The Lord builds a bridge between [them]. And over half the parables told by Jesus deal with money. So I don’t make any apologies for the fact that we try to run the church as efficiently as we can. Q: How do you describe what you’re doing here? A: We don’t place a lot of emphasis on labels. We are believers who are trying to fulfill our calling. You have some so-called evangelicals who criticize me for offering a spot for former drug addicts to meet. How hypocritical is it if you criticize addicts on Sunday for doing drugs, and then when they knock on your door on Tuesday and ask if they can have a place to meet, you say,