Church Rescue
One of my current guilty pleasures is watching Bar Rescue hosted by the explosive John Tapper. He goes into a dysfunctional bar and he whips it into shape. And I've seen enough episodes to understand the commonalities amongst these struggling establishments. There are always two things.
Unengaged Employers - The owners are too hands off. They aren’t invested in what’s going on under their noses.
Unrestrained Employees - Because the leaders aren’t leading the staff isn’t following. They are running wild. They take shots on company time and dime. They verbally and physically assault the patrons and other staff members. It can be a real mess.
After binge watching too many episodes I've wondered what a Christian version of the show would look like? Instead of Bar Rescue, Church Rescue. Where a seasoned church consultant like Tony Morgan, Rich Birch or Jim Tomberlin brings some order out of chaos. Would there be common themes you see in those episodes? From the leadership perspective, would there be a similar type of dysfunction across churches? And would that dysfunction manifest itself in a consistent way across the staff?
My theory is that Church Rescue would be the opposite of Bar Rescue. Instead of unengaged bosses there would be overly invested bosses. LPs, XPs (myself included) and executive teams that ended up micromanaging. And the repeated outcome would also be the opposite as well. The staff wouldn’t be running wild - they wouldn’t be running enough. Instead of unrestrained staff you would have restrained staff - staff that were throttled back.
But what do you think? If there was a Church Rescue show would there be a common leadership misstep repeatedly seen? And if so, how would it manifest itself in the staff? I would love to hear your hot take. Until then I’m working on my treatment for HBO. Some say it's a niche audience, but I don't believe them. I’ll let you know when it gets picked up 🙂.