Casino Pastor

For many of us a huge struggle is the battle between inside and outside perspective with regard to our ministries. We want our churches to be outward thinking. We want them to be full of people who take the Great Commission seriously. We want our churches to grow.

So often however, we end up allowing ourselves to focus on the inside or as my friend John calls it "Defense" ministry. We toss our playbook in favor of reacting to the current item.

We have to learn to play "Offensive" ministry.

Now to the casino Analogy.

I came across the Travel Channel the other day and noticed they were interviewing the CEO of Wynn Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. He said something that grabbed my attention.

He basically said "What I know is that we'll make 20 cents on every dollar that is bet in our Casino. Because of that, I do everything I can to get someone to bet. I want more players and I want players to love the environment because every dollar bet generates 20 cents for our business."

That is an outward vision. He knows the bottom line and that bottom line statistic is what drives everything from the golf course and saunas to the quality of food and comps they give to gamers. They don't even mind if guests win because the law of averages is in their favor and they will get 20 cents on the dollar when it's all said and done.

Other casinos or businesses could fall into the trap of not wanting customers to win or cutting back on rooms or lowering the quality food to save money. This is the model so often the church uses. This model will fail. The churches that will succeed are the ones that look for an overarching principle that drives every single decision. In addition, it will be the leaders who can see the connectivity between decisions that will maximize potential for growth.

Christ gave us that principle. Disciple more people. Tell people about Christ and teach them everything he's commanded... then the rest will take care of itself. But we so often times cut short the entire gospel (by our focus) and spend time trying to please the handful we have instead of doing whatever it takes to reach the rest of the lost world.

Certainly the profit for eternity is more than 20 cents on every dollar.