The Church at Risk

There are thousands--maybe even millions--of blogs devoted to churches. A quick search can bring you to blogs on church growth, church marketing, church planting, and churches that focus on a particular niche or demographic. Then there's blogs on church and culture, church and state, church and business, and even church and other churches. Plus, there are countless personal sites from church leaders, church members and church adherents alike, with plenty of inspiration and opinion to share. Regardless of the topic, if it relates to the church, someone's bound to be talking about it.

Except, it seems, when it comes to risk.

It's not that people fail to mention risk in context of the church. It's hardly a challenge to find someone discussing the risk of the church becoming irrelevant, or losing members, or even falling from God's graces over some doctrine or theology. In this case, though, risk is synonymous with the chance or likelihood of a negative event occurring, and is almost always used in relation to a solitary event or action. What the church is missing out on is risk as uncertainty: despite the overwhelming prevalence, it's difficult to find anyone talking about, let alone planning for, the numerous uncertainties churches face every single day.

And yet, considering that these uncertainties can make or break a church's activities and functions, it's time that leaders and members started having a conversation about them. Ignoring risk isn't going to make it go away--if anything, it can make things much, much worse. But when churches open up about the challenges and uncertainties they face, there is incredible potential for growth, security and better everyday operations.

That's what this blog is about: identifying the risks churches face and bringing them into the light. In doing so, the writings here may incorporate some of the topics listed above; membership and demographics, the relationships churches have with other entities, and the personal opinions of clergy and members all contribute to the uncertainty surrounding a church's activities. But risk management goes deeper than that. Risk management takes a critical viewpoint, asks difficult questions and isn't afraid of what it may find. Risk management leaves no stone unturned.

Thus, JeRISKo, the product of a recent MBA grad with a passion for the church and its mission, as well as a strong interest in risk management, will cover, from the ground up, what risk is, how it affects the church, and what the church can do in response. Most importantly, it will do this in a fun, easy-to-understand and interactive way. Because anyone involved with a church needs to be aware of its uncertainties and how to deal with them, and anyone, be they clergy or member, business executive or construction worker, can play an important role in risk management.

Isn't that at least a bit more useful than reading one more blog about how churches can be hip?