Kim Seung-ho, the author of An Introduction to Management for CEOs, points to one key criterion for distinguishing small-scale trading from enterprise: the way income is generated. Small-scale trading earns money by relying on the owner’s labor. A diligent owner may take on the workload of three employees to save on labor costs. When one works faithfully with one’s body in this way, injuries to the hands and problems with the back and knees are almost inevitable. In the end, there is a clear limit to becoming wealthy through excessive physical labor.
An enterprise, by contrast, makes money through ideas. This kind of income is unrelated to labor and is potentially unlimited. Ultimately, great wealth comes not from labor but from thinking. People do not engage in small-scale trading because they lack capital; they do so because they lack ideas. Kim Seung-ho explains it this way: “If we imagine a business as a gift package, the owner is not the product inside the box. The owner should be like the wrapping cloth that binds the gift together. A true owner is the one who fills the box with good employees and binds them together like wrapping cloth—this is the person who can move forward as a real entrepreneur.”
How can Kim Seung-ho’s business insights be applied to the church? One of the most influential forces shaping the Korean mindset is traditional Confucian thinking. Applied to work, Confucian thought emphasizes “work faithfully with a sense of responsibility” rather than “exercise creative ideas and leadership.” A pastor shaped by this traditional mindset is likely to place the weight of ministry on “faithfulness” rather than “effectiveness.” As a result, even when an activity produces no outcomes, it is repeated faithfully under the illusion that it will someday bear good fruit. Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” While a laborer must work faithfully, an owner (or leader) must create structures that enable employees to work effectively—training them, delegating to them, and motivating them.
During the early period of Israel’s wilderness journey with three million people, Moses functioned as a faithful laborer. His diligence resulted only in inefficiency and complaints within the camp. Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, evaluated Moses’ faithfulness this way: “What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone” (Exod. 18:17–18).
Ephesians 4:12 states that the task of a pastor is “to equip the saints for the work of ministry.” From this perspective, a pastor’s dereliction of duty is to monopolize ministry. Such a pastor not only fails to develop the saints as ministers but also becomes exhausted from excessive mental and physical labor. A church led by an exhausted pastor can never grow in a healthy way.
Soldiers who enter battle fight the enemy under extreme tension amid flying bullets and exploding bombs. If we speak of busyness, there is no place busier than the battlefield. Without such intensity, soldiers lose their lives, and the nation falls. Yet even in such a hectic battlefield, a division commander can sit in the command center, drink coffee, draw the big picture, and think through ideas to turn the tide of war. If, out of a sense of responsibility and diligence, the division commander were to grab a rifle, run wildly on the front lines, and fire at the enemy alongside the soldiers, that would be the greatest dereliction of duty imaginable. Just as the way income is generated distinguishes small-scale trading from enterprise, the way a division commander participates in battle must be fundamentally different from the way an ordinary soldier does.
Kim Seung-ho asks businesspeople, “Is it small-scale trading or an enterprise?” I ask pastors, “Are you a laborer (minister) or a leader?” A laborer-style pastor carries out all ministry tasks “faithfully” by himself. As a result, the congregation remains merely recipients of ministry—or passive spectators. An effective leader, by contrast, trains the saints, creates structures that enable them to minister, and continually encourages them to engage in ministry themselves.