Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point Community Church, is interviewed in the current issue of Leadership on his leadership style. Highlights from the interview were posted on Out of Ur in March. Stanley defends the incorporation of secular business practices in the church - a philosophy of ministry that has fueled evangelicalism for the last 25 years and pollinated megachurches across the fruited plains. But church-as-corporation and the pastor-as-CEO have come under increasing criticism, and Stanley has felt this heat.

In the interview Stanley says:

One of the criticisms I get is "Your church is so corporate?" And I say, "OK, you're right. Now why is that a bad model?" A principle is a principle, and God created all the principles.

Honestly, are we really to believe that the mere existence of a principle is the same as God advocating our employment of it? The flawed logic here reminds me of Greg Fokker's assertion that "you can milk just about anything with nipples," and Robert De Niro's ...