I had a chance to meet Donald Peterson just before he retired as chairman of Ford Motor Company. He'd been chairman when Ford ebbed to its lowest point economically and also when the company had turned around and reached its apex. "How do you account for what happened?" I asked him. "Was it robots, mechanization?"
"No," he said, "it was two less tangible things. First, we redefined our goal. We said our goal was to build a car free of construction errors. Second, we gave our people the power to build it. We gave all our workers the authority to stop the line whenever they found something wrong. When we did that, we went from an average of forty-seven flaws per car to one flaw in every two cars."
The key to renewing Ford Motor Company was getting back to basics—building a flawless car. In much the same way, pastoral care for church members begins when the congregation is brought back to its basic mission.
What is the bottom line for the church, the true measure of its success?
Some churches ...
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