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Business Analogies at Church
A Hermeneutical Study into the Use of 
Analogy for Missional Church Leadership

Ian Robinson
Ian Robinson has held a wide range of ministry roles in New South Wales and 
Western Australia, most recently as Alan Walker Lecturer in Mission Evangelism 
and Leadership at the United Theological College. He has published on all those 
topics as well as on Australian desert spirituality. 
Contact: robinson.iandt@gmail.com

Abstract

A significant weakness in leadership studies is the free use of 
cross-sector analogies without a hermeneutical standard. Church-
es need new approaches from other sectors but may respond with 
little critical method, either too freely or too narrowly. Many reject 
any need to learn from outside the Church. The practical goal of 
this paper is to provide a way to learn without risking the Church’s 
own character. This is the work of analogy. While referencing the 
theological and missiological histories of this method, the argu-
ment is based on analysis of the hermeneutical principles in Jesus’ 
parables compared with the epistemology of analogy in education 
and interdisciplinary studies. An analogical hermeneutic is then 



Ian Robinson—Business Analogies at Church

53

applied to two business examples. The analogical hermeneutical 
spectrum, I propose, can nourish the wisdom of church leaders 
and enhance a church’s collective efficacy. In conclusion, further 
research avenues are suggested.

The Need for New Analogies

The mainstream churches in Western countries continue to de-
cline in numbers and influence despite half a century of resources 
being directed towards the challenge. One response to decline is 
to seek new sources of wisdom (e.g., Taylor and Nash 2008). It is 
common for writers on church leadership to use anecdotes from 
“analogous” organisations or “parallel situations,” including from 
the sectors of the military, sports, biology, education, or business. 
They often assume seemingly without evidence that the compari-
son is valid. The stories told are compelling. However, they may 
also mislead the reader and carry assumptions that weaken the 
comparison or clash with the Church’s particular goals. On the 
other hand, others reject the need to do this. They stake their fu-
ture on continuity with the received structures of their church, and 
the exclusive nature of the Church having no need of wisdom from 
corporations.

Consequently, successful leaders in one field, say finance, 
who may be drafted into another relevant field, say church mis-
sion strategy, may find that their past successes are not understood 
or (oppositely) adopted disastrously. Taking either too much or 
too little, the lack of a valid hermeneutic by which to approach 
business analogues results in bad outcomes in an era when fresh 
insights are needed. This paper is a proposal for a spectrum of her-
meneutical principles that interrogate the effectiveness and fidelity 
of organisational analogues, to foster a more nuanced missional 
imagination. In this paper, I use brief examples to frame an inter-
disciplinary proposal. I will conclude by outlining further work 
that might be done.

Despite Jim Collins’s warning to churches and social sec-
tor leaders—“why business thinking is not the answer” (Collins 



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2006—naïve readers of business analogies are easily misled from 
their own core purpose. I recently attended a church leadership 
research conference. I heard a church executive repeat Jim Col-
lins’s famous maxim, “get the right people on the bus” (Collins 
2001, 41). This maxim means, in short, to fire incumbents who 
cannot soon deliver the directives of the new management. By 
using this one phrase and making the narrow application of one 
business principle, they explained a decade of high turnover in the 
Church’s structures. Each step was deleterious to the Church in the 
losses of corporate knowledge, educational expertise, missional 
experience, international excellence, and widespread loss of trust 
in management. They also lost the membership of grieving friends 
and family members of those who were fired without adequate 
process. While we can easily find such anecdotes, this paper offers 
a constructive alternative.

Moving beyond our anecdotes, three research projects inter-
rogated a popular set of business principles, namely the “Five Prac-
tices of Exemplary Leadership” by Barry Posner and James Kouzes 
(Kouzes and Posner 2013). In workshop form, the authors of the 
Five Practices claim “from academia to government, healthcare 
to technology, faith-based to community advocacy organizations, 
The Leadership Challenge Workshop has proven to be a catalyst 
for change” (Kouzes and Posner 2013). The five “exemplary leader-
ship” practices make compelling reading:

1. Model and make the way for others,

2. Find and hold to the Core Purpose,

3. Challenge the current process,

4. Enable teams to act, and

5. Encourage the heart.

This research was based on seventy-five thousand responses, 
thousands of interviews working in twenty languages and linked 
to a book that has sold some two million copies. The workshop 
boasts high association with business growth. Many church leaders 



Ian Robinson—Business Analogies at Church

55

have adopted this compelling set of business-based practices. But 
is it a good analogue for churches?

Three recent studies suggest otherwise. First, Burton (Burton 
2010, 117) interviewed seventy-six senior pastors in two North 
American protestant denominations. He concluded that “none of 
the five leadership behaviors were found to be significantly related 
to church population growth” (Burton 2010, 5, 101). Similarly, 
Stewart (Stewart 2012, 119) and Hines (Hines 2012, 125) found 
no statistical difference between the Five Practices and the size of 
Church, the growth of the Church and the educational status of 
their ministers. These three empirical studies show how easy it is 
to make inept interpretations about transformational leadership. 

Despite this misuse of business analogies, there is a major 
opportunity. In recent decades of global change, the sectors of 
business, education, and the military have all undergone radical 
internal change. All three sectors have not only experimented with 
leadership models but also researched the effectiveness of that 
work. If the Church can translate soundly from research on turn-
around in those sectors, that is, if they interpret analogous situ-
ations into high-order learning, then leadership-change insights 
may offer valuable learning for the Church.

In this paper, I analyse the use of analogues, and compare 
them with the interpretation of biblical parables, in order to con-
struct a tool of cross-sector interpretation which holds theological 
integrity.

A definition of “analogy,” from the Greek analogia, describes 
a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from 
a particular subject (the analog, or source) to another (the target), 
or a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process (On-
line Etymology Dictionary). It differs from the forms of simile or 
metaphor. It is ordinarily (as here) a simple figure of speech, but 
post-war elaborations of the concept of metaphor in critical dis-
course have broadened this term (Ortony 2012, 1) in ways that this 
paper will not pursue. By comparison, an analogy holds a wider 
field of view, including multiple points of comparison. Only the 
act of interpretation can determine how many points there are. 



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Analogue is not as thoroughgoing as allegory, a form that implies 
a near-complete and detailed valid comparison.

For example, to say that the Milky Way is like a saucer is a 
simile or metaphor, validly holding true with a single point of 
comparison: shape. To say the Milky Way is like the internet makes 
an analogy referencing massively numerous and complex separate 
users, uses, physical centers, and types of influence. However, it 
fails as an allegory because it lacks what the simile gave: the physi-
cal shape of an entity organized by greater forces. It lacks a sense of 
boundary that helps us work with the concept of a galaxy since the 
“centers” of the internet are much more numerous than stars and 
galaxies and growing daily in number.

Observing these limitations leads us to ask how analogy 
works.

The Track Record of Analogy in Theology

At a basic level, an analogy builds understanding thus: “What does 
this remind you of?” and “How is this (the source) like that (the 
target)?” Analogy is a method widely used by teachers, proving to 
be powerful in many subjects and at all levels. One critical study 
observed, “the most dramatic and visible role of analogy is as a 
mechanism for conceptual change, where it allows people to im-
port a set of ideas worked out in one domain into another. Ana-
logical reason is patterned thinking, not deductive” (Forbus 1998, 
231–57).

The analogical approach is not new to the field of theology. 
The influential Alexandrian theologian Origen (184–253 CE) used 
analogy as a higher-order interpretive device, preferring allegori-
cal interpretation to historical exegesis because it was more ascetic 
(some say “mystical”).

More recently, the American Catholic theologian David 
Tracy traced the long history of systematics and observed twin 
counterpoised methods—analogical imagination and dialectical 
analysis. Neither should be an overlord of the other, he claimed 
(Tracy 1981, 421).



Ian Robinson—Business Analogies at Church

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This paper cannot pursue this history. Instead I simply note 
that Christian theology has always employed the rationality of 
analogy. Hence, there can be a deep confidence that this form of 
interpretation is germane to the faith of the Church and goes be-
yond the invention of small illustrative devices.

Further confidence in the use of analogy is evident in the 
field of missiology. In the mission of the Church, interpretation 
across cultures is also not a new question and not an easy one. 
The Church has, since its beginning, translated the gospel from 
one culture to another (Luke 4:27; John 3–4; Acts 17). That task 
has proven very fruitful for the Church as she has taken root in 
so many new language groups (e.g., Donovan 1982; Bevans 1992, 
57–62). Cross-cultural transmission of the gospel is not simply a 
verbal message, but is always “incarnate,” always embodied, always 
within a culture (Bevans 1992). Ethnic cultures are unique patterns 
of thinking, acting, and feeling that sustain the richness of their 
life and faith. Not just for expansion but for insight, it has been a 
two-way process. Each new culture uncovers hidden treasures in 
the gospel by bringing a different light. For example, Liberation 
Theology came out of South American barrios and now informs 
mission in suburban Australia.

The tools of contextual theology can also be applied to pro-
fessional cultures, such as business or education. This is because 
business sectors and even single companies develop strong local 
cultures or strong overarching cultures. They can be complex and 
nuanced. As in all contextualization theory, some new things can 
be seen in those cultures as God-given while some things could be 
challenged with the gospel (Goheen 2014, 287). This influence is 
two-way, like all contextualization, and the hermeneutical work in 
both directions can only be discovered with careful engagement. 
To avoid the risks of engagement is to consign the Church either to 
irrelevance or loss of integrity. It can be said in missiological terms, 
then, that churches may be practicing an incautious syncretism in 
their use of power, definitions of purpose, forms of participation, 
and so on.



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The cross-cultural task is always attended by fears of syncre-
tism. Henning Wrogemann cites the Indian scholar M. M. Thomas’s 
advocacy to take the risk: “It is vital bravely to step out in faith and 
to adopt and adapt such elements and forms” (Wrogemann 2016, 
336). Mike Goheen advocates a model he calls “faithful contextu-
alization” (Goheen 2014, 284–86), balancing effectiveness in the 
world with fidelity to Christ. These missiologists encourage critical 
examination of analogues that might resource the Church in mis-
sion, and the need for this task is almost universally accepted, the 
risks, as well as the expectation of enrichment, well observed.

How Analogy Works

Given this brief examination of analogical interpretation in theol-
ogy and mission, let us uncover how analogy works. Several prin-
ciples will be identified then summarized.

Analogy works when the analogy says, “this (complex area) is 
like that (simpler picture)”; it has restricted the field of view from 
the full complexity of this in the real world. It also relies upon a 
comparable pattern between the two referents in that aspect only. 
That is, analogous reasoning only works when the comparable pat-
tern of concepts thus generated is made to interact with a wider 
conceptual frame. People learn from analogy only when that pat-
tern is restricted in some ways. Analogy therefore works well only 
when in view of a wider context and in view of the particular stage 
or focus of learning. The philosopher David Chalmers confirms 
the “sensitivity to context” that is critical to the argument of any 
analogy (Chalmers 1991, 20–24).

Adding to these two principles, several more describe how 
analogy works in learning. First, analogies serve a particular pur-
pose. Interpreters must identify the core purpose within which 
the analogues are framed, and the prior awareness of the audience 
about the analogue that illuminates the target at this stage of learn-
ing. This is not a simple metaphorical process, because the object 
of the learning is to move beyond pre-existing perceptions. They 



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expose gaps in knowledge and provoke the need for a new thought 
or movement into action.

Second, analogies are used to bridge a gap or conflict in para-
digms such as those required in interdisciplinary studies. These 
are essential when large complex problems have not been solvable 
by single professional approaches.

While observing that interdisciplinary collaboration is in its 
infancy, Paul Jeffrey describes these four analogical methods in a 
particular cross-sector collaboration thus:

A number of tools are identified that characterize and 
support the collaboration process, including the use of 
storylines and metaphor, choice of vocabulary, the na-
ture of dialogue and the role of mediating agents (Jeffrey 
2003).

While he includes the nature, language, and role of those 
participating in the collaboration, he also identifies four “prod-
ucts” of collaboration: “process,” “understanding,” “utility,” and 
“knowledge integration” (Jeffrey,2003). The work of making and 
interpreting useful analogies includes all these characteristics. 
Seeking an apt analogy is therefore a good strategy for making 
discoveries and building trust for a shared task. Like all strategies, 
they require prior agreement of a common desire or goal, which 
may then move to a further elaboration of that goal (Jacobs and 
Frickel 2009, 43–65).

This is why Jeffrey reminds us that analogical work requires 
person-to-person work, not just mind-to-mind work. An analogy 
born in one complex sector does not lend itself to simplistic com-
parisons. For instance, professionals often lament the dominance 
of “business principles” or “business language” in the contempo-
rary practice of medicine or education. The managers complain 
about the “bottomless pit” of money that medical staff must think 
they have, which is more a description of the compassion that 
motivates medical professionals. On the other hand, the teacher 
or nurse may feel that the “efficient” reduction in staff has made it 
impossible to impart confidence to patients or pupils, an essential 
part of the healing/learning process. Thus, the definition of the 



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problem to be solved and the motivation to solve it are different 
from the outset. Part of the people-work of analogical interpreta-
tion is to find a beginning point.

For a cross-sector analogy to work in practice, therefore, re-
quires some people-principles beyond the words and content. A 
dialogue is required that listens carefully to the others, respects 
their differing goals and views, and creates a way of speaking that 
solves the uncovered problems. If they avoid the conflict in that 
process, it is possible that they will paper over the challenges with 
an agreed “form of words,” which leads to no new outcome.

The kind of thinking that is being advocated here is complex 
relationally, yes, but also philosophically. Analogy is a powerful 
high-order logic (Heick 2019). As noted above, teachers routinely 
use a “this is like that” form of learning to construct an informa-
tive point for students to be able to grasp. Educational psychol-
ogy claims that this creative act is also a critical path. Not only 
do students grasp new learning but in the process of finding apt 
analogues assimilate it. The process of analogical reasoning is not, 
therefore, a simple metaphor-assignment task. Rather, it is an it-
erative process of trying what works better or best as they move 
back and forth between the known and the unknown. Terry Heick 
observes:

As students create incorrect analogies, analyse the rela-
tionships their analogies are suggesting, and then cor-
rect them accordingly, students are grappling with ideas, 
monitoring and revising their thinking, and otherwise 
actively considering the often-complex relationships be-
tween disparate things (Heick 2019, 9).

While this is a traditional technique of school education, we 
now see it in epistemology and engineering, valued as high-level 
logic. Analogy is now recognized as a key form of logic in the 
building of artificial intelligence (Forbus 1998, 231–57; Chalmers 
1991, 185–211).

We have seen in the epistemology of analogue the impor-
tance of understanding and including context, discerning the 
core purpose of communication, the necessity of provocation to 



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discern new learning, the importance of the persons in the act of 
dialogue, and recognition of the stage or strategy of cross-sector 
enquiry. This list begins to define how an analogical situation may 
be aptly interpreted.

One way to examine this question is the parables of Jesus, 
where we will see these same principles. I will summarize the prin-
ciples obtained as a hermeneutical method using the metaphor of 
a prism of light. After that, two concrete examples of “parables 
from business” will test the method.

Analogies Are Like Parables

Jesus’ use of parables provides the strongest argument for why and 
how churches can learn from business practices. In thirty-three 
separate stories, Jesus referred to business practices, mostly agri-
business, as analogy for the kingdom of God, for example (Mark 
4:26 NIV): “He also said, ‘This is what the kingdom of God is like 
a man scatters seed on the ground . . .’” The following table lists the 
parables and their work-place theme.

From the  
Synoptic Gospels

The Sower
Mark 4:1–20, Matt 
13:3–23, Luke 8:5–15
Not every innovation 
succeeds

The Seed Growing 
Secretly
Mark 4:26–29
Growth simply takes 
time

The Mustard Seed
Mark 4:30–32, Matt 
13:31–32, Luke 
13:18–19,
Start small

The Tenants
Mark 12:1–11, Matt 
21:33–46, Luke 
20:9–18
Hold authorities 
accountable

The Faithful Servant
Mark 13:33–37, Matt 
24:42, Luke 12:35–48
Reward good service

The Wheat and Tares
Matt 13:24–30
Nothing grows 
perfectly. You have 
competitors.

The Hidden Treasure
Matt 13:44
Invest where and 
when it really matters

The Pearl
Matt 13:45–46
Act upon nice 
surprises



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62

The Unmerciful 
Servant
Matt 18:23–35
Create a culture of fair 
dealing

The Labourers in the 
Vineyard
Matt 20:1–16
Employees have lives

The Two Sons
Matt 21:28–31
Deeds matter more 
than words

The Ten Virgins
Matt 25:1–12
Be prepared for when 
it takes longer

The Talents
Matt 25:14–25:30
Each person’s capacity 
differs, so treat them 
differently to be fair

The Two Debtors
Lk 10:30–37
Debts can be forgiven 
to create loyalty

The Good Samaritan
Luke 10:30–37
Social value interrupts 
routine

The Rich Fool
Luke 12:16–21
Plan without a sense 
of grandeur

The Unjust Steward
Luke 16:1–8
Practice justice for the 
least

The Rich Man and The 
Beggar Lazarus
Luke 16:19–31
Your social responsi-
bility lies nearby

From the  
Gospel of John

The Harvest
John 4:35–38
The Mission of God 
produces a profit or 
harvest

The Apprenticed Son
John 5:19–20a
Follow the Master’s 
instructions closely

The Shepherd
John 10:1–5
Lead like a shepherd

The True Vine
John 15:1–17
God acts like a gar-
dener. Disciples act 
like fruiting branches.

The Foot Washing
John 13:1–15
Lead as a servant

Table 1. Parables from business practices

Ten parables include analogies about leadership in business. 
If they were taken as business aphorisms only, they would not be 
remarkable. All these parables are wise sayings that address core 
leadership questions in the kingdom of God.

The close similarity between “analogue” (above) and “par-
able” can be easily seen. A parable is usually a short story that illus-
trates a moral attitude or a religious principle (Merriam-Webster 



Ian Robinson—Business Analogies at Church

63

Dictionary). The story itself may be taken from a news story or 
ordinary life-events.

The interpretation of Jesus’ parables is a wide field of study 
that cannot be adequately encompassed here. With the help of 
Luise Schottroff and Klyne Snodgrass, I locate the importance of 
this form of learning and compare it with the way analogy works.

In parables, Jesus narrated a wide range of events and values, 
always artfully inviting scrutiny. Rarely, the narrative is meant 
to be an allegory, allowing many point-by-point comparisons. 
Indeed, some revel in the obscurities of finding allegory where 
none was intended. In some parables a “ripping yarn” provokes 
attention but may also provoke misunderstanding. For instance, 
is the somnolent judge (Luke 18:1–8) who resists the importunate 
widow a model of God, such that the Church must recruit earnest 
prayers to persuade an unwilling God to act? Many practice this 
sort of recruitment, but in context and in purpose the parable says 
exactly the opposite (v8). The age-old maxim applies here: other 
Scriptures outside the immediate narrative teach the reader to 
discern that which is simply attention-getting through dramatic 
effect from that which is being affirmed. They have misread both 
the legal context and the theological context. A complex organisa-
tional behavior like a legal system does not yield light to simplistic 
comparisons.

Thus, our first interpretive principle is that the analogy must 
be interpreted with knowledge of its wider context (Schottroff 
2006, 220).

The second is that the core purpose of the story, though 
not necessarily stated in the narrative, must limit interpretation 
(Snodgrass 2018, 24–31).

The third principle is that a parable has a provocative learning 
purpose. The goal in the use of these analogies is to make a listener 
think in new ways as they puzzle the purpose, the similarities, and 
the differences. The stories being compared are to be intuitively 
mapped for patterns or points of congruence rather than mined 
for a detailed or allegorical congruence.



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Matthew 13, for example, includes a question about the dif-
ficulty of interpreting the stories (v10). Jesus’ answer is that they 
are designed to be difficult, to need discernment, to need the 
peripheral view of context and self, to disrupt habits of thought. 
This fulsome chapter ends with the ironic ascription to Jesus as 
“prophet without honor”(v57), which suggests that the disruptive 
work of interpreting Jesus’ parables was immensely valuable yet 
created conflict. Thus, some parables have the immediate goal to 
be disruptive and to create the appetite for learning but are not 
themselves a good source of that further learning. For that, other 
sources and analogues are required, aligning with the need for a 
changed field of view.

It must also be stated that Jesus sometimes uproots normal 
business practice. For instance, he calls some people to give up 
working and follow him, he tells another to sell everything and 
walk away with him, he forgives debt too many times to be called 
good at accounting, he overturns the tables of foreign exchange 
merchants, he commends a lack of thrift towards tomorrow’s 
food and clothing, he sends disciples out with no visible means of 
support, and he provides healing for free (which upsets both the 
lawyers and the doctors). St Paul also famously described salvation 
with the analogy of redemption from slavery. Lest that sound like 
immediate destitution, he aligned Christians with a new citizen-
ship in the kingdom of heaven, of greater value than the much-
prized citizenship in the Roman political economy.

Thus, some parables are intended to provoke reflection, pro-
mote immediate action, and may face immediate resistance, such 
as the Good Samaritan (Luke 10). Each parable renders a story 
from a known sector of life (this) and applies it to life in the king-
dom of God (that). Therefore, there are many purposes of Jesus’ 
parables together with an explicit warning about doing the inter-
pretive work involved.



Ian Robinson—Business Analogies at Church

65

A Prism of Principles

From the above, the hermeneutical principles can be summarized 
as follows, in no order of importance:

1. Purpose: Limit oneself within the range of meanings intend-
ed and the core purpose.

2. Context: Interpret with reference to the wider context.

3. Structures: Clarify assumptions about authority or structures 
that are being used.

4. Stage: Be aware of staging the strategy in action or reflection.

5. Learning: Learn carefully for action or attitude, a reflective 
practice.

6. Spirit: Accept provocation to discern the Holy Spirit at work.

7. People: Work with the other people in the dialogue.

As soon as we list these principles we immediately see its 
relevance to the work of church leadership, especially regard-
ing readiness to do the work of gaining wisdom. This allows us 
to move from the hermeneutics of parables to consider business 
practices as analogues for application to the Church.

Two Parables from Business

We will now employ two business parables, discerning them with 
the spectrum of the seven principles.

The Kingdom of God Is Like Kodak.

The context tells us that the Kodak company (USA) manufactured 
camera-films, eventually holding 70 percent of the market for 
family photography, for which they created the slogan “a Kodak 
moment.” In 1981 they, with others, invented the digital form 
of photography that gradually made Kodak film obsolete. They 
missed the moment, it is often said; they did not recognize the 



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change that was coming, and eventually filed for bankruptcy in 
2012 (Munir 2021).

How shall the Church interpret this parable? The similarities 
of context include the ballast of long-standing excellence, the in-
rush of new ideas that are rejected, the consequent steady decline 
in fortunes and a management response that was inadequate. A 
church leader might comfort themselves by doing trend analy-
sis and excusing themselves from responsibility or by adopting 
more contemporary flavors into their church services. However, 
Scott Anthony in Harvard Business Review cited these as “wrong 
conclusions.”

A generation ago, a “Kodak moment” meant something 
that was worth saving and savoring. Today, the term 
increasingly serves as a corporate bogeyman that warns 
executives of the need to stand up and respond when 
disruptive developments encroach on their market. 
Unfortunately, as time marches on the subtleties of what 
happened to Eastman Kodak are being forgotten, lead-
ing executives to draw the wrong conclusions from its 
struggles (Anthony 2016).

In fact, a study of context shows that Kodak did not overlook 
the opportunity. Anthony continues:

Kodak created a digital camera, invested in the technol-
ogy, and even understood that photos would be shared 
online. Where they failed was in realizing that online 
photo sharing was the new business, not just a way to 
expand the printing business (Anthony 2016).

In fact, Kodak had seen the issue, invested in the digital 
camera business, and they were not myopic. The online world of 
sharing photos overtook their redirection work, to which their 
response was to sell their many patents and re-configure the com-
pany. They did change but simply not enough. That is the more 
reliable lesson from Kodak as parable. Some interpreters with the 
wrong conclusions might congratulate themselves that they have 
“seen the need to change” but they may have failed to learn the 
real lesson—that a significant change or two are required. Many 



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business writers speak of the necessity of and nervousness around 
making sufficiently bold changes (Laczkowski 2019).

They did undergo the provocation of a paradigmatic change 
in technology, consulted the workforce and the market, but not 
widely enough to avoid being blind-sided. They discerned their 
core purpose to be color printing and made major investments in 
printers, papers, and inks, whereas their identity—“a Kodak mo-
ment”—said more about the capturing of images. They had been 
engaged in learning the new technologies and acted in a minor 
way to advance them. But the real lesson, as Laczkowski (2019) 
noted, was not making sufficiently bold changes.

In discerning the stage of the strategy, a church leader con-
cluding from this analogue “to read the signs of the times” might 
fail to realize that this is an observation that applies only to the 
start of a response. Other stages and strategies are required that 
must also be relevant to the contextual limits. In terms of affecting 
strategy, they must navigate the differing structural authority or 
assumed motivations that will permit or inhibit certain actions, 
as Jim Collins warns in his book applying business principles to 
social sectors (Collins 2006).

I hope the reader, with their own prior view of the famous 
Kodak story, is now persuaded to apply the spectrum of interpre-
tation to find more adequate responses to analogous situations 
they may face. Let us test it further with one final example, this 
time not directed at congregations but “church office.”

The Kingdom of God Is Like Toyota.

In 1987, Toyota suffered serious reputational damage due to me-
dia reports about a “stuck accelerator” which resulted in two fatal 
crashes. Unfortunately, these reports came immediately before a 
global financial crisis. The event impacted Toyota’s market share, 
but the coincident financial crisis reduced their capacity to re-
spond. It threatened to crush the company. What did they do? Did 
they try to silence the newspapers? Did they hope it would blow 
over so that their historic brand-strength might see them through? 



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No, they apologized immediately and publicly, issued safety recalls 
for millions of their vehicles at great cost to themselves in a time 
of fiscal crisis, promised that “the safety of your loved ones” was 
still their first priority, gave full collaboration to an independent 
investigation (they were eventually exonerated), and quickly in-
troduced a new model with a new name and withdrew that much-
publicized car. Over the next few years their market share actually 
increased over what it had been.

So, at a contextual level, is Toyota a parable for what churches 
should do to recover their general reputation in public due to cov-
er-ups of child sexual abuse, removal of babies, support of Donald 
Trump, or their public campaign to reject “gay marriage”? Should 
they manage themselves to apologize in public, set up internal 
ethical safeguards, and try something new for the sake of demoral-
ized innocent clergy and parishes? Or is this their Kodak moment 
and they should completely reinvent themselves?

A further examination of the context will help the interpreter. 
Newspapers and politicians flocked to accuse this foreign-owned 
company. However, Toyota did not choose first to stand and rebut 
those voices nor lament their place in history. Behind the scenes, 
as they did the public things mentioned, Toyota increased their 
support to their dealer network, providing information and dis-
count incentives to get them through (Silverstein 2016, 189–204). 
They did later contest several malicious legal cases, but they did 
not do that first. In other words, the way they responded to the 
times of trial was more important in winning public trust than 
the vocal opposition of media and politicians and the safety issue 
itself. The people factor came into priority before strategy could be 
decided. As Collins said, “First who, then what” (Collins 2001, 41).

This is not a lesson learned well enough by churches. With 
rapidly declining “market share” in public participation, the main-
stream churches have generally defended their public position and 
left their congregations and clergy (aka dealer networks) to soldier 
on with the demands of new ethical regulations but without new 
support. Episcopal and Pentecostal churches had the structure for 
rapid responses like Toyota, much more so than the congregational 



Ian Robinson—Business Analogies at Church

69

or democratic churches, but they have been conspicuous in self-
defence. There are some exceptions. Consequently, clergy are 
experiencing a dramatic loss of public respect. Morale is low and 
church officials seem merely to want to ride out the storm (Stones-
treet 2019). The Toyota parable hinges on their ability to state and 
practice their core purpose in their place in society—“the safety 
of your family,” not making money. The latter serves the former. 
Mainstream churches have mostly lost confidence to state their 
core purpose—the gospel—when they make a core statement it is 
most often about themselves: church growth. Can churches learn 
to state in public a similar core purpose? Work towards an answer 
to this question, perhaps: Why does God still have a Church here 
and now?

These parables are both provocative and do not within them-
selves provide all the answers to the questions they raise. We have 
been able to describe their similarities and differences in terms of 
the priority to people, alignment with core purpose, reading the 
nuance of context and its power structures, engaging the provo-
cation to learning both in stage and strategy. The result has been 
nuanced, informed, responsible, and limited, but sufficient to take 
the reader to the next stage of response. At that stage, the same 
spectrum of principles will again inform their discernment.

Moving away from parables, we can go one further mis-
siological step. With light like this and considering the place of 
analogue in cross-sector learning, churches could be well placed to 
flourish in this fast-changing environment. Their voluntary com-
mitment has traditionally been high because the gospel directly 
implies that the generosity of God’s love requires a response of 
generosity of time and funds. The reign of God assumes an ecol-
ogy (body of Christ) of nurture and trust-love and not just linear 
structures. Management authority Jim Collins said that while 
churches are low in “executive authority,” they are high in “influ-
ential strength,” and adds, remarkably, that they thus demonstrate 
“true leadership.”

There is an irony in all this. Social sector organizations 
increasingly look to business for leadership models and 



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70

talent, yet I suspect we will find more true leadership in 
the social sectors than the business sector (Collins 2006, 
12).

We note his claim that analogical learning between sectors 
can work in both directions, subject to the same spectrum of 
hermeneutics (Bolster 2008, 20–22). The two-way street of this 
hermeneutic is a valuable outcome of these studies. It means the 
Church can speak constructively, not just ecclesially or morally, 
in many more ways into the lives of business and, as Collins de-
scribes, it will be a rich gift.

Conclusion

From this study of parable, context, and analogy, seven principles 
have emerged for the critical and creative interpretation of ana-
logues. One way to understand this is that there are seven colors 
in the spectrum of light. So, in any reading from other cultures or 
sectors, the degrees of sameness in the analogue and target can be 
mapped or patterned by looking through the colors of this prism. 
Light can be described, merged, and combined in myriad ways, but 
this paper echoes the warnings of Jesus to see the full light. It pro-
poses a prism that shows how different insights can be combined 
to make a beam of light with more integrity than the sad examples 
with which I began. The seven colors must be applied iteratively 
in reflecting on every step of change. High-order parables can be 
found using these seven principles as lenses and will illuminate 
many leadership insights that are fresh yet biblical.

These seven principles may prevent the Church from taking 
analogy too far, too little, or too analytically. Even more important, 
these principles can provide a platform for developmental learning 
of leadership, a practical wisdom that can turn the Church around.

Further research is needed to position this spectrum of ana-
logical interpretation in more detail in the larger bodies of theol-
ogy and missiology. One could add an examination of the sectors 
of education and the military, sport, and biology. More work is also 



Ian Robinson—Business Analogies at Church

71

needed to differentiate the systemic needs of community-facing 
churches, experimental initiatives, the birthing of new ideas, and 
the more aligned synod-type structures.

This paper sought to highlight the confidence that the high-
order learning of analogical interpretation has had in the theo-
logical and missiological history of the Church. It has analysed 
together the epistemology of analogy and the hermeneutics of 
parables and found seven principles that can assist careful learn-
ing from emerging trends in the wider context and apply them to 
the leadership needs of the Church. They can nourish a leader’s 
ongoing work and enhance the effectiveness and fidelity of a con-
gregation and a denomination.

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