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From your perspective as someone who's well known in business circles, what's the most important thing for pastors to be doing?

Blanchard: The first thing pastors need to do is know what business they're in and then have a vision for it. After I became a believer, I was a friend of the pastor of a local church -- a lovely guy. But the average age of the church members was 62, and attendance was going down. I suggested that they consider starting a Saturday night service. I offered to do some of the preaching to see if we could help build a crowd. He said, "Thanks, Ken, but I couldn't let you in the pulpit. You never went to divinity school." He ended up leaving, and they began searching for a new pastor.

I'm driving home one day, and I almost feel a tap from the Lord saying, "Give it another try." So I wrote a letter to the head of the search committee and said, "I hope you're not making the same mistake a lot of churches do when they're looking for a senior pastor. The qualifications are so tough, there are only three people qualified: the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And they all have better jobs."

Then I said, "I'd be happy to help you with your Saturday night service." They had started one, but they were only getting 50 to 75 people to attend. The interim pastor, who was a young 74-year-old, called me and said, "Boy, would you really be willing to preaching?" I said "Yeah." So I met with him and the music person, and we set up five straight Saturday nights that I was going to be in town.

Three days before I was going to do the first service, the new pastor showed up, Bruce Humphries. I thought, "This will be interesting. I want to see if they'll still let me preach." He called and said, "Ken, I'm so excited you're preaching on Saturday. Do you mind if I do the opening prayer? Can I introduce you?" This guy's a beautiful guy. He asked me and Phil Hodges to talk to him, his senior staff, and lay leaders. So we helped to lay the vision.

The problem with most churches is that they won't lift up Jesus -- this church is now taking off. At the beginning of every service, the pastor says, "We believe a close encounter with Jesus of Nazareth transforms lives. Our mission is to make Jesus smile." The first thing you have to do is know what business you're in. They're in the business of making Jesus smile.

So the first thing I would do with a church is get the vision. Jesus said to his disciples, "I'm going to make you fishers of men." What's your picture of the future? He said, "Make disciples of all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." And what are your values? He said the first two commandments: "To honor God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our might. And to love our neighbor as ourselves." And so he had a very compelling vision.

Then you set operational goals. We want to have this kind of budget for the year and hope to increase the membership, all those kind of things. If you do those things without having a vision above them, then you're just running a business out there.

In the current atmosphere of megachurches, big book deals, and people telling us how things ought to be, how does a pastor retain his or her balance and not get overtaken by ego?

Blanchard: Well the answer is always Jesus. What'd he say? Seek first the kingdom -- so stop saying, "How many services do you do on Sunday?" That's the ego trip. Who cares if Rick Warren's got 25,000 and you've only got 150. What are you doing with those 150? You need to do your ministry where you're planted and stop comparing yourself. Because the ego is always comparative, you know, and it's always self-serving and all that kind of thing.

You know, just do the best that you can with what's put in front of you. And if you do that, if the Lord's got plans for you to have a bigger congregation, I bet you they'll show up. But you need to keep him first in your thinking. The first sentence in Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren is a whole training program for ministers because what's the first sentence? "It's not about you."

What do you think the church should be doing differently in the area of leadership training?

Blanchard: We ought to do a leadership-training program that works with the business people. Most pastors don't know what to do with their business leaders. They put them in charge of the parking lot. My wife's on the board of a leadership network and she heard someone at a meeting say, "The problem with most churches is that their philosophy is 'We can do it, you can help.' " And I just think it would change churches completely if we had the philosophy, "You can do it, we can help" and had all the ministries based on the interests of our congregation.

Build your church around who's in your congregation, and find out what they're really interested in and how the church can support them. I think that's what Jesus intended for the churches.

For more about Ken Blanchard, his book Lead Like Jesus, and Lead Like Jesus resources, go to leadlikejesus.com