What the Church Can Learn from Walmart’s Big Move on Convenience
•Todd Rhoades•Season 1•Episode 311
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The episode emphasizes the necessity for churches to innovate and adapt by drawing parallels to Walmart's same-day prescription delivery service, highlighting how genuine engagement with community needs can lead to meaningful change. It explores values like accessibility, care, problem-solving, and the importance of listening to congregation members.
• Importance of innovation in addressing real community needs • Convenience reflects genuine care for congregants • Churches should offer holistic support, not just Sunday services • Listening and adapting are crucial for church relevance • Challenge to leaders: consider innovative ways to serve better
Walmart just did something really big they rolled out the same-day prescription delivery nationwide. Now, todd, I know you're asking why should church leaders even care about this? Because it's not just a convenience. It's about listening to the real needs and adapting to serve people better. And if a massive corporation is willing to rethink how it meets customer needs, then shouldn't the church be doing the same? I'm Todd Rhodes. I'm your host here on the Healthy Church Staff podcast. The gospel never changes, but how we deliver it can. So we're going to talk about that today and what we can learn as church staff and church leaders from Walmart's playbook.
Speaker 1:
So I think there's four things I'd like to share with you today that hopefully, will just get your juices flowing a little bit, and so I love to do things like this, where we take something that's happening, maybe in a business or in culture and kind of try and figure out okay, what can we learn from this as church leaders? And I find that a lot of times this cross cross. The only thing I can think of is cross-contamination, that's not it. Pollinization, maybe, that's it. Taking two different areas and molding them together and finding out what we can learn from this I find is really fascinating number one and number two. It just gets my mind going in different directions. So hopefully that will do this for you here today. So four key things that I think we can learn.
Speaker 1:
First of all, innovation can really solve real problems. Innovation in the church kind of gets a bad rap sometimes, but we need to constantly be trying new things. Now here's how this worked. Walmart did not wake up one day and say, hey, let's add delivery just for fun. That's not how that happened, right? No, they listened and they saw that people, especially older adults, those with chronic conditions, they struggled to make multiple pharmacy trips. So they created a solution that met some real needs for people. So my question to you as a church leader and to you as a church pastor or a church staff person Are we solving real problems or are we just running the same programs we've always had? Stagnation is real in the church. Are there people in your church that are struggling to connect because they can't physically attend services? Are their families stretched so thin that they can't make it to another midweek event? Are young adults feeling disconnected because you don't have anything for them at your church? They don't see a place for themselves at the church. The truth is, the best innovations aren't gimmicks. Gimmicks come and go, okay. The best innovations and the best things that can happen in your church are when you're trying to answer real problems. So that's the first point I'd like to share with you is that true innovation, in churches as in businesses, true innovations solve real problems. And then, secondly, convenience isn't a compromise, okay, it's care.
Speaker 1:
Some leaders might hear innovation and think, todd, we're not going there. We don't go there. We're not going to talk about watering things down. That's not at all. Hear me, that's not at all what I'm talking about. And again, walmart didn't say, hey, let's stop selling medications in store. You can still find everything in store. Okay, they just made it easier for people to access them and people that needed access to them that couldn't get in their store. And all I'm saying is the church should be doing the same thing, right?
Speaker 1:
We've been through a lot of changes in the last five years church right, and live streaming is one of them. Four or five years ago, there were churches that live streamed, but there are a lot more churches that had to live stream and learn how to do it just like that, when they couldn't meet. Live streaming is one of those things that isn't a compromise, right, it's accessibility. Online small groups aren't laziness, they're life-giving for people that have crazy schedules. Now you can push back and say, todd, this isn't for me, that's fine. Live streaming might not be for your church. Online small groups aren't. Might not be for your church, but here's what I bet is for your church Okay, offering, offering online giving is something that, again, five years ago, many churches had already started to do, but some churches hadn't done it and boy, when they couldn't meet in person.
Speaker 1:
All of a sudden, that innovation of making it convenient wasn't a compromise, but it was a convenience. Making it convenient for people to give was huge, and now nearly every church offers online giving options. As a matter of fact, a lot of online giving options. Maybe offering different service times. You might think that's catering. This is the time we meet. You need to make time. You need to make priority in your life to worship Jesus at this time, sunday morning, 10 o'clock. Be there, right? Maybe offering different worship services? Maybe don't look at it as catering. Maybe it's making space for more people to worship. Again, I want to go back and you may criticize me and say, todd, you're trying to water. I'm not trying to water stuff down. The gospel message never, ever changes, but how we can deliver it absolutely does.
Speaker 1:
Okay, point number three people want solutions, not just services. And here's what Walmart found they found that when people got their prescriptions delivered, they also ordered other essentials. Why? Because people want holistic solutions, not just one-off transactions, and this is huge. This is a huge lesson for the church.
Speaker 1:
Okay, people just don't want a sermon on Sunday morning. Okay, that could be an ego blow to you if you're a senior pastor. They don't come just to hear the sermon on Sunday morning. They want more. Okay, they want a church that walks with them throughout the week. A struggling marriage needs more than a Sunday sermon. It needs some mentorship and some resources and some help. That lonely young adult that feels isolated needs more than a church service. They need real relationships. That family that we mentioned that might be facing financial hardship doesn't just need prayer. And they don't need a really stellar knock it out of the park sermon on Sunday. Those are great things, but what they need is some real practical help. So are we providing solutions that help people thrive? That's innovation. How can you innovate that can help people thrive where they are, because if you're not doing that, you're just offering services that check a box. Hey, come on Sunday. All right, you check the box, come on.
Speaker 1:
For me, a generation ago, it was check the box. I grew up in the Panathabaptist so there were a lot of boxes to check. Right, you had to be at Sunday school Check that box. You had to be at Sunday night worship service Check at Sunday night worship service Check that box. You had to be at Sunday night service Check that box. You need to be at Wednesday night prayer meeting right, check that box. You needed to be. If you really wanted to love Jesus, you needed to come to. We used to call it visitation. You would come to visitation an hour before hour and a half before the Wednesday night service. You would go out and visit people. You had to check that box. As I was a kid growing up, I had to check the box of learning, very legalistically, checking off a lot of boxes, learning memory versus having it signed off by my leader, doing all kinds of contests. It was great, but also it was a lot of box checking.
Speaker 1:
Innovation is more than just checking boxes. It's actually meeting people where they are Okay and last one, okay, listen and adapt. I think this is one of the biggest takeaways that we can get from this move that Walmart's making. Okay, they listened. Their customer said this is what we need, and Walmart delivered literally right, they delivered.
Speaker 1:
So I want to ask you, as a church leader, as a pastor, as a church staff person, when was the last time you actually listened? When was the last time that we actually asked what people in our congregation, in our churches, actually needed? Are we paying attention to changing community dynamics? Are we listening to unchurched people who might be open to faith but hesitant to church culture? If we listen well you hear me If we listen well, we might realize that some of the things we've always done aren't actually meeting people's needs anymore. And if that's the case, it's okay to change. It's okay, okay.
Speaker 1:
So here's your bottom line for today. Walmart did not innovate just for the sake of innovation. They made a change that served people better and the church man. We should be doing the same thing. So here's my challenge for you today what's one way that your church can rethink how it serves people? You can drop your ideas in the comments, wherever you're listening or watching this. I'd love to hear them, because, at the end of the day, innovation in the church isn't just about being trendy. That's not what it's all about at all. It's about making Jesus accessible to more people in real, meaningful ways, and that's a mission that's really worth adapting for All right.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for joining me today here on the Healthy Church Staff podcast. If there's any way that I can help you or your church in any kind of Healthy Church Staff initiatives that you have maybe you need some help with compensation analysis, maybe you need some help with hiring new staff, any of those kind of things I would love to have a conversation with you. I would love to come alongside and partner with you. If that makes sense and you can reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I'd love to hear from you and I also hope that you will join me again. I love having you with me here on the podcast. I hope you'll join me again here on the Healthy Church Steps podcast tomorrow.
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