What The Church Can Learn From LEGO

The LEGO documentary in 2015 highlights the details on LEGO’s turnaround story from years of declined sales and influence since 2004. In fact, if the company didn’t address the troubles they were in, LEGO would have been worthless in 2020.

With that said, because the company was able to redesign the LEGO brand, it is worth over $5 Billion dollars, has masterbuilder factories all throughout the globe, and is the second largest toy company in the world.

In reflection, here are 5 things the Church can learn from LEGO:

Do Not Let Go of Your Founding Values

When LEGO wanted to grow in the 80’s and 90’s, they began to branch out of the traditional brick formation to mechanics and computer programming. Due to this, LEGO began to loose momentum because they were hindering people from the creative process with the traditional brick.

In the same way, as churches, we have the great foundational values found in Scriptures. We already have the values needed to leverage influence in our communities, culture, and congregants. 

And furthermore, every local church has a strong history to glean from. This includes the unique DNA of local church, the highs and lows within a local context, and foundational motivations.

What is your church’s’ foundational and contextual values? Would your church know these values? Live these values? Make decisions – as a church and congregation – with these values?

Focus on Partnering With the 99.9%

Due to the decline in LEGO, masterbuilders outside of the company were creating LEGO designs; even MORE creative than the company itself.

This was a decisive tension the company needed to address. Does LEGO – through legal and patented policy – protect their brand or partner with creative masterbuilders outside of the company?

After strategic conversations with lawyers, senior management, and staff, LEGO decided to partner with outside masterbuilders. Due to this, their sales grew. In fact, one senior management staff said, “99.9% of the creative designers at LEGO do not work for LEGO.”

In the same way, churches need creative and influential people to help leverage ministry in our local churches. 

Who are those people in your local church? Or connected to your local church? How are you partnering with people?

Don’t Protect

This leads to another important aspect to LEGO’s success. They decided NOT to protect their brand. Instead, they made decisions from their foundational value of “helping people be creative.” 

Due to this, users experienced ongoing creativity. And this creative buy-in, partnership, and continued success leveraged LEGO to the buyer. In fact, LEGO REdiscovered the creativity of the traditional block; which has the potential of 900+ billion creative options.*

As local churches, do we make decisions from protectionism or empowerment? Do we empower people to become the church? This is an important question(s) church leaders need to continually ask.

Empower People

LEGO also empowered the 99.9%. LEGO sent out creative/innovation directors to recruit creative masterbuilders outside of the company. As an example, LEGO would partner, build contracts, and promote creative designs with outside masterbuilders. And LEGO understood their most creative “mind-storming”** came outside of the company not inside the company.

In the same way, churches have great opportunities to empower people for ministry. The question is, “how do we empower people in our local churches?” What is our local churches mind-storming process? How do you partner with outsiders?

LEGO, for example, had strategies for mind-storming to occur. Does our churches, organizations, and ministries have the same outlook?

Stay The Course

Last, stay the course! Persist. LEGO never gave up, reached back to their foundational values to move forward, and collaborated from everyone.

In the same way, stay the course.

What can you learn from LEGO?

*This was the traditional 6 block option. With 8 traditional LEGO blocks, LEGO concludes an infinite option(s) for creativity to materialize.

**mind-storming is LEGO’s process to partner with outside masterbuilders all throughout the world.