Mid-Life MBA: The Art of Business

I was surfing through Churchbusiness.com when I noticed a recent “culture of accountability,” webinar and felt palpably startled.  The site said the webinar would be about “accountability,defined as “ the acknowledgement and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions and policies, including the administration, governance and implementation within the scope of one’s job.” Accountability also encompasses the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for results and consequences.  (Godevenos)“For some strange reason, it doesn’t come easy to theology students or church leaders in general; yet, accountability has been around since the beginning of man, from the early chapters of Genesis to the Jesus’ parable of the talents,” Godevenos continues. “It’s still going strong today in our public and private systems of governance. It involves either the expectation or assumption of account-giving behavior.”

In its simplest form, accountability has also come to mean “the willingness to stand up and be counted,” he says – but how do we get our staff (and possibly our congregants) to do just that?

Awareness of this concept in the church is critical but it is also critical that the concept have a context for without grace, accountability will turn an institution that is to be a ministry of grace into just another form of the law. This is not to say however, that the concept has no place–it does.  A pastor, for example, may not be able to guarantee a 20% increase in giving or in membership of a particular church, but it should guarantee that the pastor is indeed preparing well for his preaching, visiting well to support his congregation, and finding creative ways to reach his surrounding community. Accountability is an important concept for annual evaluations in the church but the challenge will be to properly place it in the broader context of church life.

Centene Corp is a managed care provider for Medicaid, Medicare, and Schip, services. It is the 4th largest provider in the USA and it closed on Friday at $21.00, down from $24.00 earlier in the week and down from an all time high of $28.00.

With 1st quarter earnings of 26 cents per share, excluding firstguard activity, it may not be a bad deal right now. Have a look at the Morningstar ratings below. A good deal of its success will hinge on currently pending contracts for services in Maricopa county, Arizona.

Centene’s managed-care organizations served more than 1.1 million members in six states as of March 31, up from nearly 875,000 on the same date in 2006.

A continued possibility of rising inflation may be responsible for some of the overall lack of direction in the market. The Federal Reserve Board’s release of minutes from a March meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee said the “predominant policy concern” is that future inflation won’t moderate. For the week, the S&P 500 Index rose 0.6% to 1,453, and the yield of the 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose 1 basis point to 4.76%.

Producer prices are up with the Producer Price Index (PPI) rising 1% over the last month. This is the 4th large increase in the past 5 months and is largely due to increased food and energy costs.

The trade gap however, continues to narrow and has narrowed for every month since August 2006 with the exception of December. Many analysts had expected the gap to widen in February. The gap was a record 68.9 billion dollars in August of last year but was 54.8 billion in February.

In the week ahead we look forward to a Consumer Price Index update on Tuesday as well as updates on industrial production and residential construction that same day.  On Thursday the Conference Board will release a report on leading economic indicators.