On this platform, we’ll look at a several companies and cultural touchstones with a special focus on some of my favorite interests, one of which is The Walt Disney Company.
welcome to the collision of church leadership and pop culture. (part two – disney.)
Disney is the OG of modern storytelling-as-ecosystem.
They don’t just make movies. They create worlds – and then they build systems that let you live inside those worlds: parks, cruises, merchandise, soundtracks, characters, experiences, nostalgia, generational identity.
And at the center of Disney’s story is a church-leadership-level tension: how do you scale your ministry without losing the plot?
Walt Disney wasn’t just a creative genius. He was a relentless builder of culture. He obsessed over details, consistency, and experience. He believed in “show,” not just “tell.” Everything communicated. Everything mattered.
There’s a reason people say things like, “Disney just does it different.”
Because they do.
But Disney is also a cautionary tale about what happens when the machine gets bigger than the magic. When the experience becomes transactional. When the brand becomes the goal. When you scale so hard you forget what made you special in the first place.
Walt Disney was famously inspired to build Disneyland by weekend days spent with his daughters. Here, he tells the origin story in his own words, “The idea for Disneyland came about when my daughters were very young and Saturday was always Daddy’s day with the two daughters. So we’d start out and try to go someplace, you know, different things, and I’d take them to the merry-go-round and I took them different places and as I’d sit while they rode the merry-go-round and did all these things- sit on a bench, you know, eating peanuts- I felt that there should be something built where the parents and the whole family could have fun together. So that’s how Disneyland started. Well, it took many years… it was a period of maybe fifteen years developing. I started with many ideas, threw them away, started all over again. And eventually it evolved into what you see today at Disneyland. But it all started from a daddy with two daughters wondering where he could take them where he could have a little fun with them, too.”
Daddy and his daughters on the weekend, doing things together. That was the dream. Today, the Disney Parks experience is less about an accessible place for family to do things together, and more about creating experiences behind paywalls that make it inaccessible for many. The cost for a single-day, single-park ticket to Disneyland in 2026 varies between $104-224 depending on the time of year one visits. In 2016, the first year of Disneyland’s surge pricing, that range was $95-119. A modest 9% increase on the low side, but a 47% increase on the most popular dates, outpacing inflation during that same period by 13%.
A recent article from LendingTree, suggests that 45% of people are going into debt to take their family on a Disney World vacation, averaging $1983 borrowed to take the family to “The Most Magical Place on Earth.” I know Disney is a publicly traded company and shareholders expect profits, but I also think going into substantial debt is a far cry from what Walt envisioned for families.
The modern Disney company has prioritized profits over guest experience. A Disney vacation feels like a thousand transactions filled with add-ons, experiences, and up-charges. As an avid Disneyland fan, even I am weary of paying the premium price for an experience whose “magic” is fading. I am as big a Disney fan as there is, but even I feel like there’s truth to the joke that “Disneyland is a human trap built by a mouse,” to pick our pockets.
OK, so what does this have to do with church leadership? Here’s a few ways this might apply to western evangelical churches today:
- Excellence isn’t the goal – it’s the container for the goal.
- Church growth isn’t the goal – it’s the byproduct of a healthy church.
- A great experience isn’t the goal – A great experience only matters because people matter.
- Details communicate what you believe about people.
- And mission drift is always lurking when growth alone becomes the measure of faithfulness.
Church leaders must keep the main thing the main thing. It’s all about Jesus, first and foremost. Not politics, not entertainment, not social gatherings. When technology, methodology, production, event planning, and excellence flirt with the number one seat, we are in trouble and the Church loses its way.
Don’t get me wrong, I love technology and a well-produced, excellent church service. But that can never be our primary goal. Excellence matters because we honor God when we bring our best. Technology can help facilitate a distraction-free, clear presentation of the Gospel and take the message of hope beyond our walls. But nothing can ever be a substitute for an authentic move of the Holy Spirit. Jesus – not the LED wall makes the difference in people’s life. And all church leaders know, and believe that. But sometimes, our well-intentioned priorities move us a degree or two off course and before we know it, we’re focused on the wrong destination.
Disney’s culture, in its current iteration, is centered around delivering profits. If Disney are not careful, they will lose the “magic” for the sake of profit, and will eventually lose the profits as a result. As church leaders, we need to make sure growth doesn’t become the goal, but remains the byproduct of a community built around the person of Jesus. When He is lifted up, He draws people to himself and life-change and church growth becomes the byproduct.
Also: if Disney can run a theme park with 70,000 cast members, we can probably figure out an efficient system for the kids ministry check-in line that doesn’t feel like the DMV. 😉
dc.
