Church Administration and Leadership

Leadership Is Guiding Along a Way

Leadership is the act or process of guiding someone or some-thing along a way. It may imply going in advance of those who are being guided or led to show the way, and perhaps to keep followers under control and in order. Guiding implies intimate knowledge of the way and of all its difficulties and dangers. Occasionally the guiding may be a single act, an accomplishment complete in itself and essential-ly unique. More often it is action which involves a process, a series of actions or operations conducive to an end. The actions or operations may be continuous.

Church Leadership Is Under

Christ In a church the leadership is performed by persons who are to follow the leadership of Christ, the Head of the church. He enables leaders and others to discern the way by means of the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

Church Leadership Exists to Equip

The reason for leadership and guidance in a church is to equip the church. To equip the church is to furnish it for ser-vice or action. To equip means to prepare, to dress, to array, to outfit. The ancients used the word to mean setting a dislocated joint, putting it in order.

In the verb form, it appears in Matthew 4:21—mending a tattered net. Our verse (Eph. 4:12) combines the metaphors of body and building (just as we do in the idea of body-building exercises) to suggest a tightly knit unity of function, where the work of the laity and that of the clergy are so closely interlocked that everyone together plays a decisive role.1 To equip is to furnish, to provide any or all essentials making for efficiency in action or use for performing a function. To equip the church is the natural, characteristic, essential action of church leadership. Such action is vital to the life of the organism, the church.

Ministry of Administration Is to Equip

Church administration exists to equip the church for minis-try. The root meaning of the term church administration sup-ports this view. The word administer comes from the Latin word administrare which is a combination of the prefix ad with the infinitive ministrare, “to serve.’ Church administration is to serve the church. The form of the service is ministry. The Latin word minister, from which come our words minister and ministry, literally means “servant.”

The field in which the servant renders the service is the church. Hence, it is church administration. The noun administration is the act or process of administering. Usage has brought the concept of administration to be very similar to that of management, the judicious use of means to accomplish an end. Church administration is concerned with providing leadership in discovering and determining the ends, and guidance in the judicious use of means to accomplish the ends.

Ministry of Administration Is Equipping Persons

There is, indeed, a ministry of administration. It is a ministry of equipping persons for service. The persons equipped are the church. As leaders and co-workers discover and do the work of the church, there are “things” which must be done. Some of these things are administrative. But administration is much more than the doing of things. It is the “growing” of people. It is enabling them to lead the right people to be at the right place, with the right things, at the right time, with the right attitudes, knowledge, and skills, to perform service that is right to perform.