Church Administration and People

Church Administration Involves People and Things Church administration is bound up with people and with things. This is true even of poor administration. But a major difference in good administration and poor administration lies in the emphasis the administrator places on people as being more important than things. The position of the church leader in this choice seems simple. But the problem has some tricky subtleties in it. Some church leaders fear that they do not relate well to people. Some actually relate poorly. This old problem remains from generation to generation. Its toll is increased because of the growing requirement that the minister relate to people in constructive and productive ways.

Studies by seminary curriculum committees and others continue to show that the biggest problem area for church leaders, specifically ministers, is their inability to relate satisfactorily and effectively to people. This is a serious flaw. It is not unique to church leaders. It is evident in most sectors of society, if not all. The problem does not disappear with a wish; neither do people. The typical minister much prefers to spend his time and energies doing those parts of his work which he does alone, without consultation with other persons. While these aspects of his work may be said to be principally and eventually for people, the people are not present in the flesh, to be led by the minister, or to be persuaded or educated to concur, to work, to give, to serve.

The work of the church increasingly requires working with people. In preparing a sermon or a training conference session, the minister can move directly from his thought to the performance. Such direct and easy transition from thought to action is not characteristic of good administration, because good acknowledge, skills, and attitudes as together the leader and co-workers try to advance the church toward its purpose and objectives. This kind of leadership takes time and tireless effort. The net product may turn out to be quite different from what the initiating leader had in mind. A measure of personal grace is required in a leader to enable him to acknowledge that his gems of thought and planning might be altered, even im-proved, by group processes.

Good Administrators Specialize in Working with People Good administration requires the leadership and guidance of persons who are specialists in working with people. These specialists get their own jobs done to the extent that they enable other persons to succeed in getting their respective jobs done. Such a leader is concerned with getting the work of the church done. But he has a primary concern with helping the people who are the church to grow and to develop in the joys and satisfactions of productive service as they reach out to minister to others. The leader must have a wholesome balance of interest in persons and in what they might produce in Kingdom service. The added benefit of the approach which puts people first is that there usually results more productivity— more of the work of the church is accomplished. There is a treacherous pitfall to be avoided in the emphasis on people first, productivity second. It is the trap of a feigned interest in persons in order to increase their productivity. People are the business of the church and its ministers, whether or not they ever produce for the church. One could at times easily fake an interest in persons and lead them by artful manipulation toward goals which they do not share. This is unscrupulous leadership and falls outside the concept of good church administration and outside the intentions and practices of the best administrators. 

Leaders Should Lead Members

The most effective church leadership has long been that which takes the equipping ministry approach. Even if a church could engage the services of enough persons whom they compensate, fully or partially, in order to free them to devote more time to doing the work of the church, and could charge them with the responsibility of doing all the church’s work, and even if they were able to do it, it would not be right or wise to do. Leaders should lead all who will follow to share in the work of the church. This is the way to enable the members of the body to grow and develop and, at the same time, to advance the cause of Christ through the church. The adage is true that “It is better to put ten men to work than to do the work of ten.”