to rely on others; to help you get beneath the plastic; to help you get your management hands dirty.
This book is your church leadership and management manual. Like a good car manual you will be able access the book to give you ideas and instructions on how to start to engage and use those management spanners. Arranged alphabetically this is not bedtime reading but a manual that you can refer to at any time. After all, if you have a problem with the suspension you do not need to be wading through pages and pages dealing with the fuel injection system. And like a good car manual each topic is written by a proven practitioner; somebody who has had to fix it and make it work. An eclectic mix of instructions, case studies, quotes and diagnostic exercises all selected to help you to engage and address that leadership or management issue.
Most contributions are supported by a Bible reference offered by the author or suggested by the editorial team. The editorial team also selected a Top Tip drawn from or inferred by the topic under discussion. Alongside contributions the editorial team have placed a Business Perspective. It is important to note that these represent part of the editorial process in an attempt to bring an equivalent secular context into consideration.
At the heart of this book are the many contributions which aim to deal with the how and why of church management and leadership. Finally there is a self-reflective diagnostic exercise. Like all good manuals it can be read and shared by others in your team: designed for you to be able to pull off the shelf when required and presented concisely to allow you quickly to apply that management spanner. No moulded plastic formed of management jargon, no port for somebody else to fix. This is a practical manual to help you engage.
I am grateful to all those practitioners who contributed and to Michael Lofthouse and Anton Müller who have so expertly edited the book.
A Spiritual Reflection on 101 Great Ideas for Growing Healthy Churches
ANTON MÜLLER
All of us, in whatever walk of life, need to be able to manage. Often we may hear someone say to another ‘How are you managing?’ Rarely do we hear the answer.
During my time as the spiritual care co-ordinator for a hospice I learned that enabling people to manage their terminal or life-limiting illness was something which required much more than the administering of pain-relieving drugs. In the face of terminal or long-term illness what was needed for each patient was an internal strategy for facing and coping with the world that was not only changing dramatically but seemed to be moving on without them. Of some patients it would be said, ‘they have turned their face to the wall’.
Once in that frame of mind it was very hard to enable a patient to turn back and proceed with their journey through the world. Unless there is a strategy for facing this most important of journeys then to turn and face the wall is often the only option.
It is fundamental to our Christian theology that the fullness of life takes us through the journey of death. It cannot be avoided or ignored. The purpose of administering pain-relieving drugs in modern hospice care is to give each patient the opportunity to live until they die. To live life in all its fullness, with dignity and with quality.
Too often I see churches that have turned their faces to the wall and have cut themselves off from the world. They are stuck on the pain-relieving drugs of the past. They look to their past glories and past achievements rather than looking where they are in the now and where they are called to go in the future.
All churches have a past, a present and a future. For some that future may mean a closure, an ending, a death, while for others it may mean living in a new way. This is the way ahead for every church. Both scenarios require careful management and a strategy for dealing with the different kinds of closures ahead. Both scenarios have the possibilities for a new way of being.
If this were not so for a church then that church has not been living its life according to the theology which underpins our Christian faith. I recently heard about how the closure of one struggling church gave new life and growth to other churches around it. The death of one church gave new hope and being for the remnant of that church who found new life and ministry in the way forward. That church is growing.
A healthy church is one that understands that its life is based upon God’s greatest idea – that of death and resurrection.
Every contribution in this book is a pointer to living a forward-thinking life. There are no contributions that talk about maintaining the status quo. Every contribution is offered as a strategy for managing the abundance of life to which God is calling every Christian and every church.
Given the opportunity to write a short quote of my own, it would be this: ‘Managing the status quo of the church is called juggling. Managing the forward movement of the church is called strategy.’
I have no doubt that Jesus could have juggled if he wanted to, but instead he chose to stretch out his arms in a loving embrace that brings life and new ways of living and being.
I share with my editorial colleagues a great sense of the privilege that we have experienced in compiling these 101 Great Ideas. We are privileged now to share these with you as you seek to build your own strategy for embracing the world as whole and healthy churches.
A Business Perspective on 101 Great Ideas for Growing Healthy Churches
MICHAEL LOFTHOUSE
Get ready or go under! Those leading and managing a church now work in an environment that is dominated by secularism, where the authority of religion and religious organizations is declining. A destructive and threatening marketplace exists in which potential customers switch their allegiance to rival providers and where effective leadership and management is not an option, it is a necessity.
This competitive environment creates customer mobility and the related pressure that congregations are now consumers. It is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain or grow the customer base. This places on clergy added marketplace pressures regarding the content and structure of their religious services and organizations. Is the environment inviting? Are their products attractive? Is this what customers are prepared to ‘buy’?
Leading and managing a church now also brings with it added challenging personal contemporary secular job demands. These pressures can lead to role conflict, isolation and a lack of professional autonomy. Ministry alone cannot guarantee a successful church. As secularization tightens its grip, religious organizations typically respond by attempting to replicate secular management, structures, practices and strategies, often with little understanding of consequences. They often fail to adequately prepare those who are to operationalize this ‘new way’ of working.
In today’s church clergy must lead and manage with diminished institutional and personal legitimacy, while simultaneously dealing with a work context characterized by high expectations and congregational change, often without the necessary leadership and management skills and competencies.
That is the bad news. The good news is that it is possible and many have thrived and prospered in this challenging environment; which has meant that their churches and congregations have thrived and prospered. This book is a testament to this assertion.
What do I recommend to meet these challenges? I have a simple prescription. Adopt an internal personal and organizational orientation towards good leadership and management practices; learn from successful competitors and peers, including those from the secular world; be prepared to get your leadership and management hands dirty, be adaptable, adventurist and honest, especially with yourself and be prepared to fail; find and refine your own leadership and management style; and, importantly, accept that ministry alone is no longer sufficient to sustain your church.
Remember, there is only one measure of effective church leadership and management and that is a profitable church.
Great Idea 1: Agree a Vision
JAMES NEWCOME
I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven