BISHOP CROWTHER COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY OKENE

KOGI STATE

LITERATURE REVIEW
ON
THE BOOK
CHURCH MANAGEMENT

SUBMITTED TO
The Rt. Rev Dr. DUKE T. AKAMISOKO

SUBMITTED BY
JONATHAN YETU YISA

MAT NO:
BCCT/B.TH/22/6014

100 LEVEL

MAY 2023
NAME OF THE AUTHOR

PETER OLARENWAJU AWOJOBI

LENGTH OF BOOK (PAGES)

103 pages
Before his ascension, Jesus gave the Church a Job to do. It is the work of winning people to His

Kingdom (Matt. 28:18-20). The Apostles, who were the recipients of this assignment, did their

best. From their time, Christians in all generations have been very serious with the Great

Commission.

One of the Challenges facing the Church is the issue of Management. Sometimes it is discovered

that the Church, into which the souls will come, is not properly organized. Even the early Church

had this problem (see Acts 6).

A Church that is not properly organized cannot fulfill her ministry. The laity and the clergy in

such a Church will experience irregular growth. Their attention will be given to shadow instead

of substance.

Most of the Problems in both local churches and denominations today have to do

with leadership or management. The administrative Structure of some denominations is the

reason for the conflict between the laity and the clergy.

As an ordained minister, I have been watching the happenings in my denomination and in the

body of Christ with keen interest. After pastoring and teaching in the seminary for more than two

decades, I have been able to come out with this book on Church Management. I believe it will be

a blessing to the body of Christ.

In summary, the literature on church administration the first three decades of this century

reflected an emphasis on tasks, on efficiency, on the value of organization, and on the minister as

the center of the local ecclesiastical circle.

style, and emphasis of the first third of the century. There were, however, five significant

additions to this stream.

The first-and possibly the first book that can be said to mark a major watershed in church

administration--was writ- ten by William H. Leach. In Church Administration (Nashville:

Cokesbury Press, 1931) he made two major contributions. First, he recognized that the local

church was founded around worship and education, and that administrative practices were geared

to functions, not organization or execution. Second, he argued for a holistic approach to local

church programming. In doing this he was thirty or forty years ahead of most of his supporters,

but he helped to prepare the ground for one of today's most important concepts in local church

administration, one that thus far has received its greatest support from persons trained in

Christian education.

A second important addition to the basic concepts under- girding the discipline was a recognition

of the local church as an organization. This contrasts with the earlier view of the local church as

a cluster of more or less unrelated and semi-independent organizations. It reflects both Leach's

emphasis on a holistic approach and also the changing nature of the local church in American

culture.

Perhaps the most highly visible-and also the least valuable-addition to the general subject of

church administration was the adaptation of the Madison Avenue advertising approach to

presenting the Christian gospel. The beginnings of this trend go back to before 1930, and the

best-known example of it was Bruce Barton's interpretation of Jesus as a model of the successful

businessman and salesman...

with specific administrative skills who were suggesting how the methods, techniques, and

wisdom that had been accumulated in business could be utilized by the churches. While these

were not the first contributions by laymen to the written literature on church administration, they

tended to be written from a base of administrative skill rather than simply from enthusiasm and

personal experience.

The fifth and unquestionably the most important addition made to the stream of books on church

administration during this thirty-five-year period consisted of a large number of volumes that

shifted the emphasis from the organization to the people. This group can be divided into two

categories. In the smaller one the emphasis is on identifying groups of people with common

characteristics, such as the elderly, youth, young married couples, young adults, and the divorced

or the widowed.

The larger category consists of a flood of books on the dynamics of groups, the character of the

small group, and interpersonal relationships. It is difficult to overstate the impact this literature

has had on the life, vitality, and value system of the local church. It is also difficult to overstate

the impact this school of thought has had and is having on church administration. Incidentally,

some of the best books in this field have been published since 1965, by such persons as Clyde

Reid, Robert C. Leslie, Mary Alice Douty, and Carl Rogers.

Since 1965 three major additions have been made to the study of church administration. The best

of the three, Alvin J. Lindgren's Foundations for Purposeful Church Administration (Nashville:

Abingdon Press, 1965), combines an emphasis on people and interpersonal relationships with an

understanding of administration as a process rather than a task, and sets all this within the

context of the Christian faith and the call to the church to be in mission.
The newest of the three is To Come Alive! by James D. Anderson (New York: Harper & Row,

1973). This is a pioneering effort by an Episcopal priest to adapt the concepts of organizational

development to congregational renewal. The most difficult to read of the three was written by a

Church of England clergyman from Tasmania. In this volume, Ministry and Management:

Studies in Ecclesiastical Administration (London: Tavistock Publications, 1968), Peter Rudge

combines the insights of public administration with a solid theological perception of the church

and offers today's church leader a base for utilizing many of the in- sights and methods of

contemporary administration. This book represents the best effort thus far to adapt the methods

and skills of public and business administration to church administration. Between these three

volumes and the books on church administration published before 1960 is a gulf comparable to

the difference between the DC-3 and the 747.

Running against this current has been a growing tide of sentiment which is critical of any effort

to use "business" procedures in the churches. Much of this criticism can be reduced to five

negative comments.

The first is an echo of Pelagianism. Pelagius, a British monk, came to Rome near the end of the

fourth century and saw a pressing need for reform. He argued that man was given the degree of

free will sufficient to fulfill his obligations to God and need only exert himself to do so. The

Pelagians denied that the taint of Adam's sin had been transmitted to all Adam's descendants.

The concept that man is a moral person and is able to follow God's will if he only chooses to act

in a moral manner was declared heretical by the Council of Ephesus in 431. The contemporary

Pelagians in the churches often contend that through the use of scientific management practices

the worshiping congregation can be a completely faithful servant of God. This book is based on a

very strong affirmation of the doctrine of original sin, and much of it is based on the assumption
that structures and organizations created and managed by sinful people tend to undermine the

individual's and the congregation's attempts to be faithful and obedient to the call of God.

The second criticism is that good management practices in the churches tend to be

counterproductive. This point has some validity in that all too often the emphasis on

management does tend to close doors to the Holy Spirit and to be counterproductive in the long

run. This criticism is less significant for those who believe in the orthodox Christian doctrine of

the universality of sin, who are convinced that God is at work in the world today, and who

recognize that planning never solves problems but only means trading one set of problems for a

different set. One response to this dilemma can be found on pages 58-62.

The third criticism is that good management practices in the churches are too complex and that

everything should be kept very simple. When translated into operational English this criticism

suggests that the goal should be to become less sensitive to the needs of people. It is a truism that

the more sensitive an organization is to the needs of people, the more complex will be its

operation. Jesus repeatedly encountered people who sought a simple road to salvation.

The fourth of these contemporary criticisms has real validity and underscores the importance of

the concept of the universality of sin. Too often good management practices begin as a means to

an end and soon become an end in themselves (the balanced church budget is a very common

example of this). When looked at seriously, however, this is not really a criticism of good

management practices. Poor administrative practices also become canonized. The use of average

attendance, rather than qualitative factors, in evaluating the Sunday school is perhaps the most

common ex- ample of this. There is persuasive evidence that not only do quantity and quality not

go together in the Sunday school, but they actually appear to be incompatible. The problem

identified by this criticism is real, but the source of the problem lies in the sinful nature of man
and of the institutions he creates, not in administrative and management practices, good or bad.

The last of these five criticisms is the most frivolous. It is commonly expressed in these words:

"The emphasis on good administrative practices may be all right for General Motors, but the

church is not General Motors!" The second half of that statement is true, but simply because

General Motors or IBM places a high premium on good administration does not mean the

churches should place a very low value on administration. Should the churches also stop using

electricity, paper, filmstrips, or enclosed buildings simply because these are used by secular

organizations?

It is within this historical and critical context that this volume should be examined. Our intention

is to emphasize creativity. The first chapter is based on the assumption that creativity is

influenced by the frame of reference church leaders carry around with them and by the

organizational context. Most of this initial chapter is devoted to suggesting how the

organizational structure can be altered to increase participation, enthusiasm, creativity,

widespread ownership of goals, and openness to innovation. The second chapter is based on the

assumption that the leaders in every congregation attempt to plan, but that too often the planning

model used sets up a self-defeating process. Several different planning models are discussed in

this chapter, and the merits of flexibility are emphasized.

The third chapter is a response to the plea spoken most often by church leaders-"How do we

motivate people?" This is followed by a chapter directed at the enlistment of people. This fourth

chapter is directed toward the identification and development of volunteers for leadership and

emphasizes the need for a continuing process including sup- port of volunteer leaders after they

have assumed leadership roles.

Two approaches for this are described in the fifth chapter. The first is how to elicit the hopes,

dreams, and wishes of the members. The second is how to learn from the experiences of other

congregations in other places.

A plan for ministry is an essential element of creative church administration, and the nature,

values, and process of developing a church ministries plan constitute the sixth chapter.

Perhaps the major issue facing thousands of long-established congregations is how to reach a

new generation of people, and also the millions of church members who have "dropped out of

church," with the Good News of Jesus Christ. This is the subject of the seventh chapter.

Three issues which most often occupy a large amount of time for those concerned with church

administration are setting the salary for the minister for the coming year, financing capital

improvements, and the use of the building These three subjects are discussed in chapters 8, 9,

and 10.

An essential element of church administration is evaluation, a process which traditionally has

been highly dependent on the use of quantitative measurements. Several approaches to building

qualitative measurements into the evaluation process are discussed in the last chapter.

Occasionally the reader of a book with more than one author inquires as to who wrote which

parts of the volume. This is a fair question, and in this case it is also an easy one to answer. This

introduction and chapters 1, 2, 5, 7, the first half of 8, and 10 and 11 were written by Schaller,

while Tidwell is the author of chapters 3, 4, 6, the second half of 8, and all of chapter 9.

Together we hope that the reader will find it helpful and also consistent with the emerging

emphases in church ad- ministration to be more sensitive to the differences among people, to be
conscious of the blighting impact of institution- al pressures, to avoid self-defeating behavior, to

be more conscious of the call to be faithful and obedient than of the call to be "successful," and

to be ever mindful that church administration is God-centered, Spirit-led, and person- oriented.

The author started by pointing out in his introduction that Church Administration is a very wide

subject and requires deep understanding of biblical foundation, principles and practice as

contained in the scriptures before a church leader can successfully apply it. Many church leaders

profess to know everything about church administration.

This is, perhaps, because they are able to gather people together either by persuasion or by

caging people with unnecessary discipline or by instilling fear into their congregation supporting

their claims with references of some passages in the Bible that have little or nothing to do with

the issue at stake. Whenever these members realize that they have been deprived of their liberty,

they withdraw from the church and go ahead to establish their own. No sooner do they withdraw

than they resort to the tactics of their former masters. No wonder Jesus Christ who knew the end

from the beginning said:

"And upon this rock I will build my church and the gate of hell shall not prevail against it." -

Matthew 16:18.

This means that the gate of hell will wage war against the church but will not prevail. Satan has

been using this much talked about church administration to destabilise the church by

blindfolding church leaders from seeing the essence of administration in the smooth running of

the church. A deep knowledge of administration by leaders will help in no small measure to

solve many of the problems in the church. This book has been written to enable the present and

future church leaders to appreciate the essence of administration in their various churches.
Administration is very important to a church and every leader ought to depend basically on it for

the smooth running of the church. It is sad to realize that only a few church leaders actually

administer their churches properly. The obvious reason is the lack of understanding of their

functions as leaders. Most of the time they do not plan. They might just wake up one morning

and say, "God says" whereas God has not said anything. It might be the thoughts of their minds.

Therefore, they conjecture un-implementable proposals without due consultation and setting

objectives and policies, which hitherto would have been a guiding principle for achieving a

targeted goal.

At times some of them plan, but fail to organise. They use human elements and wisdom to pick

right people into wrong places, thus muddling up their good planning. Some of them lack sense

of direction. They find giving good directives and motivating their members to carry out well

thought-out programmes difficult. So that they over burden themselves with the sole task of the

implementation of the programmes on their own without due regards to the principles of

collectivism.

The best part of the church administration which people take cognisance of is control. This has

led to the breaking away and proliferation of churches. Unfortunately, these could have been

avoided, if the church leaders had imbibed the principles and practice of control. This book,

therefore, is written to identify and enumerate the duties of church leaders so that all these

pitfalls can be leveled up to enhance the harmonious working of the church, which is a gift of

God to man.

The early people in the scripture, Moses, Aaron and Miriam who led the Israelites through the

wilderness from Egypt to Canaan demonstrated a trinity system of government. During the time

of kingship in Israel, the trinity system was still maintained. For instance, we have the king, the
prophet and the captain of the army. Even during the time of Jesus Christ, this trinity was

maintained. We have God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. After He departed

physically, the trinity system of governance was still maintained in the early church. These are in

the persons of Peter, James and John. This is what can be referred to as Leadership.

Taking all these into consideration, the leadership of the church should not be the one and the

only person taking all decisions, implementing all decisions and relegating every other person to

the background in such a way that whosoever wants to correct him immediately becomes an

enemy and he is variously labeled. This was not so in the beginning. And God said, "Let us make

man in our own image after our likeness." - Gen. 1:26.

There is the need to learn and develop an enabling environment that will give room for

successful church administration. Apostle Paul writes about the administration of the church as:

"from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint

supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, makes increase of the

body into the edifying of itself in Love." -Ephesians 4:16.

Since religious politics was the dominant spirit behind it all, the Catholic clergy sought after

riches and prominence more than the welfare of the people. The Catholic Church and clergy

were draped in wealth while the common man suffered. Every doctrine they created, every

system of worship they instituted, all had the lust for money behind it. They made whatever laws

they felt necessary to insure more money, more land, and more power for themselves. In the

fifteenth century, the papacy itself was shrouded with murder and the "sudden deaths" of those

who tried to gain power. Immorality was rampant as priests had numerous mistresses as well as

homosexual or adulterous affairs. Since the priests didn't know the Bible, they didn't have any
revelation of its contents. The blood of Jesus wasn't enough for them, so they invented the

reconciling power of dead saints like Anne (mother of Mary), Joseph, Mary, and countless

others. By the sixteenth century, if anyone challenged this system, the person was put on trial

amid a torrent of lies, and either excommunicated or killed.

In the midst of these dark times, men such as John Wycliffe, Jon Hus, Martin Luther, John Knox,

and John Calvin arose. By the seventeenth century, the Reformation was in full swing. George

Fox challenged the cold, religious lethargy and civil discrimination in another way; he stayed in

the Catholic Church and sparked life back into the Church through the ministry of the Holy

Spirit. Each of these six men rose to meet the voice of God within them. Through unflinching

spirit and determination, they stood for the truth and became reformers for God. Each of them

slowly began to penetrate the darkness around them with the truth of Jesus Christ and the surety

of His Word.

JOHN WICLIFFE

John Wycliffe was born in Yorkshire, England, around 1330. Little is known of his childhood

and young adult years until 1360 when he entered Balliol College in Oxford, England. The life of

Wycliffe comes alive for us as he reaches the age of thirty and begins his life as a great Reformer

before the actual Reformation.

Wycliffe fought for the common people and identified with their right to know God in a personal

and intimate way. Before those years young Wycliffe was raised by a modest land-owning

family in a secluded area and was taught in school by a village priest. In those days, the Catholic

regime controlled the government as well as Church affairs. Priests were assigned to every

village to oversee the affairs of life from the Church to the common market,
from the schools to civil affairs.

It's important to note that John of Gaunt (the second son of King Edward III) was the feudal

overlord of Wycliffe's boyhood home. This simply means that Gaunt owned the land, and those

who lived there and worked the land were given protection and favors from Gaunt. The fact that

Gaunt was the natural protector of this area's citizens became an important point later in

Wycliffe's life.

Wycliffe entered the priesthood, but his ordination date is not recorded. He probably left for

Oxford somewhere around 1346, at the age of sixteen, the common age for entering a university

at the time.

The writer referred to John Wycliffe as a Reformer before the Reformation. Historically, his life

doesn't fall within the years of the actual Reformation period. But his life and his theology are

almost identical to what the other Reformers stood and fought for.

Wycliffe was a forerunner of the great revolution that was about to hit the known religious’

world. Yet interestingly, none of the other Reformers, except John Hus, gave Wycliffe credit for

the highly controversial road that he paved. I believe this was largely due to the fact that the

printing press was not invented until after Wycliffe's death, and many of his writings were

burned by the Roman Catholic Church. Still, he is seen as one who amply seeded the earth with

the truths of Reformation; those after him watered and harvested the fruits Wycliffe had sown.

Wycliffe was a figure of stability-a man who strongly associated with the rich and powerful-yet

he unflinchingly fought for the common people and identified with their right to know God in a

personal and intimate way.

During Wycliffe's day, the concept of a common person knowing God intimately was unheard of

and extremely controversial. It is no wonder that he is called "the Morning Star of the
Reformation"-he changed the barometer of spiritual ignorance and, from his efforts, a new

horizon for the church dawned.

Born in 1372 to poor peasant parents, Hus began his life in a village called Husinec, located on

the Blanice River in the southern part of Bohemia. The house where Hus was born still stands

today, but a fire destroyed most of it in 1859; only the room where he was born was saved.

Hus was not a man who warred with swords. He made war with words, and a violent revolution

could have started from his speech alone. This inward spiritual strength has carried his name

through the halls of history. Although his thin frame gave him the appearance of being frail, Hus

was a warrior. He vowed that his life would count for one thing reformation of the Catholic

Church from within. He had no desire to pioneer a new denomination. Instead, he felt that if he

could shake and expose their hypocritical doctrines from the inside, the Catholic Church would

have a chance to return to the spirit and beliefs of the early church. Hus was a revolutionary man,

but little is known about him. I'm writing this chapter to change that. We have only a limited

amount of books about his life that have been translated into English, but these few references

are very thorough and precious.

Hus was a warrior. He vowed that his life would count for one thing reformation of the Catholic

Church from within. With our great debt to Hus, it's amazing that we know so little about him.

For the sake of perspective, allow me to list the great "generals" that Hus affected. He influenced

the beliefs of Martin Luther (who said, "We are all John Calvin (whose reformation focused on

dedicating all aspects of life and culture to the lordship of Jesus Christ), and George Fox (who

taught that we are led by the inner witness of the Holy Spirit). Through the Moravians (a Hussite

branch), Hus' influence reached down through history to touch John Wesley.
Martin was born November 10, 1483, in Eisleben, Germany, to Hans and Margaretha Luder

(Martin would change his last name to Luther in college).

Luther's story is one that shows the power of what can happen to someone who gets into God's

Word and doesn't come out. The light of revelation began to shine in Luther's dark mind, leaving

no shadows where the devil could torment him.

He didn't get into trouble until he wanted to share the Good News with his mentor and other

leaders. He also got in trouble for having some questions that, if it weren't for divine providence,

could have gotten him burned at the stake. These ninety-five questions, known as the Ninety-

Five Theses, are printed in their entirety at the end of this chapter. The revelations of most of the

biblical truths we consider common today came from them.

Luther's posting of these Ninety-Five Theses on the Wittenburg Church door is one of the most

famous events in church history and had such a divine impact upon the earth that we are still

experiencing its repercussions today. Although many great men and women had an integral part

in what became known as the Reformation, whenever it is written about or spoken of, Luther's

name is at the top of the list of people who spearheaded it. Because God used him in this way,

Luther often stood alone, lost friendships and family, stirred international conflict, angered

leaders of nations, and created chaos for the Roman Catholic Church.

Noyon was a small yet influential town approximately sixty-five miles northeast of Paris, France.

It was here on the summer morning of July 10, 1509, that the distinguished notary Gerard Calvin

and his wife, Jeanne, gave birth to their fourth child, a son, whom they named John.
Calvin was an intricate and complex person. Most apostolic people are viewed as complicated

because they do not fit the status quo. They won't "go with the flow" if the flow is heading in the

wrong direction. They won't conform or keep quiet for the sake of peace. Apostolic people aren't

peacekeepers, like those who forsake principles and truth in order to keep everyone happy.

Instead they are peacemakers, ready and willing to take the necessary action for truth to prevail.

To them, there is no peace if error is present. Calvin believed that to ignore error was grossly

carnal. To him, hose who hid from controversy or confusion were brutes. An apostle thinks this

way: If you don't have understanding, get it, and get it with truth. Once you get it, live it and

voice it. If error is present, correct it; then do whatever it takes to change it, and live however

you must in order to make the change complete.

Knox was born in 1514, in the town of Haddington, located just south of Edinburgh, Scotland. 3

The inhabitants of Haddington consisted mainly of merchants and craftsmen, all residing within

a nation that was considered barbaric, wild, and savage to the rest of Europe. Little is known

about the early life of Knox. His mother's first name is unknown, but her surname was Sinclair.

His father, William, was a respected merchant and craftsman.

Part of his quest for the truth came as the result of an event that happened a year earlier, in 1528.

Scotland had burned its first martyr, a man named Patrick Hamilton. Knox had heard the story of

how Hamilton preached a simple Gospel and, captured by his Catholic enemies, was indicted as

a heretic. On the day of his execution, the martyr openly rebuked and held accountable before the

Lord a friar heard loudly heckling him. Only a few days after Hamilton's death, the friar died

from a mental frenzy. ' When several of the Catholic laity began to question Hamilton's death,

the general answers they received didn't satisfy them. Knox had heard these disturbing

discussions and began to search for the truth himself. In his search, he studied the church fathers
who came before him, chiefly Jerome and Augustine. From Jerome, he learned that the

Scriptures alone held the truth, not the words of men. From Augustine, Knox came to

understand that a man might be greatly honored for his name or position, but his character or

spiritual strength could be weak and overlooked by others, diminishing his effect on the world.

To Knox, these two truths became very simple. First, if it was written in the Scriptures, then it

was truth. Anything else was simply an additive. Second, a man's popularity meant little if his

character didn't strengthen his ministry. These principles became the foundation for Knox's life

and ministry.

Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf was born into a family of Austrian nobility on May 26, 1700,

in Dresden, Saxony. He was the only child of Count Georg Ludwig and Countess Charlotte

Justine von Zinzendorf.

Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf was a European nobleman well-known to the regal heads of

eighteenth-century Europe. Destined by birth to live a life of privilege and luxury in the courts of

Saxony (Germany), he chose instead to dedicate all of his expansive influence and wealth to the

glory of his Savior, Jesus Christ. Rather than making his mark in his native country alone,

Zinzendorf changed lives for eternity in the farthest corners of the world through his missionary

vision. Throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the East and West Indies, and South America,

from the southern tip of Africa to the arctic shores of Greenland, the name of Christ was extolled

by the missionaries sent out under Zinzendorf’s leadership.

The value of these early efforts to systematize the experiences of a "successful" pastor should not

be dismissed lightly, however. Their authors made several significant contributions, among them

the sharing of "lessons from experience," the recognition that there were skills that could be
transmitted from one person to another, and the focusing of attention on another dimension of the

minister's work in addition to the traditional responsibilities of preaching, visitation, and

evangelism.

An examination of these books reveals that they tended to be based on a task-oriented approach.

They were directed at pastors serving in congregations organized around a series of semi-

independent and largely self-contained groups such as the Sunday school, the Ladies' Aid, a

youth organization, a men's club, and similar subgroups.

The subject matter was confined largely to church finances and raising money, increasing church

attendance, working with a church board, organizing an office, the use of equipment, program

ideas, staff relationships, and public relations Without exception the authors projected a concept

of the traditional leadership pyramid with the pastor sitting in the seat at the top. (Since most of

these books were written before I was born, I lack a first-hand knowledge of the situation, but I

have a hunch that in many congregations the pastor sat in the seat at the top of the leadership

pyramid on public display, while a layman occupied the seat in the less visible leadership

pyramid that represented reality.)

Beginning a little later and overlapping this group of task- oriented books on church

administration came a seemingly endless series on "leadership training." That term has since

been applied to so many different concepts of administration that anyone using it today should

follow it up immediately with a two-or three-paragraph definition of what he means by those

words. The earlier authors, however, were reason- ably clear on what they meant by leadership

training. As Frederick A. Agar, one of the most prolific and concise of these men wrote: "This

little book undertakes to deal with the training of lay leaders for the task of the Church. As the

United States army needed a Plattsburg for the training of her officers, so does the Church need
trained lay leaders. to lead her forces to victory." Other writers concentrated their efforts on such

specialized tasks as evangelism, church finances, preaching, and the Sunday school.

One of the major themes that ran through both the books on church administration in general and

the volumes on specific functions was the importance of efficiency. Whether this was a cause of

or a response to the emphasis on efficiency in public education it is impossible to say with

absolute assurance. My guess, however, is that it was a reflection of what was being said and

written in educational administration, where some remarkable standards were being developed to

measure the "efficiency" of a school system.

Before his ascension, Jesus gave the Church a Job to do. It is the work of winning people to His

Kingdom (Matt. 28:18-20). The Apostles, who were the recipients of this assignment, did their

best. From their time, Christians in all generations have been very serious with the Great

Commission.

One of the Challenges facing the Church is the issue of Management. Sometimes it is discovered

that the Church, into which the souls will come, is not properly organized. Even the early Church

had this problem (see Acts 6).

A Church that is not properly organized cannot fulfill her ministry. The laity and the clergy in

such a Church will experience irregular growth. Their attention will be given to shadow instead

of substance.

Most of the Problems in both local churches and denominations today have to do

with leadership or management. The administrative Structure of some denominations is the

reason for the conflict between the laity and the clergy.
As an ordained minister, I have been watching the happenings in my denomination and in the

body of Christ with keen interest. After pastoring and teaching in the seminary for more than two

decades, I have been able to come out with this book on Church Management. I believe it will be

a blessing to the body of Christ.