Getting Organized to Lead

Church Administration: Effective Leadership for Ministry by Charles A. Tidwell, Broadman, $8.95

Reviewed by David Wilkinson, pastor, Trinity Presbyterian Church, Oroville, California

Henry Ford said he took the church's survival as a sign of God's existence; no other enterprise run so poorly could stay in business. Charles Tidwell is concerned that the church cease "presuming on God" by living out Ford's diagnosis.

Tidwell, professor of church administration at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes from experience in church administration and twenty years of classroom interaction. He understands the need for good administration, both for the glory of God and for the sanity of the pastor.

He knows the difficulty of "envisioning oneself as being at the pinnacle of ministry while laboring with rolled-up sleeves over an unusually cantankerous copy machine, with smeared ink gradually menacing the bottom of the roll in the sleeve."

However, he does more than commiserate. ...