Toward a Theology of Management

The pastor was late for the meeting. John Hammond, one of the newer members on the board, was using the occasion to express himself: “Why can’t we run this church like a business? I don’t see why we have so much trouble making a decision. Most of us around this table are businessmen and we don’t have any trouble making decisions at work. Why does it take so long to come to a simple conclusion in a church meeting?”

Across town at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Harry Osborne, an engineer, was using a PERT chart to explain his proposal for a new fund raising system to an adult class. He was well into his presentation when Jack Andrews, who had been sitting rather glumly in the back row, exploded. “Harry, I’ve heard enough! What you’re trying to do is drag all that management stuff into our church. I come to church to get away from the world. I have to put up with management jargon day after day at work. The church is no place for business charts. What we need around here is more time for praying and less time trying to figure things out ourselves.”

All of these stories have at heart a problem which is found in churches everywhere. Some look at the problem and see it as a lack of spiritual understanding. Others see it as an inability to manage well. In reality, it’s the very old problem of understanding the relationship between the sacred and the secular. We’re unable to relate our theology to our leadership problems. The people in each of the above examples live with the dichotomy of “church” on the one hand and “management” on the other. They never have sorted through the processes and structures, methods and forms in which they carry on the work of the church, to see which ones fit their situation and which ones don’t. In short, they’ve never worked out a “theology of management.”

In the church, our response to our world and its systems takes two extremes: On the one hand, we’ve picked up some of the tools of modern management and put them to work without much thought. On the other hand, we’re uneasy about a lot of them-and rightfully so. As Christians, we know people are more important than products and systems. The whole tenor of the New Testament stresses the importance of relationships. The themes of righteousness, justice, mercy, and goodness all have to do with relationships. When we are asked to operate in organizational systems that seem to be based on machine models in which people are components, we naturally wonder whether such systems have a Christian basis. When we further understand that “management” is about people in organizations, we may also wonder about the efficacy of such an art or science.

But to survive, we must manage, for the number of Christian organizations multiplies daily. Two new (Christian schools are started every day in the United States. Mission organizations and other para-church organizations continue to expand. Many of our Christian organizations are taking on a financial size and complexity undreamed of a few years ago. All of these organizations require some form of management.

In response to this, a number of Christians have written books about management; but many of the writers have picked up the management tools of the world and dropped them into the church setting without passing them through a “biblical filter.”

We do the same thing in our churches. We take biblical illustrations and move directly to our own situations without sorting out the fundamental principles in those illustrations. We don’t apply our theology to our culture.

The most obvious place to see this is in our organizational structures. These structures must stand under the judgment of the Bible, but the fundamental judgment is not whether they are organized correctly, but rather, are they just? Are they merciful? Are they loving? Do they produce righteousness? And do they reflect the biblical concept of the personal relationships which are the “givens” of the Christian life?

Dick Wilson graduated from a good seminary five years ago. The first church he served was very small, and he used many of the small group techniques he learned at seminary. But now Dick is in a larger church, and for reasons that are bewildering him and frustrating members of his board, the small group methods aren’t working. What Dick doesn’t understand is the fundamental difference between small group methods and those that are needed for a larger group. He doesn’t understand the different expectations of his people in various situations.

Pastor Ed Johnson helped to begin First Covenant Church, and the church had grown to an average Sunday attendance of 500. Both Ed and some of the old-timers always assumed that the beautiful, close fellowship they had when they began to emphasize church growth could be maintained. But lately, some of the older members are leaving the church. “It doesn’t seem the same anymore,” they complain. Ed Johnson doesn’t understand that the way a church of 500 organizes itself and works is quite different from that of a church of 100.

When the new Christian education building was planned for Calvary Baptist Church, the members decided they would make sure they had all of the funds in hand before they committed themselves for further work. By the time the building was half finished, the people were no longer giving. What had seemed like a spiritually sound idea did not account for the fact that these church members were used to investing in the future. It had taken five years to get enough money to begin. During that time the value of the dollar had depreciated noticeably. Now the membership had no heart to start saving again only to see the value of their savings deteriorate.

When we study theology in seminary or Bible school, we usually do it in the abstract. We are attempting to uncover biblical principles that will stand us in good stead in our life and work. Far too often we do not receive training in how to apply our theology. Rather, it is assumed that we will automatically be able to apply what we believe to the real situation that faces us. The result is that many pastors and their congregations have little ability to judge the everyday world around them. They neatly divide the sacred and secular aspects of life.

We need to learn the task of management, but we need to go about it in light of biblical truth. Unfortunately, most of us are ill-equipped for the task.

I am very much aware of this at the moment, because I’ve been part of the planning group for the Institute for Christian Organizational Development. Recognizing that the executives of Christian organizations need to learn management, but also need to learn it in a theological setting, Fuller Theological Seminary recently formed the institute for just that purpose. The seminary will bring top and middle managers from these groups into a seminar with management experts and theologians. After some straightforward teaching on topics such as planning and communication, the participants will work at solving real management problems using both their management skills and theological insights. In this way they will not only learn better how to apply theology, but will perhaps discover their own theological assumptions.

Many of the managers of Christian organizations and churches come to a role of leadership through an accident of history or because of some personal skills. They lack training in the fundamentals of management. The faculty of Fuller Seminary are responding to this need. But in designing the curriculum, they want to provide the point of integration between “secular” management and “sacred” theology. Hopefully, other schools will follow their lead.

We often speak today about “the loss of the sacred,” and we see this loss in modern management with its pragmatic emphasis on productivity. The extreme here is the acceptance of anything that works, without any concern for the means being justified by the end. The other extreme is a complete rejection of the art or science of management as “unspiritual” and not the way to carry on the work of the church.

We must avoid both extremes. After all, management is simply the business of getting things done through other people. Every leader, and that includes pastors, is a manager, and must continually work out his or her theology of management.

-Edward R. Dayton

World Vision International