Bridging the Manpower Gap

Secular business organizations spend millions of dollars annually in recruiting talent. It is their assumption that the progress of the organization, indeed its continued existence, depends upon its ability to enlist, train, and retain people who can competently perform the tasks that are a part of organizational goals. In stark contrast, most evangelical churches expect workers to walk through the door and ask to be used. And when people do volunteer, very little concern is given to their capabilities, since it would be foolish to turn down anyone who offers his efforts to the church (or so it seems).

But the future of the church is dependent upon a dedicated and competent volunteer staff. The lack of efficient personnel eats away at the church’s ability to carry on its teaching and reaching task.

The causes of “evangelical unemployment” are in most cases quite obvious. Many Christians are indifferent to the responsibility of service; some lack consecration to the Master and his Church; others lack confidence in their ability to teach or lead; and some have never been properly approached by the “management.” Almost all these factors and others like them can be categorized under two basic deficiencies: spiritual immaturity and organizational inadequacy.

The first step in bridging the manpower gap in the local church is to undertake a complete analysis of the present jobs plus those anticipated in the near future. This “task survey,” under the direction of the Board of Christian Education, should include a description of the responsibilities involved in each position in the total educational program. In 1970 the progressive church will be looking forward to the kind of program it will want to carry on and the kind of workers it will need in 1972, 1975, and, in a more general way, 1980.

First cousin to the task survey is the talent survey. In 1956 the American Telephone and Telegraph Company launched a long-term management study to uncover information about the development of managers within the Bell system. This study, still in progress, gave birth to “assessment centers” where evaluations of managerial talent are made by trained executives. In the educational program of the church, this assessment is the responsibility of the Board of Christian Education. The information gathered for its personnel files should cover such topics as service interests, experience, and abilities. Personal interviews should be used whenever possible. And as in industry, the more opportunity management has to see the worker on the job, the more accurate will be the evaluation of his talents and the more effective the use of them.

This kind of personal involvement is based on sound research in industry. Delta Airlines gives every employee (including the baggage clerks) a chance to discuss his job with a top executive at least once a year. Some companies describe such operations as “enlargement theory”—a reference to the process of enlarging jobs so as to make them more meaningful and more interesting, and thereby increasing efficiency.

Instruction plays an important role in personnel recruitment in the church. From pulpit and classroom, through bulletin and newsletter, on announcement board and poster, the entire congregation should constantly be informed of what Christian education is and the teaching and nurturing ministries of home and church.

A dominant theme in administrative theory during the past decade has been the emphasis on new types of motivation. Great industries are discovering that the affluent society will no longer allow them to treat employees according to the old “carrot and stick” principle. Herzberg suggests that “the promise of money can move a man to work but it cannot motivate him. Motivation means an inner desire to make an effort.”

Most evangelical churches are not going to be faced with the question of paying their Sunday-school teachers more or less money. They are faced, however, with the need to stimulate motivation, from the moment of initial contact through the entire term of service. Too often people are asked to serve Christ through the church in order to head off a crisis or solve a predicament. In a “person-centered” approach to personnel recruitment, there may be talk of need but not of desperation. The representative of the Board of Christian Education asks a person to perform a specific job for a specific length of time. The potential worker receives a written description of what the task entails. His decision is never hurried.

What is most needed in the area of service responsibilities in many churches? Is it change in motivation? Paul C. Buchanan suggests that motivation is “inherent within people. Hence the task of the leader is not so much that of ‘motivating others’ as it is of ‘unleashing’ and helping to harness the motivation which is already there.” Though he is writing from a secular viewpoint, Buchanan has unwittingly defined the role of the Holy Spirit in relation to personnal work in the local church. The pastor and his executive staff should become familiar with the results of industrial management research as they face the task of procuring competent workers. This information should then be bathed in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit and applied within the framework of a biblical ecclesiology. As men change things and God changes people, the church can meet its quota of efficient workers and face the challenges ahead with a full staff.—KENNETH O. GANGEL, academic dean, Calvary Bible College, Kansas City, Missouri.

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