PEOPLE IN PRINT
January 1, 1986
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. Church Administration presents Tidwell's prescription for change.
The book is encyclopedic, covering all the bases from the global (defining your purpose as a church, financing and constructing a building, enabling volunteers) to minutia (how to count money and even a checklist for keeping restrooms clean and well supplied).
He devotes a chapter to each of eight "functional areas" of administration: purpose, objectives, program (or ministry plan), organization, human resources, physical resources, financial resources, and control. This clear structure makes it easy to find help for where you itch. A helpful summary and a number of "learning activity suggestions" are listed at the end of each chapter.
The "Decalogue for Supervisors" ...
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