As a business leader in the community, Dan thought his knowledge, skills, and experience could help his church be more orderly and efficient. That was why he accepted nomination to his church’s governing board. But at his first board meeting, Dan could see that churches operated differently than businesses. At least, the pastor was clearly in no position to order folks around. Still, Dan saw some similarities between what he learned about the church’s operation and how he knew that businesses operated best. He only hoped that he could be of some help to the church, even as he learned how distinctly churches operated. He surely had another good subject for prayer.
Operation
Churches are not businesses. They are instead the body of Christ, a spiritual community with one foot on earth and the other foot in heaven. In that sense, churches don’t exactly operate, at least not like a manufacturing plant or retail store. A church may be more like a divine entity in which to participate than an assembly line to organize. As orderly and efficient as a church’s board may wish the church to operate, to maintain a safe facility and manage a budget responsibly, efficiency is not a spiritual goal. Still, churches have facilities to maintain and ministries to manage. After all, wise and prudent stewardship of resources is a biblical principle. Waste and inefficiency generally have no place in ministry. To the extent that churches can operate in orderly and well-managed ways, while carrying out their spiritual mission, they generally should do so. And to some extent, members, donors, local safety officials, and even tax authorities may hold a church responsible for orderly operations justified by the church’s religious corporate purpose. Here are a few ways they do so.
Bylaws
In the view of state and IRS officials, the bylaws of a church determine how the church must operate. The IRS, for instance, examines a church’s bylaws to confirm that the bylaws restrict church operations to the church’s religious and charitable purpose, before confirming that the church is exempt from federal income tax. The bylaws will also generally authorize the church to own property, enter into contracts, open accounts, accept gifts, keep books and records, borrow money, retain employees, and conduct other financial, legal, administrative, and ministerial affairs, through its staff members under the governance of its board. See the example bylaws in the appendix at the back of this guide. Have your church board adopt bylaws that grant appropriate powers to the church and its staff members to conduct the church’s civil affairs, to operate the church in an orderly, safe, secure, and efficient manner.
Leadership
Sound church leadership is important to a church’s sound operation. The prior chapter on church governance shows the relationship of the church board to the church’s senior pastor, operations director, or other paid executive staff member who leads the church’s operations. Some pastors are gifted administrative leaders, while others are not. Churches with a preaching pastor lacking administrative gifts may rely on a lay operations director or on an administrative pastor to lead the church staff and direct church operations. The church’s executive leader may recruit, hire, and supervise staff members to conduct adult, youth, and children’s ministries, Sunday School and other teaching and group programs, a worship director, and directors over communications, finances, facilities, and other programs and ministries. A church of appreciable size with a staff of five, ten, or more members, some or all of whom may be supporting many church members and guiding multiple volunteers, should generally have an organization chart showing the responsibilities and supervisor/subordinate relationship of each staff member.
Administration
A church’s staff members are generally either administrative staff members or ministry staff members. Depending on the church’s size, administrative staff members may include the church’s operations director responsible for bringing all church programs together in coordination under the church’s budget, a finance administrator responsible for accounts, deposits, payments, and records, a facilities director responsible for building maintenance and repair and custodial services, and a communications director responsible for the website, mailings, brochures, marquees, and graphic designs. A large church may also have a technology director, security director, and human-resources director if the operations director needs more support for those important functions. In a smaller church, a single manager may, with contract services, part-time staff, or volunteer support, handle all these operational duties.
Ministries
Again depending on the church’s size, a church’s ministry staff members may include a worship director responsible for the worship and music teams including the sight and sound support, an adult groups leader to organize small groups and men’s and women’s scripture studies, a Sunday School director for youth and children’s instructions, and a youth leader. A church may also have a care ministry director, missions or outreach director, and directors for other ministries caring for the members such as a meals ministry or hospital-visit ministry. Churches find no end to the creative and caring ministries they may pursue on behalf of members and for outreach to the public. Special ministries generally need a specific leader, whether a full-time or part-time staff member or a responsible volunteer.
Staff
Your church should distinguish carefully between paid staff members and uncompensated volunteers. A church creates its own problem when it allows volunteers to participate in church ministries under the mistaken belief that they will receive pay. Your church should have a clear recruiting, interviewing, and hiring process for staff members, with a letter of retention confirming the final-hire terms. See the example letter of retention in the appendix to this guide. See additional information regarding recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and supervising church staff members, in a later chapter of this guide on that subject.
Supervision
Church operations also require supervision of church staff members. Staff members require and benefit from supervision for a number of sound management reasons. Each ministry must carry out its approved and assigned mission and not some other mission of the staff member’s choosing. Each staff member must report the ministry’s progress to justify its continued funding and other church support. Each staff member may have facility, volunteer, and other resource needs to request from the church. Each staff member may have questions as to how, when, and where they are to perform their ministry duties. Churches typically need to carry out their ministries in coordinated fashion. One ministry must not usurp the priority of another mission in its space, staff, volunteer, communications, or other needs. Staff members may also benefit from periodic evaluation, encouragement, and adjustment of compensation. Supervision of staff members by the church’s operations director or another appropriate leader addresses all of these interests and concerns. Make clear in your church’s organization chart the supervisory and subordinate roles of staff members.
Budgets
Orderly church operations also require that each ministry remain within its budget. The operations director or finance administrator must communicate the ministry budget to each ministry leader and periodically report to the ministry leader where the ministry’s budget stands. Communications and negotiations between the finance administrator and ministry leader may need to take place, adjusting the ministry budget for approved added expenses or trimming ministry expenses due to a revenue downturn. Ministry budgets are a big part of the operations of churches of any appreciable size. See the later chapter on church finances, addressing budgets and other financial subjects in greater detail.
Volunteers
Orderly church operations also require that the church recruit, guide, equip, support, and encourage volunteers. Churches may to a degree rely on paid staff for core operations functions like facility maintenance and financial administration. But churches often depend greatly, and in some cases entirely, on volunteers to conduct their ministries. A single church worship service, and indeed every worship service, may have volunteer vocalists, musicians, sound technicians, sight technicians, scripture readers, greeters, child-care providers, security teams, coffee servers, and outreach teams. Volunteers may teach Sunday School, lead study groups, lead youth groups, mentor youths through a confirmation or confession of faith process, and perform other ministry roles, both during or around regular worship services or at other times during the week. Churches need skilled ministry leaders to recruit, organize, equip, and encourage volunteers.
Facilities
Orderly, safe, and secure church operations also require a sound facility. Churches may lease temporary facilities, setting up and taking down chairs and other furnishings for every Sunday service. They may alternatively lease or buy a permanent space specially suited to their needs. Or they may buy land and build facilities to meet their needs. Facility acquisition is a big step in a church’s development, whether it involves a first facility or a replacement facility, because of the funding, planning, and construction or renovation needs. Facility acquisition can occupy a great deal of a church’s attention, funds, and energies, making facility acquisition a subject for gifted leadership and management. Yet the acquisition of a facility addresses only half of a church’s facility concern. The other half involves the facility’s continual maintenance and repair, right down to policing, fire suppression, and other safety and security concerns. See this guide’s later chapters on facility acquisition and maintenance.
Complexity
You can see that operating a church can be very complex indeed. While that complexity can be daunting for individuals or groups planning to start a church, the planting and growth of a church is organic. One doesn’t take on everything all at once. Even with a new church’s acquisition of a facility, the church may initially occupy only a small part of the facility, only as much as the church needs and can fund for renovation. Bit by bit, though, a church can grow in its size and complexity, adding ministries and personnel as the congregation embraces them and can support them financially. Churches also change organically, ending ministries that they no longer need or can no longer support. Don’t let church operations overwhelm you. Take church operations a day at a time. The Lord will walk with you through your church’s founding, growth, and management.
Reflection
What ministries does your church conduct? Is the facility your church occupies adequate to support the church’s ministries? Is the facility safe and secure? What administrative operations support your church’s ministries? Are your church’s administrative operations adequately and skillfully staffed? Do your church’s ministries have adequate and qualified staff directors? Does your church’s staff adequately recruit, equip, guide, and encourage volunteers? On a scale of one to ten, how well does your church manage its complex ministry operations? What improvements could your church make in its operations to be a better steward of resources and representative of God’s kingdom?
Key Points
A church may have multiple ministries needing operational support.
Bylaws authorize a church to own property and contract for operations.
Church leadership needs skill at managing church operations.
Churches need administrative support for operations.
Worship, care, and other ministries are a church’s primary operations.
Substantial church operations may require substantial staff support.
Churches need skilled staff supervision for orderly operations.
Churches depend on large numbers of volunteers needing guidance.
Churches typically need special facilities to support ministries.
Church operations can be highly complex in churches of good size.