Fractal Cabbage

Thoughts on church administration, inspired by Tim’s posting at http://timsimmonds.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/innovate-or-die/

The traditional assumption is that a radical dynamic church will not be well organised/administered. Whether or not it is true in practice, it’s not what God wants for his church.

As one who is administrationally gifted & motivated, I refuse to hold good organisation and radical innovation as opposites.  It is a falicy to say that administration is a static process. The aim of administration is to get the job done, to work with people & money & systems in the best way possible to achieve the goals God has laid on the church.  Where prophetic leadership inspires and directs, then  the administrator gifts follow, providing the detail and the structure to support the vision.

Where prophetic leadership is missing, administration become stagnant and lifeless. A well tended graveyard may be beautiful and orderly, but it is still a dead place. In the same way a church with no godly drive and vision can be well organised by ineffective.

This means pretty much everything the administrator does is held lightly. In our church we had a great process for planning small bible study groups, which lasted about a year, and then our small groups changed as the church grew, and the process needs to change. It’s a really well organised set of steps, supported by some technology, and we were very pleased with it. But I’m not going to hold onto last year’s administration. The church has grown, in numbers, in geographical area, in leadership, in vision. And so the administration grows and changes, delighting in the blessing God has given us.

Of course, none of this is an excuse for poor administration – the “we’re too Godly to be properly organised” syndrome. It just means the more radical the church leadership, the more efficient the church administration people should be. But we know this already, because a church is run by a team of gifts, not by one man. And that team should include administration (1 Cor 12:28)

“Good administration seeks to mobilise people in their gifting which God has given for the body of Christ. By so doing one can confidently expect the church to be effective in fulfilling the mission God has entrusted to her.” Nigel Ring (http://www.newfrontiersblogs.org/nigelring/biblical-administration-part-4-–-the-fruit-of-good-administration/)