What New Trends Are Affecting Church Administration? Essay

Countries disintegrate, place of worship and corporation fail, people become dysfunctional, descendants lose their direction, and mankind drift from God on behalf of one distracting reason; insufficiency of leadership. These disappointments are often for the reason that of the deficiency of instruction, appropriate leadership, and misperception on what Christian leadership subsists and exactly how that leadership is pertinent to every component of professional and personal life. From a Christian worldview perspective, Psalm 112:5 explains, “A good man deals graciously and lends; He will guide his affairs with discretion” (NKJ). A Christian manager should always keep in mind that bounteousness and admiration for God, demonstrates that one has placed trust in Him, and not our material possessions.

The process of leadership requires self-identification of behaviors and reflection on one’s attitude (Bell, 2010). Among the thousands of leadership books in print today, this book is one that takes a different approach to examining leadership from a Christian perspective as well as relating to the process of leadership along with many

This book seeks to encourage the declining and stagnate churches to take the example set by other churches that have had a period of decline yet have managed to pull up their socks and regained their lost growth. Stetzer and Dodson call this book the “comeback Churches’ to give the readers

May 1, 2016, the Mt. Olive Baptist Church, located in Greenwood (S.C.) County will celebrate its 142nd church anniversary. Many years Mt. Olive have been a church that loved people, gave without limits and took great care of its members. The last five of those one hundred and forty-two years, I have been honored to serve as pastor of this great church. Although this is a great church, Mt. Olive and many churches like it are plagued with a disease that has slowly, but surely, causing the church to drift further away from God and fall deeper into the ways of the world. This epidemic is known as “tradition”. Churches that are bound by tradition and not led by the Holy Spirit will find themselves missing the mark of what God has called us to do. The bible is filled with instructions for the church, but as Christians and Disciples of Christ, Matthew 28 is the foundation upon which we should be operating on in the church as well as in our lives. The Great Commission challenges us to “go, teach and preach to all nations.” Traditional churches will allow church tradition to dictate biblical doctrine. It will allow the church to argue about who’s right instead of what’s right. Sadly, church success has been based on structure and finances rather than saving lost souls.

Comprised of fourteen chapters, the authors are explicit in readers comprehending this as a guide rather than a fix-all in turning around their churches. One chapter or section will not facilitate a change, rather a sequence of habits and efforts. Comprised of a large volume of statistical data, the facts remain constant; declining or plateaued churches can rebound. However, it will require change, change from the pulpit to the pews. Beginning with “0” or foundation, there are six criteria that should exist in all biblical churches, and are prominently and frequently mentioned in Scripture [2]: (1) Scriptural authority; (2) Biblical leadership; (3) Preaching and teaching; (4) Ordinances; (5) Covenant community; and (6) Mission. Additionally, the foundation emphasizes the need of becoming a

In the church, the pastor or preacher has an innate responsibility to address sin and nominalism without hesitation or fear of retribution. The church’s focus on mere building membership, no matter the cost, overshadows God’s abhorrence of sin. Further, both sin and nominalism seems to have intensified as many point to the religious concept of being a Christian without having a changed heart or life through Jesus Christ. Charles Spurgeon shares, “There will always be trouble in the churches as long as men are afraid to denounce sin and error. To confront sin, it is without doubt a pastor’s responsibility to challenge the sins of this present time.

Within the context of American society, we have strayed from the true purpose and identity of what the church was originally created to be. When we hear the word, “church,” we think of a building, a mere location where believers gather together every Sunday. The church of America might believe the essential elements of the church are an air-conditioned sanctuary, ten different ministry opportunities, and a full band to lead worship. While none of these things are necessarily bad, they do not comprise the biblical model of what the church was created to be. The church can be divided into two components: the Universal Church and the local church. Once a person becomes a believer, they are part of the Universal Church, the body of believers

A sentiment common to almost any organization is that the one fact that remains constant is change. As society changes, and human understanding grows, any organization that maintains a static posture, assures its demise. Churches and Christian organizations are no exception. The gospel may remain the same, but the method for communicating it must speak to the audience to assure understanding. The Christian leader must be prepared to meet this challenge by incorporating an effective model for change into his theology of leadership in order to keep the ministry relevant and effective. Searching for such a change agent can prove to be challenging as well. To aid in this search, four

“There is much that can be learned about leadership from Scripture” (Smith, 1992, p. 39). The Bible provides us with what God not only desires His man of God to be, but requires His under shepherd to meet His character traits.

If the leader is willing to be transparent and realize their own shortcomings and struggles, it will enable the leader to lead from a place of more passion, emotion, and persuasiveness. This type of honesty can attract many hurting, sad, and brokenhearted people to our churches from dysfunctional backgrounds that will sit under compassionate and relevant leadership. The book further explains that the leader should careful not to let selfishness, self-deception, and wrong motives come alive in leadership as product of the dark side. The fall of many leaders are directly attributable to these components. If this dark side arises, the leader is admonished to open and honestly deal with it before God. This will empower the leader for greater effectiveness. Some leaders may be

The New Testament leaders are an example of how church leaders of today should also behave and work[8]. They ought to be able to teach, guide the believers in the way of God and nurture their spiritual gifts. The New Testament leaders had to boldly defend the word of God in case of any false teaching. Basing on this New Testament leadership, it is important to make sure that any believer appointed to the leadership office has the laid down qualifications[9].

I believe we exist for one purpose. That purpose is to worship and reflect our Heavenly Father. He has given His instructions to us in the Bible. The Bible tells of how we are to administer the church, how we are to worship in the church and who is to have roles in the church.

In Ephesians 4:11 (KJV), The Apostle Paul writes of the offices in the New Testament church which have been ordained by God for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, and for the edifying of the body of Christ. Pastors and teachers is a combined role of what the leader of the church in a growing ministry are called by God to perform.

“Accountability is an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one 's actions (http://www.meriamwebster.com/dictionary/accountability)”. To be accountable you must learn to lead the way by evaluating yourself and asking questions such as: “What am I doing well?”, “What can I be doing better?”, “Are my priorities in place?”, “Are there some trainings that would be helpful for me in my development?” These evaluations must become a daily event in order to be accountable effectively. According to Covey, “there is no effectiveness without discipline and there is no discipline without character”. In addition he added, “Great leadership begins first with character”. There must be a foundation for everything leaders do. We may ask, “How does great leadership build?” First, in order to be a great leader you must build good character. In other words you have to learn to develop yourself. For a leader to be accountable they must be proactive by acting at the moment. They must expand their objective which will guide them. In addition, they must have a great vision and a purpose in life and for their Organization. A great leader must have missions that state exactly what their objectives are, which will align their behavior with goals and values into the organization.

The influence that Churches have created throughout the course of history has greatly impacted lives of many people. Catholic, protestant, Christian, and Islamic churches have all had an effect towards the way their people live, think, and behave. Churches in each society have an effect that positively influences people. When people know that they have a God and savior who is at their side they feel comfortable, this keeps people together. Many societies base their whole life around their religion. Their religion is the rulebook, their faith, and their go to when in need of help.