11-Principales of Administration
CHAPTER XI PRINCIPLES OF ADMINISTRATION THE principles of administration are the same for the church as for any organized group, whether commercial, industrial, social, economic, political, or religious. They are not arbitrary ideals laid down by general officials, but great laws of life which control human beings in group relations. i. The first is to conceive intelligently the proper function of the organization. The pastor must ask himself continually, “What is the whole business of the church in the community?” The answer which he makes will determine the form of the church organization. An organization whose function it is to make shoes will not be identical in every respect with one whose business is to wage war. One whose aim is to relieve distress will differ greatly from one whose purpose is education. This principle is often disregarded by those who insist that the church should be “run on business principles.” If that means only that the church should be administered intelligently in the light of the great ends to be served, it is good advice. But if it means that the church is to be run like a bank, it is bad counsel for the simple reason that banking is not the business of the church. The church will have its own methods because it has its own work.
Broadly speaking, the ends toward which the church should move are worship, evangelism, education, and service. Necessarily the organization designed to serve these ends will be complex. To direct this work properly the pastor, ideally, should have expert assistance in the form of paid workers who are specialists in their respective fields. Practically, however, most pastors must do their work with volunteer helpers.
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2. It is important that the members of an organisation shall be imbued with loyalty to a common ideal. Every high class organization is careful to receive and retain in its membership only such persons as are in sympathy with its aims and methods. Some organizations necessarily require certain physical and mental qualifications in their members. The church demands only moral and spiritual fitness. Do candidates for membership hate sin and love righteousness? Is God a reality to them and his will their highest law? Do their daily lives give evidence of these desires? Are their religious beliefs and ideals such as to make it possible for them to live and work harmoniously with other members of the church? The church should make its standards as broad and few as possible, but there can be no doubt as to its right and obligation to guard its membership against divisive and disintegrating elements. The “morale” of the church can seldom be built up or maintained by harsh disciplinary measures. Only in the rarest instances is it profitable to proceed against a member with formal charges and church trials (though one should not flinch if duty points clearly in that direction). Only the spirit of generous, patient, intelligent love radiated by the pastor in his life and words will fuse together the many with diverse minds and tastes into a unified “communion of saints.” After three years of fellowship with Jesus the Twelve sat down the last night in an irritable mood, their unity spoiled by distrust and jealous ambition. To unite different types into a brotherhood for unselfish service is still “the most stupendous and heart-breaking labor to which a minister of the gospel can set himself.” 1
3. No good administrator ever dreams of doing himself all the work of his organisation. The pastor who would become a competent manager of the church organization must depend upon the help of assistants. He should not do anything in the way of a minor task that can be delegated to others. Yet at this point many pastors fail hopelessly.
Charles E. Jefferson, Building the Church, p. 76, PRINCIPLES OF ADMINISTRATION 123
Tasks are so numerous, competent lay workers are so few, and time is so short, that the impulse is strong to undertake everything oneself, or fill the important posts in the church with members of one’s own family. Times without number when the pastor removes to another charge, the church is stripped of practically all its leadership, for he takes with him in the parsonage household the Sunday school superintendent, several Sunday-school teachers, and the presidents of the Epworth League and most of the women’s organizations. The helplessness of Methodist churches without pastors is almost proverbial. This is not creditable to the type of pastoral oversight that has failed to develop lay leadership prepared to carry on the work in the absence of the pastor. Not only does the pastor do the church an injustice by assuming posts of subordinate leadership, but he renders himself incompetent to do effectively the work which only he can do: The life of bustling activity incapacitates him for the quiet study and brooding that is indispensable to effective preaching. Constant immersion in minor details lessens his power to see his task as a whole and to discriminate between the primary and the secondary. The church may foolishly applaud for the time being the young minister who acts as janitor, leader of the men’s class, Sundayschool superintendent, scoutmaster, choir leader, as well as shepherd and prophet. But in ten years that restless activity will smother the spirit of prophecy within him, and prophets are too rare to waste in this fashion. By middle life it will be clear that it would have been wiser to have secured and trained laymen to fill these lesser posts so that he might have had time to keep his intellectual strength from abating and his spiritual vision from growing dim. Many a pastor, who at thirty was an energetic youngster in great demand, has become a problem for district superintendents and bishops by the time he has reached fifty. In the beginning he did his work by a vast expenditure of physical energy. He was always “on the go” and was regarded as a 124 THE PASTORAL OFFICE
“hustler.” But in every man the tides of physical life begin to run low at forty-five and it is necessary then to do by mental and spiritual power what was formerly done by physical. So it comes to pass that the pastor in middle life who has always been “too busy to study” is in some such position as a squirrel might be in midwinter who was too busy in the autumn to lay in a store of nuts. He has no resources to draw upon that will get him by the hard place. The problem of securing competent lay helpers is very much more difficult for him than for the manager of a business organization. He seeks volunteer and unsalaried service. The worker must find his reward in the doing of the work itself. It is easy, however, to exaggerate the advantage which economic power gives the entrepreneur in business. The successful manager is not always cracking the whip of authority over the heads of his subordinates.
Rather he makes the same appeal which the pastor must make helps men to see that the work in itself is important, holds before them constantly the ideal which he cherishes for the enterprise, creates a sense of responsibility by delegating authority to them, and gives all consideration possible to their opinions. Even in business the pocketbook is not always the paramount consideration, and the best managers know this full well. But be this as it may, the pastor must prevail upon men and women to assume posts of leadership in the church without hope of financial reward. If he cannot get the persons he wants, he must take the persons he can get. And he must see to it that they become as efficient as possible under the limitations which are imposed.
He will encourage them by words of commendation when it is possible to do so. He will offer helpful suggestions as to the way in which their work may be made more effective.
He will meet them frequently for private and group conference. He will put into their hands the best literature on their respective tasks. And gradually he will build around himself a corps of teachers and assistant executives thoroughly imbued with his spirit and sharing his ideals.
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Having once delegated authority to some one for a particular task, the pastor should advise with that person with reference to all matters in his department. For example, he should not go over the head of the choirmaster in musical matters. If some special arrangement seems desirable, the leader should be requested to make it. If the pastor should make it himself without consulting the leader, that official would have a right to suspect that he was not trusted, and would be irritated. If the subordinate will not give cooperation, he should be removed, but as long as he is in charge, he should be consulted.
4. It is a weakness in much so-catted “scientific management 3 ’ thai the administrator takes an impersonal ’view of the human elements in the organisation. Men are regarded as so many mechanical parts of a gigantic machine which have no will of their own and act only at the command of the master. It is this treatment of men as if they were inanimate things that is the chief cause of unrest in industry.
Workers care less about more wealth just now than they do about more freedom. And the most successful business executives are devising means whereby employees may make their voices heard in the management of affairs.
If the despotic boss is undesirable in business, he is impossible in the church. Democracy in religion requires that every member of the church shall have an opportunity to express his view on any vital matter connected with the life of the church. It is not enough that the pastor should have a policy or a program. He is bound to win the enthusiastic consent of the church to it so that it shall be the collective program of the whole organization. There is no place in Methodism for the pastor who feels that the church must obey when he speaks simply because he has spoken. If the people adopt his judgment, it must be because it is worth adopting. He should never be satisfied with carrying a vote on any vital matter by a narrow majority. Any notable changes in policy should be made only when the judgment of the church as a whole is practically 126 THE PASTORAL OFFICE unanimous as to its wisdom. “Conference,” “discussion,”
“education,” “respect for the people’s judgment,” are words with which the wise pastor will conjure. By them he will move the spirit of the congregation toward himself and command the cooperation of their wills. And if it be that they do not vote as he desires, it is supreme folly for him to complain childishly that the people will not follow his leadership. If his was a good cause, it can afford to wait for the hearty support of the church. If it was not, it should have been lost. In the development of opinion favorable to any project, it is important to win the approval of the men of sober wisdom in the organization whose views carry great weight with their fellow members. Every church has one such person, and some have several. If a majority of these will not indorse the plan, action should be deferred until such a time as their consent can be won. To force the issue prematurely may result not only in the defeat of the plan but also in arraigning the strong man against the pastor. Of course we are not suggesting unmanly servility, much less insincere flattery, in the effort to win others to one’s way of thinking, but only that Christian respect for the opinion of others which is always becoming in a brotherhood like the church, and which is essential in dealing with a group committed to democratic ideals.
5. Another principle for which the wise administrator must have great regard is that of properly coordinating the work of the several departments of his organization. It is not enough that an army commander shall be courageous on the field of battle. He must correlate the work of his staff so that all departments shall work together toward a common end. His army must be fed, clothed, and equipped, and all at the same time. If the quartermaster’s department gets up the clothing and the commissary department brings up the provisions, but the ordnance officers do not bring up the guns and ammunition, the army will suffer defeat in spite of the personal heroism of the general and PRINCIPLES OF ADMINISTRATION 127 his men. The responsibility for the disaster must be charged to poor staff work, which in turn is traceable to poor generalship.
Similarly the wise pastor must correlate the work of the several departments of the church so that all will cooperate intelligently in working out a common purpose. He should endeavor to eliminate all waste and needless duplication of effort, and see that no department fails to function in the proper manner. In this connection attention is called again to the large number of organizations in many churches doing some form of educational work regardless of whether or not the same work could be done more effectively by another group. For the missionary societies, the Epworth League, and the Sunday school all to offer mission study courses, for example, is much as if the ordnance, commissary, and quartermaster’s departments should all provide the army with shoes. There is an oversupply of one article and an undersupply of others.
6. Every authority on business administration regards “system” as “the basic structure of organisation!’ It consists of a well defined routine for controlling the methods and processes of production. The wise manager, nevertheless, understands that while system is a good servant, it is a poor master. Impatience with “red tape” is thoroughly justified when system has become so elaborate or is so venerated that it retards the dispatch of business. Wherever it is possible, however, to turn work over to routine it will be wise to do so. The nervous system does exactly this when any form of conduct has become habitual, for habit is only another word for system. Proper system in church work is as desirable as right habits in religion. But it must be remembered that no hard-and-fast system can be brought in from the business world and applied directly to the work of the church. A workable system must emerge naturally from within the organization on the basis of experience. The work of the church should be done in orderly fashion, but the particular order will be its own.
128 THE PASTORAL OFFICE Every pastor can introduce system to advantage a. In his study. Where the pulpit is lacking in intellectual vigor, desultory reading and bad habits of study on the part of the minister are generally the cause. Too many pastors have no fixed hours for intellectual work and no permanent intellectual interests which control in the selection of books and periodicals. Regular study hours have been jealously observed by all great pastors. b. In pastoral work. The control of impulse is responsible for inefficiency in pastoral work quite as certainly as in the intellectual work of the study. Too many pastors call only as the mood for calling is on them. This may seem to be justified by the fact that to be helpful to people in our calling we must be at our best emotionally as well as intellectually. On the other hand, it is fatal to pastoral work that it should be wholly at the mercy of our moods. c. In evangelism. Inadequate results in the work of evangelism are more often than not due to the fact that the minister does not go about this work systematically. In another place particular programs of evangelism will be mentioned. For the present it is enough to say that at the beginning of each year every pastor should plan his evangelistic work very definitely for the whole year. He will understand that the people who are to be won are not people in general but particular men and women and boys and girls whose names and addresses he should have on a constituency roll or card index. He will know too that these people must be won by the people who are already interested in the things of the Kingdom, and he will likewise make a list of those persons who may reasonably be expected to do personal work. He will plan his special meetings both for the church and the Sunday school, and as the time arrives for particular services in his calendar he will give careful attention to every duty, seeing to it in so far as possible that nothing is left to chance. If this seems like reducing the work of soul-winning to mechanics, let us remember that God works through the ordinary and the natural pow PRINCIPLES OF ADMINISTRATION 129 ers of man quite as certainly as he works through the extraordinary and the unusual. d. In religious education and community service. The work of religious education and community service suffers, as does the work of evangelism, because it is not organized in a systematic fashion. Moods or impulses may render us impotent here as well as any other where. It ought to be obvious that the educational work of the church calls for the closest planning and the most consistent application of time and energy through a long period. And the church can render only inadequate service in solving community problems if its interest in those problems is occasional and spasmodic rather than permanent and intelligent. e. In preaching. As suggested above, no pastor is likely to present a comprehensive teaching of Christian truth from the pulpit unless he plans far in advance his themes and subjects.
/. In church finance. Many a church, brought to the verge of bankruptcy by lack of system in financial methods, has adopted a more intelligent plan with results that were little less than miraculous. In place of letting unpaid bills accumulate until the credit of the church was almost ruined and meeting these bills by a frenzied appeal to men when there happened to be a good congregation assembled for worship, the plan of intelligently making a budget of expense for the twelve months in advance, and informing the congregation as to the legitimacy of the several items in this budget, and finally canvassing every member of the church for subscription to this budget, has raised many a church from the dead.
7. Modern administrators, within and without the church, have much to say about “efficiency” This is the result of an effort on the part of “scientific management” in industry to handle huge volumes of business by standardizing, wherever possible, the processes of mass production and turning them over to “routine/* Necessarily it is highly mechanical, reducing the demand for creative 130 THE PASTORAL OFFICE thought on the part of the workers and requiring special skill in making a few motions which soon become almost instinctive and involuntary.
It should be understood that efficiency in this mechanical sense for church work is neither desirable nor possible.
Efficiency in industry converts the worker as certainly into a machine as the clanging thing of iron and steel which he handles. And, surely, we do not expect men to be treated by the church in the impersonal way that they are treated in a mill. Moreover, it is impossible to standardize very extensively methods and processes in an organization whose aim is to develop certain moods and tempers, to induce an attitude of faith and good will toward God and men. The “efficient church” is the one which finds a way to produce “the believing soul.” This is more largely a matter of “atmosphere” than of technique or organization. It neve* can be said that a specific number of prescribed actions will always and everywhere produce this state of belief.
It does not follow, however, that there is no need for more intelligence and better practical judgment in doing the work of the church, which is what we really mean when we demand “greater church efficiency.” The pastor who enters his study well past the middle of the morning with no definite schedule in mind for the next four or five hours, spending a half hour on the morning papers, an hour on letters, followed by a visit to the post office, returning to weed the garden or tinker the automobile, failing to get in sixty minutes of conscientious mental labor on a worthwhile book or problem of thought, is wasteful and lazy and that is inefficient. The Sunday-school teacher who permits a pupil to be absent two Sundays in succession without getting in touch with him is careless and indifferent and that is inefficient For two or more organizations to plan social affairs for the same or successive evenings which appeal to the same constituency for financial support is stupid and that is inefficient. For several societies, the Sunday school, the Epworth League, the Men’s Club, for ex PRINCIPLES OF ADMINISTRATION 131 ample, to attempt to do separately something that could be done together better shows lack of coordination which is inefficient. To organize a group of women, girls, and children first as a Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, King’s Daughters, and Little Light Bearers; and then as a Woman’s Home Missionary Society, Queen Esther’s Circle, and Home Guards is bad management and that is inefficient. An official, whose duty requires that plain and accurate records be kept of business transacted or moneys handled, but whose minutes or accounts are in disorder and confusion is surely inefficient. A church badly located and poorly equipped for its work when a better site and adequate facilities are really available, is inefficient. More precision, care, painstaking conscientiousness, imagination, earnestness, intelligence these can all be introduced with advantage into the work of the church which is all that is -meant in suggesting more efficiency.
8. A final principle which should control a pastor of a Methodist Episcopal church is derived from the federal character of the church. There is probably no ecclesiastical organization in the world, except the Roman Catholic, in which the cohesion of its several parts is so great. Its bishops are all “general” superintendents. In practice the authority of each may be limited to a group of Conferences, but in theory this authority is church-wide. Its ministers are “transferred” with the greatest ease from one Annual Conference to another, and the lay membership, while localized and counted in some particular church, as a matter of fact rests in the general denomination. This produces a strong “connectional” consciousness, which affects each pastor to a notable degree. It obligates him to exalt before his own congregation the best in the denominational tradition, without boastfulness or unbrotherliness toward other communions. Moreover, it requires from him- loyalty toward the general officers and heads of the church and willingness to cooperate in executing properly authorised programs. This loyalty does not require that he be servile.
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He is to think his own thoughts and express his own mind when the time for discussion has arrived. But when discussion has ceased and the will of the denomination is expressed in legislation, he has no choice but to conform to this general will. If one cannot give this loyalty, he may honorably withdraw from the ministry of the church, but cannot honorably continue in it.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER STUDY Charles E. Jefferson, Building the Church.
Albert F. McGarrah, Modern Church Management; A Modern Church Program.
Albert J. Lyman, The Christian Pastor in the New Age.
Frederick Lynch, The New Opportunities of the Ministry.
Shailer Mathews, Scientific Management in the Churches.
F. A. Agar, Manual of Church Methods.
William H. Leach, How to Make the Church Go.
R. W. Babson, The Future of the Churches.