Resources e-letter 19:5 - October 2019
A bumper set of additions this month: a major article, a set of training notes, and a health-check summary. So here are details of Article A46, Redefining 'management' - Three Bible images to consider, Training Notes TN118, Why, exactly, are we meeting? and Health-check HC3, The Christian Effectiveness Model - a summary.
Click/tap red heading to continue
NEW: Redefining ‘management’
The latest article takes a particular angle on the idea of management in churches by considering what the Bible has to say about the images of:
- The manager as a ‘steward’
- The manager as a ‘care-taker’
- The manager as a ‘deacon’.
This gives a rather different way in to this topic than by considering management in commercial business and leads to an understanding of what it might mean to ‘manage’ a church in the way God intends.
The article studies dictionary definitions for these terms, examines Bible passages that use the words in different contexts, and suggests new ways of using words that might be helpful in developing a fresh approach.
The article concludes with seven recommendations for application in churches which include fresh thinking on line management and on pastoral care and the need to understand that management, provided it is seen through a biblical lens, is essential if churches are to thrive.
Article A46, Redefining ‘management’, is now available without charge from the Articles index page of this website.
NEW: Why, exactly, are we meeting?
A new set of training notes assumes that many church groups have only vague ideas of why they have meetings, which therefore may be ineffective.
There are five key questions to ask first of all:
- Do you need to meet at all?
- Are you aware of your time footprint?
- Does this group have a clear purpose?
- What’s likely to go wrong?
- Is it worth it?
The notes then outline three purposes for any church group in their meetings:
P1: To seek God’s will
P2: To work together
P3: To take action for the future.
If groups truly followed these three radical purposes, everything might change.
The notes conclude with seven possible purposes for any agenda item within a meeting.
Training Notes TN118, Why, exactly, are we meeting?, are now available without charge from the Training Notes index page of this website.
NEW: A summary of the Christian Effectiveness Model (CEM)
I wrote the CEM back in 2008 and gave it a major make-over in 2015. It’s a tool to enable any mission agency or church enterprise to assess themselves. It is freely available from the Health-checks index page of the Resources section of my website at HC6 and HC7.
I have recently prepared a summary of it so that anyone can get a good overview of the Model in just a few minutes and have now put this on the website. It corresponds to the summary already there of the Church Health Review.
CEM tests a Christian organisation’s
- Validity
- Choice
- Excellence
- Achievement
by means of 12 questions asked under each of these four heading.
Health-checks HC3, The Christian Effectiveness Model – a summary, is now available without charge from the Health-checks index page of this website.
With my warmest good wishes for all your own service for Christ