Doing Good, Well

It appears that nothing is as simple as it was in the good ole’ days. According to Guy, the requirements for faith-based leadership following the crucifixion were simple. His definitive history includes the sentiment that the only prerequisite for church leadership was “giftedness” from God. Guy posits that the New Testament church was based on the desire of leaders by way of their connections to Christ to live out The Great Commission as provided in Matthew 5. Further, in organization and structure, the early church sought to emulate the structure outlined in the New Testament. This meant that leadership was Spirit-directed, and the organizational configuration was simple – “a small organization consisting of one executive and perhaps a few other individuals.” Congregations were small and highly localized. As a result, leadership responsibilities were confined to an individual group of believers.
While these are the conditions that surrounded the beginning of the church, this austere (though effective) paradigm is no longer enough to render leadership effective in the contemporary church. As a church leader, you may be saying at this point, “Tell me something I don't already know. I know that nothing about church administration is simple anymore.” Help, however, is not only on the way; it is already here – and has been for quite some time. The impetus of this book and thus, the solution that you are looking for, is the application of leadership theory to church administration. While both theological insight and leadership theory have progressed significantly since the advent of the New Testament Church, the linkage of the two has not.
Therefore, utilizing a white paper format, this book is an honest attempt to highlight the benefits that faith-based leaders can glean from the advances in leadership theory. To accomplish this, the first section of this book seeks to do five things: (a) establish the importance of the linkage, (b) prove that the linkage does exist, (c) offer a reason that the affiliation had not been made previously, (d) provide support that change is acceptable within faith-based organizations, and (e) present foundational concepts that will be referenced in the other sections of the book. The last component is required because the disassociation mentioned above is a pervasive issue which this book hopes to address. It has resulted in practicing faith-based leaders who are steeped in the theology of ministry to the exclusion of the business of ministry.
Consequently, an entire chapter is dedicated to culture-related concepts. These are necessary in order to think outside the theological box which, to date, has constrained many leaders. Whether church leaders realize it or not, the confines of the aforementioned theological box have resulted in what many of them have cautioned their parishioners against; that is, being so heavenly-minded that you are of no earthly good. This goal of this book is to assist church leaders in fulfilling the earthly component of their heavenly mandate.