Managing the Body of Christ
Leading a congregation is one of those things that's hard to prepare to do. Seminary only briefly touches on the sort of work that fills the day of most parish priests. Curacy positions are getting harder to find as congregations eliminate staff to balance budgets and that means fewer chances to serve an apprenticeship. So most clergy get thrown into the deep end of their first parish and struggle to stay afloat.
The Alban Institute is one of the best places to look for help if you're having troubles with the floating part. This week they have an article that lists specific areas that can make a difference between success and failure when working on managing the life of a congregation.
The framework is straightforward:
To fully maximize the vision and allow the peace of Christ to manifest itself in the lives of congregations, managers need to pay close attention to the systemic inputs of people, facilities, and money that generate the ministry outputs God calls on congregations to produce. To that end, there are six key practices for effective congregational management...
And you can read about those six areas right here.
