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It is important that you remember that these initial reflections on what matters most in Christian ministry today are not my own views on the subject. We are interacting briefly with the results of a survey of 100 pastors of “successful” churches in the USA conducted by Darius Salter in the 1980’s. We are doing this to acquaint ourselves with some contemporary views on the subject before looking at some older, alternative priorities.
So far we have seen that the successful Christian leader (according to contemporary standards) is more likely to be an extrovert than an introvert. A second thing that Salter notes is that effective Christian leaders will be people with well-honed management skills. You have to know how to manage people, the argument goes, if you are going to get anywhere. It’s not enough to attract others with an inspirational outgoing personality. You have to be able to motivate them – to get them to do things as well.
Darius Salter calls this the skill of being a “people mover.” “In terms of management profile,” he writes, “the successful pastor understands himself to be a steady-dominant type with a high degree of inducement and an extremely low degree of compliance” (p. 24). By this he means that a successful pastor is someone who gets others to do things – that is, he is good at “inducing” them to act in particular ways or believe particular ideas. At the same time, he is someone who doesn’t easily comply with the desires, wishes and ideas of others. He is a good “inducer”, but a bad “complier”. His is a “dominant” type of nature and leadership style.
“This person”, he continues, “is highly competitive and would rather fight an uphill battle than coast downhill. He has readily accepted authority and responsibility, which allows him to be a changer of the status quo… He may be firmly convinced of monergism [that God alone does the work] and give all the credit to sovereign grace, but he also is firmly committed to the biblical teaching that whenever God acts he uses people. Not only does God use people, he uses a key person to carry out his plan, within a particular community, or among a particular people. The pastor believes he is that person ‘for such a time as this’” (pp. 24, 27).
What are we to say about this? Is the ability to mobilize, inspire and motivate people – to “move people” - an important one? Of course it is. And does God use significant people at critical moments to achieve important endeavours? Yes he does. One only needs to look at the life of Nehemiah to see that God uses key individuals to influence the larger mass of people. There is definitely a place for people with gifts of management and administration within the body of Christ. No group of people can function together effectively without them.
The real issue is not whether management skills are important, but whether they warrant being put among the most important requirements for effective Christian ministry today. In other words, are management skills what matters most in the church today? Do they, in themselves, build the church, reach the lost, and encourage the saints? Should we be telling young men and women wanting to prepare themselves for different forms of Christian ministry [as one denominational leader was heard to do] that they should be studying business management rather than theology and the Bible? I certainly don’t think so. Management skills have an important role to play in Christian ministry, but it is nevertheless a subordinate one.
I would go further and say that highly gifted managers – especially of the “steady-dominant” type mentioned above – can be a threat to effective church life if they don’t use their abilities in the right way. They can become so intent on using people to get things done – often with the very best of motives - that they begin to look on others simply as “human resources” for accomplishing projects. In the process they lose sight of the basic character of Christian ministry, namely, humble, self-sacrificing service. Instead of using their management gifts to serve others in love, enabling everyone to find their special place in the body and use their unique gifts most effectively, they simply draft them into projects as a labour force. And when that happens, they become manipulators rather than ministers.
By all means, let us prize effective management skills. But don’t let management supplant ministry.