The following experiences Saddleback has encountered can generate good management insights:
1. Purpose-driven organisation¡Xpurpose-driven church actions is Bible-based. Actions merely driven by tradition, finances, leader, building, programmes, etc are wrong. Purposes need to be deliberately formulated after doing systematic researches (e.g. Saddleback has identified ten strong needs in the neighbourhood). Objectives of a church and of its big and small groups ought to be clearly linked up; Saddleback has specific objectives and teams for missions, manification, membership, maturity, ministry (based on its diamond model). Objectives need to be communicated vertically (upward and downward), laterally, within the church and between the church and outside. When differences exist between co-workers and members e.g. on 'why does our church exist', they need to be confronted, for achieving consensus. Clearly drawn-up action plans and time-tables are needed for achieving objectives, which also have to be regularly and systematically reminded, reviewed and assessed.
2. Leadership¡Xthe book has covered some leadership charateristics--persistent love; showing friendliness to all kinds of people driven by love; sticking to principles and belief and making no compromises to downgrade standards; personally doing all kinds of work when needed; being wise to balance between democracy and decisiveness. In team management, Warren has successfully put ordinary people with different backgrounds together to achieve big things. In training, objectives of different modules as well as their approaches are clearly communicated beforehand. In appointing leaders, Warren appreciates burdens in people's hearts more than their specific knowledge and experiences. Changing leaders of a church too often, he warns, can adversely affect its growth.
3. Strategies and management¡Xa church needs to make appropriate responses to environmental and societal changes, not to avoid facing them. Knowing how to position oneself without copying from others blindly, a church needs to select actions it is best at; for example, in bringing people to Christ, believers tend to be more effective in interacting with people having similar backgrounds to theirs. Realising that effectiveness is more important than efficiency, a church needs to constantly focus on its objectives as it proceeds and ongoing steering can be obtained through the help of praying and the Holy Spirit. To apply the right methods at the right situations, Warren suggests to ¡¥use different hooks to catch different kinds of fish¡¦, and adopt different places, times and ways to worship. Organisational structures, activities, methods, procedures, etc should be driven by purposes and burdens in human hearts; establishing them first in search for church objectives is wrong.
4. Organisational atmosphere, health and development¡Xlove-driven friendly ways to welcome and communicate can attract a lot of visitors and make them feel comfortable; also effective are thoughtfully use of music, temperature and lighting control, decoration, dress code and even humours in giving sermons. A church is not just a static building or structure; it should function as a healthy organism, a human body consisting of different parts/systems; this matches with the teaching that the church is the body of Christ. A balanced church is a healthy church. Ways can be designed so that new members can be melted into the culture of the church; for example, they need to make commitments. In renewing the lives of members and converting them into a team of soldiers, they need to be trained and retrained to become spiritually mature people. Saddleback's indicators for assessing spiritual maturity are: knowledge of the word, perspective, conviction, skills and character.
I hope that you would also read
¡§Purpose Driven Church¡¨, digest Warren¡¦s thoughts and also reflect on
the analysis I made above. After that, you would most likely agree with
me that if applied wisely, approaches adopted by Saddleback are relevant
not only to big churches in the U.S., but also to smaller local churches
such as Wai Tsuen.
Prepared by Charles Lam, December 1999