I was listening to a conversation about some of the various charity organizations that send out letters each month trying to solicit donations. One of the things that was commented on was the administration costs in some of them. Some of them have considerably more administration costs than actual charity work performed.
The comment was made about the local church being an example of an organization that has extremely high administration costs. The people just nodded and went on. There seemed to be consensus on the comment.
But that comment kind of bothered me. As I thought about it, I began to realize that maybe people who think that the administration costs far outweigh the actual good work a church does, may have a relatively inaccurate view of the work a church actually does!
For example, the largest expense in our church is the Pastor’s salary (my salary!). It can be argued that the Pastor’s salary is entirely administrative, but I think you would have a fairly inaccurate view of what your Pastor actually does with most of his time.
Certainly the time spent proclaiming the Lord is not administrative in nature. In your Pastor, you have an evangelist on the street. You have a chaplain on call virtually anytime. You have a preacher for the various services on Sunday, and teacher for the various Bible Studies and other events during the week. None of these are administrative in nature. When you Pastor makes visits to shut-ins in the community or in area nursing homes, none of that is administrative in nature. The real reason a Pastor is on staff relates to these ministry roles – none of which are administrative in nature. So while he is responsible for the administration of the church, that’s not really why he’s there!
Another fairly large expense in a local church is the maintenance and upkeep of the building, grounds, and equipment in the church. But when that building and grounds are used for worship, Bible study and proclaiming God’s word – how is that administrative?
I think we could make that argument with nearly every budget line, because I don’t think they would be in the budget if they weren’t used to bring people into the presence of God.
We exist, not to administrate, but to do the work of God. And that’s not an administrative function! Perhaps, instead of being nearly all administrative, it may well be one of the few organizations that has virtually no administrative costs!
The comment was made about the local church being an example of an organization that has extremely high administration costs. The people just nodded and went on. There seemed to be consensus on the comment.
But that comment kind of bothered me. As I thought about it, I began to realize that maybe people who think that the administration costs far outweigh the actual good work a church does, may have a relatively inaccurate view of the work a church actually does!
For example, the largest expense in our church is the Pastor’s salary (my salary!). It can be argued that the Pastor’s salary is entirely administrative, but I think you would have a fairly inaccurate view of what your Pastor actually does with most of his time.
Certainly the time spent proclaiming the Lord is not administrative in nature. In your Pastor, you have an evangelist on the street. You have a chaplain on call virtually anytime. You have a preacher for the various services on Sunday, and teacher for the various Bible Studies and other events during the week. None of these are administrative in nature. When you Pastor makes visits to shut-ins in the community or in area nursing homes, none of that is administrative in nature. The real reason a Pastor is on staff relates to these ministry roles – none of which are administrative in nature. So while he is responsible for the administration of the church, that’s not really why he’s there!
Another fairly large expense in a local church is the maintenance and upkeep of the building, grounds, and equipment in the church. But when that building and grounds are used for worship, Bible study and proclaiming God’s word – how is that administrative?
I think we could make that argument with nearly every budget line, because I don’t think they would be in the budget if they weren’t used to bring people into the presence of God.
We exist, not to administrate, but to do the work of God. And that’s not an administrative function! Perhaps, instead of being nearly all administrative, it may well be one of the few organizations that has virtually no administrative costs!
I’d love to hear to hear your comments! Let me know what you think.
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