Issue No. 148 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights an oldie, but goodie book on how churches view parachurches and vice versa. Order it today—or used copies will be hard to find. And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.
Church & Parachurch
When I’ve loaned out my only two copies of an old book—and had to find another one online, it tells me it’s an important book. Jerry White, now president emeritus of The Navigators, published The Church & the Parachurch, “A Critical Concern Book” for Multnomah Press in 1983. It’s still very relevant—maybe more so in 2009.
Today, many megachurches often look more like parachurches than “local churches.” And in many “parachurches” today, I find that they are functioning more in tune with a biblical model of “church” than do many local churches. Yet there are excesses on both sides, some sad and some even hilarious. Many pastors still distrust parachurches—and block the doors. “All they want are my best volunteers and their money.”
Parachurch leaders, on the other hand, often compete with other parachurches for local church dollars, volunteers and loyalties. Yet pastors display their arrogance and their ignorance when they naively believe they can control the giving and the engagement of their church members. But no church can support and encourage hundreds of parachurch causes. What’s the solution?
Jerry White, with fear and trepidation, took on this volatile subject in the 1980s. No one has done it better since. He traces the history of parachurches, gives thoughtful insight on the theological issues (you may change your own thinking) and offers solutions to this “uneasy marriage.”
Has anything changed over the last 25 years? My opinion: yes and no. If anything, some pastors of larger churches have built higher walls. Parachurches, though, have increasingly found clever ways to go around the institutional church and go directly to the people. And—in most cases—they do it better.
Example: you’ll get a prompt donor receipt, thank you letter and ministry update (eNews, etc.) from your parachurch giving. What personal response do you get from your local church giving? Usually not much, except an annual record of giving from the church treasurer (usually with typos).
White nets it out for us. “Struggles over structure, authority, and organizational rights can do nothing but repulse the onlooking world and diminish the effectiveness of the body of Christ. I believe this proposed solution [chapter 6] can be fulfilled without a wave of watered-down ecumenicity or the forsaking of doctrinal distinctives and beliefs. But to do so, both the local church and the para-local church structures must publicly make specific efforts to encourage and help one another.” Get the book—and help bless both the church and the parachurch.
To order this week’s book from Amazon (used copies from resellers are still available), click on this title: The Church & the Parachurch: An Uneasy Marriage, by Jerry White.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) What’s your biggest beef about local churches and parachurches?
2) What is one specific thing we could do in the next 90 days to help a local church and a parachurch understand each other’s roles more effectively?
The One Predictable Thing - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
One of the big ideas in the Crisis Bucket, Chapter 13, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to build an organization that is battle-ready. Peter Drucker said, “Fortunately or unfortunately, the one predictable thing in any organization is the crisis. That always comes. That’s when you do depend on the leader.”
He said that the job of the leader is to build an organization that is “battle-ready, that has high morale, that knows how to behave, that trusts itself, and where people trust one another.”
Is your team or organization ready for the next crisis? It’s coming. For more help, go to our website and download Worksheet #13.1: "Plan Now for Your Next Crisis."
NEXT CEO DIALOGUES for nonprofit CEOs and senior pastors:
• August 28, 2009 – CEO Dialogues 1-Day Roundtable (Dana Point, California)
• October 1, 2009 – CEO Dialogues 1-Day Roundtable (New York City)
Click here for more information.
MANAGEMENT BUCKETS WORKSHOP:
• October 20-21, 2009 – Mastering the Management Buckets Workshop Experience (Orange, County, California)
Click here for more information.
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