Local Church Staffing and Denominational Policy
Historically the Adventist denomination has discouraged extensive staffing at the local church level while investing significantly more personnel in institutions than do other Protestant denominations. Russell Burrill, a retired Andrews University seminar professor, linked this idea to a focus on church-planting and entering new territory in his doctoral dissertation and several books. It is certainly true that, like the Methodist Church, Adventists have a tradition of itinerate clergy instead of resident pastors. Throughout much of the world today–and even in North America–local elders provide much of the pastoral care and leadership in local churches.
At the same time the role and management of volunteers in nonprofit organizations has gone through a revolution in recent decades. There was a time when volunteers were involved in what are essentially amateur programs. The defining characteristic of amateur programs is that they are entirely governed and staffed by volunteers who typically are self-taught in whatever skills are needed. The weakness of this approach is that these programs tend to slide toward doing what is most interesting or enjoyable or comfortable for the volunteers without any real needs assessment or objective evaluation. It is called "mission creep."
Today the primary model for volunteerism in America is one in which volunteers are led and managed by full-time professionals. The professional leadership provides the job descriptions, tools and resources for the volunteers. They do interviews with all volunteers before they start and provide basic orientation and regular in-service education opportunities. This approach has become a standard expectation of most volunteers. People prefer to donate their time in clearly structured settings that have a good fit with their abilities and interests. More importantly, although they want to give input, they prefer that others do the hard work of strategic planning and they thrive on getting regular feedback that indicates the program is making a difference, moving toward clearly defined goals.
The amateur model of volunteer ministry seems to work well when churches are engaged in ministry with Blue Collar populations, but as the Adventist Church in North America has become more and more middle class, there is considerable evidence that this approach is working less and less effectively. Let me illustrate by contrasting two programs, Sabbath School and Pathfinder Club.
Pathfinder Clubs and the associated youth camps are run primarily by the new approach in which professionals provide a lot of structure and support for the volunteers. Almost all of the local conferences in North America have a full-time youth director or associate youth director who spends almost all of his or her time leading Pathfinder Clubs and summer camping. Many conferences have Area Coordinators who are highly trained and given a stipend or expense account. Summer camps have been staffed by paid, full-time (although seasonal) workers for several decades. (Yes, once upon a time they were entirely volunteer operations.) Pathfinder Clubs constitute one of the most successful programs of local ministry operated by the Adventist Church as witnessed last summer in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where more than 50,000 people participated in the North American Division Camporee.
Sabbath School, on the other hand, operates largely on the amateur model of volunteering. Most conferences no longer provide any supervisory or support staff for Sabbath School, no yearly training weekend (as Pathfinder Clubs do), no resource network, and no support system. The only resource materials are the various versions of the Sabbath School Lesson, most of which are prepared in a process so distant from the local church that no one is quite sure how they are designed to be used. A handful of resource people at the North American Division, the General Conference and the publishing houses do speaking appointments as often as they can, but they all have other responsibilities that are full-time and there is no systematic schedule for their appearances. It is not even placed on web sites such as SSNet. Consequently Sabbath School is an essentially amateur program and suffers significantly from mission creep. It has become in many places more of a ritual than a learning experience. And attendance at Sabbath School has been in slow decline for some time.
The growing, vital congregations in the Adventist Church in North America are shifting from the amateur model of volunteer ministry to the newer model. Like many other Protestant congregations, they are developing more and more paid staff positions. Some of these are full-time, but most are, at least initially, part-time. Research–in the Adventist denomination–has shown that those local churches with more paid staff (whether funded by the Tithe Fund or the local church budget) are more likely to have higher growth rates.
And now the denominational bureaucracy has begun to discourage this trend. New policies, some not yet officially voted, are being put in place to make it very difficult–in some cases impossible–to hire additional staff in the local church. The people pushing these policies do not have any education in volunteer management. Most have never served as pastors. Their reasons are typical of bureaucrats; they want to make it easier to achieve various policy goals and meet legal requirements that are largely outside the concerns of the local church. It is a classic case of the fundamental operational issue in all denominations: Do policies exist to support church mission and local ministry or do they exist to protect the institutional structure?
Take a look at your local church: Is it growing? Does it exhibit vitality? How far has it moved from the amateur to the new model of volunteerism? Which of your ministries are thriving? Which aren't? How does the difference relate to the models of volunteerism employed? How many locally-funded staff do you have, full-time or part-time? Discuss these issues with your conference administration.
Note: If your congregation would like an evidence-based assessment of the church and the local community where it is located, you can do so through the Center for Creative Ministry at (800) 272-4664.
- Monte Sahlin's blog
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 | Monte Sahlin | Monte Sahlin is an ordained Seventh-day Adventist
minister, community organizer and social analyst. He
currently serves as director of research and special projects for the Ohio Conference, and chairman of the board for the Center for Creative Ministry and
the Center for Metropolitan Ministry. Sahlin is the author of 20 books, more
than 50 research monographs and many journal articles. His latest book, Mission
in Metropolis reports extensive research and more than 40 experimental
ministries by Adventists in urban, postmodern contexts. He is an associate
faculty member in the Tony Campolo Graduate
School at Eastern
University and an adjunct faculty
member in the Doctor of Ministry program at Andrews University.
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Re: Local Church Staffing and Denominational Policy
Re: Local Church Staffing and Denominational Policy
Monte's concerns are well placed. I founded nearly four years ago what is now the largest executive search firm focusing on faith-based organizations and ministries. We do more pastoral search work for the largest churches in America than any other firm. Of the 20 largest churches in America, only two are considered "mainline." The rest are independent or non-denominational. A key reason for their growth and impact is the ability to hire their own pastoral staff and other key leaders. The smart Adventist churches are recognizing the importance of locally employed staff. Any effort to staunch this trend is unwise.
Ed Fry
www.faithsearchpartners.com
Re: Local Church Staffing and Denominational Policy
The growth in local paid staff is likely driven by factors that originate in the local Conference as well as with the local congregation.
I am reminded of a large local elementary school. Some of the staff are Conference employees and some are employed by the local congregation. The local employees receive a salary and benefit package that equals that of the Conference employees, but at a lower cost to the congregation. Part of the reason for that is that the congregation is charged a surcharge for each Conference teacher that is used by the Conference to financially support the Education Department. That difference is added to the fact that the School Board is able to obtain health and retirement benefits at a lower cost than what it costs for those benefits for Conference employees.
There was a time when our congregations were small enough that most staff could volunteer their time. But, that time has long since passed for many of our congregations. The demands placed upon those who clean our buildings, account for the receipt and expenditure of monies and serve as office managers are often such that those positions can only be filled by people who can regularly devote considerable amounts of time effort and energy. They cannot be filled by the volunteer of yesterday who could perform the duties on an irregular basis.
These people are often paid a flat rate under a contract with a time requirement that reduces the hourly rate of pay below that required by Federal and/or State requirements for minimum hourly wages. Such potentially subjects the local congregation and/or the Conference to legal liability for failure to follow the law.
In some situations the local Conference requires that the local employees supply the Conference with remuneration rates along with the hours worked. The may not resolve the issues if employees are told that they cannot submit reports of hours worked that reduce the hourly rate below the minimum required by the law.
Re: Local Church Staffing and Denominational Policy
Monte, are you aware of any research that compares the amount of administrative structure supported by local church pastors and members in different North American denominations? It seems to me that this is the type of administrative decision that will actually produce the congregationalism that is their biggest fear. Administrators need to be reminded frequently that the church is a volunteer organization and the members are perfectly free to choose whether or not to pay their salaries. Increasingly they are choosing not to. Part of the problem is that the votes in a General Conference situation come from parts of the world where there is a very high view of church authority and much of the money comes from areas where the term " church authority" is considered to be an oxymoron. The unspoken impasse is becoming "you can vote anything that you want to vote and we will decide whether or not we will fund it". Of course these words are never spoken openly but that is how it works out. There is really very little that they can do to stop people from funding whatever they want to at the local church level and it would be just plain stupid to try because in the long term they will lose and in the short term they will anger so many good people that it will hurt their collections far more than they stand to lose by looking the other way over a few locally funded positions. The old saying about "not biting the hand that feeds you" comes to mind.
Re: Local Church Staffing and Denominational Policy
Richard L. Noel, DMD
Monty, You have tried to gently bring up one of the most controversial issues in North America. I am involved with a new church plant. This has happened completely outside the structure of the local conference. A major reason it is still not a part of the conference is that they are more interested in their institutional control than in the outreach being done. Their demand for a finger in the money pie is what has kept them from being involved in our work. Their financial greed is their own downfall.
Another focus for failure is the lack of openness in Bible study promoted by the SDA penchant for indoctrination as being more important than knowing Jesus as your personal savior. Until we really take hold of the Bible and live in faith that Jesus really meant what He promised, we are doomed to decline as a denomination.
Re: Local Church Staffing and Denominational Policy
Susan, I am not aware of data that enables a comparison between denominations. They all have quite different ways of handling these things which make comparisons difficult.
Here is what I do know: The percentage of the tithe that is actually spent by the union conferences, divisions and GC, that is everything above the local conference, is about 14 percent. Nearly half of this actually goes overseas to support missionaries subsidize missions in developing countries. Whether we consider "overhead" to be 14 percent or 7 percent (which would be the more usual way nonprofits would calculate it) that percentage is well within the norms for large, international nonprofits. When you consider that the Adventist denomination has the largest Protestant school system and many more other institutions than the typical Protestant denomination, the nonprofits (for which better data is available) may be a much better comparison in any case.
Local conferences actually use within their territory more than 83 percent of the Tithe they take in. Another 2.5 to 3 percent goes as their share for the college/university in their union.
Re: Local Church Staffing and Denominational Policy
Re: Local Church Staffing and Denominational Policy
Richard L. Noel, DMD
Monty, your got my attention with your statement that 83% of tithe is used by the local conference. This disagrees with my apparently out-of -date data presented to a conference workers meeting a few years ago. Please explain how you come up with a figure that is so far from the 50% I was told.
Re: Local Church Staffing and Denominational Policy