In his book The New Realities (New York: Harper & Row, 1989) Peter Drucker asks seven questions of leaders. They are as applicable to church leaders as to managing directors.
1. How well do we know our people? There is no substitute for "management by walking around" -- not just in the church but in the world outside. This puts oneself in the position of ordinary people -- whether in the congregation or outside. Do we give ourselves time to think through methodically each role within the church, evaluate the people who are fulfilling it, see the strains they are under and decide what help they need? At the same time we need to look at people outside the life of the church. Is there anything in the habits of our church which makes it difficult for them to hear and respond to the gospel? Is our personal ministry to them evangelistic? Who is best placed to communicate with them? A prayerful "walkabout" can be immensely significant, either done alone or with a group of other leaders.
2. What information do we need to do our job effectively? Are we getting unnecessary information which merely overloads the system? Often churches are awash with the wrong information, e.g., finance, organization, charities and structures and not enough about people and the local community.
3. Which tasks do we do which advance the kingdom -- and which have we merely got used to doing? Cut out the latter: maximize the former.
4. Are we communicative? "Remember, what is obvious to us may not be obvious to others." The management expert, John Humble, said, "If you are an accountant, don't talk to them as though they were also accountants." He might have said that ministers should not talk as though everyone else were ministers, Anglicans as though everyone else were Anglicans, and old-agers as though everyone else had been in church for all their lives.
5. Has what we expected to happen, happened? Check that what you expect to happen has happened. If not, find out why.
6. Are we still learning? Keep learning. Continuing personal development, in spiritual depth and in human maturity, is necessary if we are not to become stale and dull. If one is working in technologically based industry, it is obvious, but no less necessary, for the Christian leader.
7. Are we taking care of ourselves? If we are, we will last a long time. (Peter Drucker is himself a good example of this. New Realities was published when he was 80 and he still keeps up a punishing routine of lecturing and writing.)
--John Finney, Church on the
Move: Leadership for Mission (London: Daybreak, 1992),
122-23, 178.
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