GREENEVILLE – Imagine you are a pastor of a small church with several members of your congregation experiencing challenging circumstances in their lives that require your ministerial assistance.
The Rev. E.J. Swatsell
At the same time you are providing this spiritual support, your presence is needed to review paperwork and address plumbing issues that have arisen in the church building. The idea is that you will take care of all of these matters because each one is important and must include you. In reality, though, more than one person should be expected to handle them.
A conference Friday, March 27, at Tusculum University will present another option for completing many church matters – offload some of the administrative duties of the church to leaders and other members in the congregation who can take care of them just as well. That way, the pastor can focus more on the ministerial aspects of his job and avoid burnout from being tasked with too many other duties.
The Church Leaders Conference will be held from 9 a.m.-noon in Chalmers Conference Center, which is located inside the Scott M. Niswonger Commons. The conference is free.
“Churches have been extremely helpful to Tusculum by ministering to our students and supporting them during their studies,” said the Rev. E.J. Swatsell, the university’s director of spiritual life and special projects. “This conference is one of the ways we want to be helpful and to express our appreciation for all of the kindness churches have displayed toward us. We encourage you to attend this conference, which will strengthen the vitality of churches.”
The presenter at the conference will be Dr. John H. Wilson, co-author of “The Nehemiah Way: Mobilize a Church Full of Leaders,” which discusses this different approach to church administration in greater detail. Wilson is a not a minister but rather a worship leader and longtime member of Brandywine Grace Church in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. He and his wife Jenn have also launched and led several missional community groups.
Dr. John H. Wilson
“Scripture is not silent on the topic of how to run the church effectively,” Wilson says in one of his videos. “The Book of Nehemiah is a wealth of information, resources and ideas that can be helpful when creating an operating system for the church. So often, it is completely overlooked. The Book of Nehemiah can be very practical, but it also has a really, really strong spiritual foundation. It connects the ordinariness that we all experience as those that have administrative duties and can be used in a powerful way by God to accomplish things that seem way beyond our own capacity.”
In addition to the scenario of a pastor with no staff, the need to consider a more comprehensive approach to church operations applies to those congregations that have a paid staff. Dr. David Cook, Tusculum’s provost and vice president of academic affairs, who has been reading Wilson’s book, said those churches can also have more needs than the pastor and staff can be expected to resolve.
A vibrant congregation that empowers its deacons, elders and other members of the congregation to help can be beneficial. As an example, Dr. Cook highlighted that he and his wife Nicole helped run a ministry at the church in Texas where they were previously members.
Dr. Cook said the conference will provide practical operational models that will not only save wear and tear on the pastor and staff but also help congregation members draw value from their membership in a church beyond sitting in the pews. It also enables each church to increase its productivity inside and outside its walls, Swatsell said.
As an ordained minister, Swatsell understands the importance of not overloading a pastor.
“With pastor confidentiality, you may have four or five people in a week who are coming to you with very heavy topics,” he said. “All of those emotions are unloaded on the pastor. Another example is I did three funerals in one week once, and that’s pretty heavy. You don’t want to also worry about making sure the light bill is paid or what color the carpet is going to be while you are dealing with these eternally significant issues.”
This is the book that discusses a different approach to church administration.
Wilson is an author, speaker, and entrepreneur with a formal background in biblical studies of leadership. He is a teaching professor at the Drexel University Charles D. Close School of Entrepreneurship. He said pastors have a lot in common with entrepreneurs because of their reliance on volunteers
Professionally, Wilson has experience as a senior leader in the technology industry and is the founder and CEO of Strategic Collisions International, an organization that helps “accidental entrepreneurs” thrive through executive coaching, leadership development training and consulting services. He has advised the pastoral team at his church and served as an organizational leadership executive coach to the lead pastor.
The conference is open to churches of all denominations. Pastors and lay leaders in congregations are encouraged to attend. To register for the conference, people should email Swatsell at eswatsell@tusculum.edu. The registration deadline is Wednesday, March 18.
Additional information about Tusculum’s campus ministries is available at https://site.tusculum.edu/campus-ministries/. To learn more about the university, please visit www.tusculum.edu.