A very common problem in human thinking is to objectify things and forget that we or other people are subjects as well as objects. We forget, for instance, that we are part of the environment; it isn’t just out there; it is us too. The pastoral equivalent is to think of congregants as recipients of ministry but forget that they are co-active with us. And so we may miss the ramifications which could make our human resources management richer and more gospel.
clergy, who are expected to provide primary leadership and management to congregations, are not well prepared for the task of human resource management.
One of the challenges I keep observing, in line with what I saw when I was exercising church leadership is this:
Leaders today, however, are providing ministry with and to people with a rapidly decreasing amount of discretionary time and who experience a vastly expanded competition as to how they will use that discretionary time. People’s commitment to their faith or their congregation can no longer be measured by the amount of time they give. As discretionary time shrinks, leaders have to learn how to use volunteer time more effectively, replace volunteer hours with staff hours, and manage staff as a costly and limited resource.