Church Administration by Robert H. Welch, Book Review Example

The book that will be reviewed in this report in “Church Admininstration” by Robert H. Welch. It was published by Broadman and Holman Publishers in 2005 in Nashville. The book is 416 pages long. The author is serves at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary as Chair of the Christian Education Division and writes many books based on his expertise. As such, this is a non-fiction works that serves as a guide for those studying Church Administration.

The book opens by stating that although a lot of pastors are directly involved in the administration of the church itself, they receive no formal training on the topic and are typically forced to find their own way through the complexities of this area. To make the transition into both a religious educator and church administrator easier for these people. Robert H. Welch uses this book as a guide to explain the aspects of church administration that pastors ought to know. In order to illustrate our understanding of the ill preparation in this field, Welch describes that 21 of 148 Protestant institutions accredited by the Association of Theological Schools or the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools require a course in church administration and less than 1% of their total academic preparation covers this topic.

The book describes the church as an organization in addition to a religious institution, and informs the reader of the needs it has to run properly in this capacity. The “Basics for Administration” include the need for the church to plan ahead and organize itself to accomplish specific leadership tasks and to train and motivate its workers in order to achieve progress and effectiveness. Overall, the chapter summarizes what pastors need to become good leaders, managers, and administrators outside the immediate scope of their religious responsibilities. In detail, the activities that are discussed by the book include the documentation that is required for administration, how to organize the church, how to administer personnel, financial, and physical resources, how to administer the office itself, how to assess risk management, and the administration aspects of planning activities, program ministries, and support activities.

In Chapter 3 “Documents for Administration”, the author recommends compiling a church administration manual that lists all of the policies and procedures for the church. To do so, it is important to compile information and knowledge that already exists within the institution in order to avoid writing a publication that is based on views of only one individual and risk not being characteristic of the church. The manual should include written instructions to inform church goes about church operations and their role in them, to spell out the job duties of all staff members to make this clear, to provide new church members or employees with information that will help them acclimate, and to record operations decisions as they are made to keep a permanent record of this information.

Chapter 6 “Administering Financial Resources” talks about the financial aspects of church administration that range from justifying monetary collection to how to organize these funds in a way that maximally benefits the church. Since church goers expect to pay money to the church because it is a Christian principle, it is the church’s responsibility to ensure they have good accounting, have at least two people involved in organizing the money, and to make financial reports to the church.

In a sense, this book reminded me of a guide that a businessman would use to organize the business or organization, except it uses these principles in church administration. The book justifies the rationale for many of these aspects by describing examples from scripture. Although two chapters were highlighted here, the book’s other chapters provide church administration in great detail and will serve as a useful guide to any pastor learning how to organize his church.