My previous post described the problem that independent churches face in their governance structures. Briefly, we want financial management, etc., to be the responsibility of deacons, but under many current structures for administering churches, the responsibility must be taken up by the elders.

Now I want to offer up a model that may be able to provide a solution. It is summarised in the following diagram:

The main features of this model are:

1. The “church association” is split up into two separate organisations: the “church” and the “service company”.

2. The “church” is an unincorporated association headed by the elders. All ministry of the Word and prayer is done through the unincorporated association. As an unincorporated association is not a legal entity, it cannot hold property or employ staff. It does not have any finances that need to be managed.

3. The “service company” is a legal entity headed by the deacons. The legal entity can be a company, an incorporated association or perhaps a trust. The service company holds all property, employs staff and handles all the finances.

4. The relationship between the “church” and the “service company” is driven by two things:

   • Membership in the two organisations are stapled. The membership criteria within each organisation is worded so that people can only be members of both organisations at the same time.

   • The membership in the service company is divided into multiple classes. This allows the elders to retain influence over the service company through special voting rights, etc, available to certain classes of members.

   • There is a service agreement between the “church” and the “service company”. The service company would essentially agree to supply property for use by the church, second staff to work for the church, take on any liabilities of the church, etc.

I think this would achieve what we want in that:

• the elders have responsibility over the ministry of the Word and prayer, and retains influence over the service company if things go bad; and
• the deacons have responsibility over finance and administration through the service company

Future posts will elaborate on some of the details.

Are there any issues with this model that you can think of?

Before we go on describing what the model is like, I will need to explain what I mean by an independent church, and why a different model may be useful.

What is an independent church?

By independent church I mean a church association whereby its governance structure is not prescribed.

Most churches in Australia are part of a denomination of some form, which in most cases prescribe ways in which the church is to be administered. For example, most denominations would require churches to be essentially unincorporated associations. Any property needed by the church will be held by some central legal entity (e.g. a property trust). The denomination would then prescribe a governance structure on the church (usually through a template constitution).

Obviously, churches which are not independent can’t simply adopt the model described in my later musings. Nevertheless, I hope that the model may still provide useful insights.

I will assume that independent churches will be organised in a way that is similar to the “elder-deacon model”. Essentially, the governance of the church involves two groups of people:

• The elders, who leads the church and mainly deal with ministry of the Word and prayer.
• The deacons, who are the administrators of the church and deals with administration matters, including finance.

Generally the elders would be seen as organisationally above the deacons within a church association’s governance structure.

Why a new model may be useful

Note that I am not a lawyer, and this section should not be taken as legal advice.

In Australia, the ultimate responsibility for financial management of an organisation (whether it be a company, an incorporated association and even an unincorporated association) usually rests with the organisation’s management committee. For a company, this management committee is usually called the board of directors. For other types of organisations, the management committee may be called various things.

For church associations, I imagine that the elders would be seen as the management committee in this sense. This means that it would the elders rather than the deacons who would be ultimately responsible for the church’s finances, even though we would normally think that these things are the responsibility of the deacons. The fact that deacons do most of the day-to-day work in relation to finance is not likely to absolve the responsibility of the elders as the lead committee of the church association.

We end up with a rather uncomfortable situation where there is a difference between how we want the governance responsibilities to be divided between elders and deacons, and how the governance responsibilities must be divided. Can we develop a church administration model where we can achieve both? My humble suggestion begins in the next post.

Anyway, I’ve been mulling over the idea of a model for administering independent churches for some time, and it’s now a good idea to write it down.

So, over the next little while, I hope to have a series of posts on this topic. It will be organised as follows:

1. Some preliminaries
2. How the model works

Stay tuned.

Why is this important? The main reason is that songs are a powerful teaching tool. Music evokes emotion in people, and so words attached to music in song are more memorable. There is a potential for more people to get their theology out of singing songs than from listening to talks, or doing Bible studies.

Now, to the list:

1. Is it sound? Clearly if the theology is unsound then we shouldn’t sing it.

   However, it is a bit more subtle than that. Songs are meant to be sung through, which means that the singer wouldn’t have much time to think deeply about the words and whether they are wholly correct within the context. As a result, I tend to frown on lyrics which are theologically ambiguous, or are correct only if you “add an asterisk” and say “terms and conditions apply”.

2. Does it have real content? As I mentioned earlier, songs teach. One wants to have songs that carry real, substantial content, rather than ones that only has emotional fluff.

   That does not mean one can’t have emotions in songs. Music, by nature, is emotional. But emotions should be grounded on solid truths, rather than the transient dispositions of human beings. The Psalms is an excellent example of emotions grounded in a solid knowledge of God.

   A simple test: if you replace the word “Jesus” with “baby” and the song still makes sense, then there not be a lot of content.

3. Is it understandable? Ideally the language should be understandable to the audience. This is particularly relevant to older songs, which may use language which is not familiar to contemporary audience. While having difficult language is not a “show-stopper”, people using them should be aware of the need to explain the language.

That’s what I can think of so far. Any thoughts on anything else?

So, here is a FAQ. Nothing here is particularly new, Ministry Training Strategy has been talking about the ministry platform concept for years, and I am grateful for the insight they have provided me.

What is a “ministry platform”?

A ministry platform is a set of structures which provides support to one’s ministry of the Word and prayer. These “structures” include things like:

• training
• encouragement, networking and prayer support
• accountability structures
• logistics like meeting places
• administration
• finance: having the money to pay/be paid

Ministry platforms are often provided by organisations. They can be denominations (such as the Christian and Missionary Alliance or non-denominational ministries (like Ecom and RICE).

What’s good about ministry platforms?

The good thing about ministry platforms is that you can use the use them to save time. This allows you to have more time actually ministering to people, rather than worrying whether how you should be complying with, say, the Charitable Fundraising Act 1991. Setting up everything from scratch is very time consuming and risky.

Using ministry platforms allows you to learn from the experience of others, so that you can avoid mistakes that have been done in the past.

Using ministry platforms also means that the platforms themselves can have economies of scale, which means lower costs for everyone. Larger denominations can often get special deals on logistics (e.g. telephone), which benefits everyone.

What’s bad about ministry platforms?

There is usually a “cost” associated with a ministry platform. They can things such as:

• Bureaucracy and red-tape, which can be frustrating as it takes time to get things done
• Dealing with cultural differences
• Instances where you may need to compromise on your principles, practice or finer points of doctrine
• Weaknesses of others (including politics)

I have a new idea for preaching the gospel. Should I use an existing platform or should I set up my own?

That’s the difficult question. I guess you will need to weigh up the good points and the bad points about existing ministry platforms. In some cases, it would be wise to use an existing platform. In others, it may be best to set up your own.

This is a wisdom issue. You should seek the counsel of others, and most importantly, pray.

In Sydney we have a number of these which God, in his kindness, has used to draw people to himself. In this category I think of things (among many) like RICE, various university ministries and City Bible Forum.

But what about gospel partnerships in the local area? Can we transfer the lessons we have learnt in these gospel partnerships to the local area? How about local churches within an area getting together to reach out to the people of that area?

This is not a particularly new or novel idea. This is happening in many areas already. But is it something of which we can do more? What do you think?

• competing with all sorts of other groups for time to use the facilities;
• no security that one can have access to the facility continuously over the long term; and
• no space for administration (offices, storage, etc)

This leads back to the question: how should we get access to the physical infrastructure necessary for ministry? Should we buy sites to build church buildings, or should we rent them? Here is a small list of advantages and disadvantages for each.

Is there another way?

Maybe a hybrid approach is worthy of consideration. The main points are as follows:

• A responsible entity sets up an investment fund for the purpose of purchasing real estate for churches. Unitholders, who consider the concept worthwhile, contribute capital into the fund.

• The fund leases out the properties for use by churches. There is only one perpetual landlord (the fund), whose intention is to finance the physical infrastructure, which should alleviate the risks of security of access.

• The lease can be structured like any normal real estate lease, or can be structured so that the lessee gains title to the property after all relevant finance costs have been paid.

• In addition, the investment fund borrows money to finance the purchase of property. Repayments are funded by cash flows from a diversified portfolio of properties, so funding costs may possibly be cheaper.

• Excess cash flows can be returned to the unitholder as distributions, or reinvested as capital for funding further properties.

What do you think? Is this a worthwhile idea?

One of the many discoveries from the field of behavioural economics is the concept of hyperbolic discounting. Hyperbolic discounting occurs when someone chooses a smaller payoff sooner rather than a much larger payoff later, but would reverse that choice if the payoffs were moved further along in time.

For example, if I present you with a choice of either (a) getting $10 today or (b) getting $15 next week, you may choose (a). But if I reframe that choice to (a′) getting $10 in 52 weeks time or (b′) getting $15 in 53 weeks’ time, you may choose (b′), even though the choice is exactly the same: whether to wait a week for an extra $5.

This means that we discount distant outcomes much more than we should—-we think much less about consequences which occur far out into the future, especially when compared with the costs we may have to bear right now.

This phenomenon, which is very common among everyone, appears in many forms—-procrastination, gambling and other addictions, inadequate saving for retirement are just a few.

However, it also explains why we have so much trouble in trusting God’s promises, many of which will only be seen fully at the end of the world. It’s a case of eschatological myopia: we worry so much about the present that we don’t pay enough attention to eternity. In the end, hyperbolic discounting is one of many symptoms of our sinful nature.

At least it’s useful to know what you are up against.

• livelong flexibility in working hours (e.g. a 4-day working week, but work for longer);
• an ability to work pension.

This has me thinking about the implications of such a demographic change in the way we do ministry.  For example:

• There have been efforts in the past to encourage and train retired people for ministry.  Given that more and more people are delaying retirement, will this strategy still work?
• Conversely, if more people are having shorter working weeks, how can we use this opportunity for ministry?

Interesting times indeed.

Consider the following observations.

1. For many industries, the Australian market is simply too small to sustain anything more competitive than an oligopoly. This is contributed by the country’s big physical size and small population, which result in more industries to exhibit characteristics of natural monopolies when compared with other economies.

   Notice how in Australia there are only a small number of large competitors in key industries. Examples include telecommunications (Telstra and Optus), supermarkets (Woolworths and Coles), banks (the Big 4, sustained by government policy), department stores (Myer and David Jones) and domestic airlines (Qantas/Jetstar, Virgin Blue). It is interest to note how Ansett collapsed shortly after the arrival of Virgin Blue.

2. This means the players are able to price discriminate to maximise profits. This largely explains the tabloid current affairs shows’ complaints about grocery prices from the same chain being so different among different suburbs in the same city, much more greater than the difference in transport costs. People in affluent areas with little competition are charged more for groceries than those in less affluent areas, or areas where stronger competition exists (e.g. Aldi). And this is all perfectly legal.

3. Some players seek economic rent quite boldly. Good examples of this include the telecommunications and international airline industries. Players in these industries defend public and vigorously their power to set prices. Whether this sort of behaviour benefits the consumers is unclear.

4. Simple supply and demand still explain a lot. Petrol prices are higher on weekends and public holidays because it is likely that more people want petrol on those days. It’s probably uneconomic (cost-wise) for petrol companies to ramp up production for such a short period of time in such a short period of time. This is probably a more feasible explanation than collusion or price fixing among petrol companies (although this can’t be ruled out without a thorough examination).