In past articles I have explored the roles of the church administrator in the context of the relationships you will have with the pastor, the church and the community. In addition to these roles, there are also priorities - areas where the administrator should be consistently focused. In general terms, these areas are provision, protection and perspective.

There are three key areas that are important for the church administrator to develop as you launch your new church: Your relationship with your pastor, your relationship with church members and your community, and preparation for the future.

The world of church planting can be fast paced and stressful. Pastors have sermons to prepare and preach, worship bands to assemble and practice, community groups to launch and maintain, weddings, funerals, emails, letters, phone calls to return, initiate and ignore, books to order and then find time to read, children's ministry volunteers to rope in, youth activities to manage, and the list goes on and on. With all of these duties, and more, on a pastor's plate, especially a lead planting pastor who may be wearing all of those hats with varying degrees of success, it makes sense to look into outsourcing his mind. An assistant is the perfect way to farm out much of the work and tasks that weighs on his mind at 3am. Yet "How?" seems to be a common question. How can a pastor truly leverage an assistant to maintain peace of mind, remain focused on the macro vision for the church/ministry, and still feel like he is working and deserving of the big bucks his church is paying him? Below are several main areas of outsourcing that will help a pastor maintain sanity and accomplish what God has given him to do (Acts 6).

Bruce P. Powers Ed.

All the basics for developing and implementing effective church administration in one convenient volume.

Good administration is essential to the mission of a church and the leadership of clergy and lay leaders. A smooth-running church can concentrate on spreading the gospel, rather than on office supplies, insurance, and weeding the flowerbeds. This newly-revised edition of the Church Administration Handbook offers practical advice from a distinguished list of contributors on issues including: