Who should you hire? When should you fire? How much should you pay? What job titles should you use? What about pastoral sabbaticals and retirement contributions? What’s a constitution good for? These might not be soul-energizing questions but answering them well is a mandate of love for the church.

I learned as a young husband that, while I might want to celebrate “spontaneity” or “taking it easy,” loving my wife sometimes meant making plans, thinking ahead, establishing a few structures. This is what living with someone else, and not as a single man, means. So it is in a church. Working together well and peaceably requires attending to administration.

We asked a number of lead pastors and administration or executive pastors to help us think through matters like staffing, building, budgets and other policies. As I read every article, I found myself asking a host of further questions I would not have thought to ask before. I trust you’ll discover the same. Even if we don’t answer every question you have (far from it, I assume), you’ll have a better sense of which questions to begin asking.

Paul left Titus in Crete to “put what remained into order” (Titus 1:5). He also told the Corinthians, “all things should be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). He was talking about the church gathering, of course, but the lesson applies more broadly. Pastors and deacons build up the body of Christ by caring for the staffing structures, pay policies, and building budgets. We pray this Journal will help.

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