WANTED:

CEO for small Mission agency. Must be motivated, a self-starter. Able to be faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive. Gifts in leaping tall buildings in a single bound an advantage but not a necessity. Spiritual Gifts required. Miracle working essential, both in fundraising and in maintaining a healthy relationship with the Board.

Your task is to be head salesman for the organisation without appearing to be a salesman. You will be required to sustain and grow the ministry. Mission personnel throughout the world will be depending upon you. Your success will be their success. Your failures will see them unable to feed their children. The Gospel is your motivation and you will be answerable to God for all your actions. You must learn to balance guilt with productivity.

The principle responsibility, (you will only see this once . it will never appear elsewhere in any documentation relating to the position) is to extract money from people for nothing. You must sell ideas to people that touch their hearts and move their hands to their pockets to continue supporting the ministry. Be VERY grateful for BIG cheques.

REMUNERATION:

We are committed to paying a salary commensurate with the Award. Currently, there is no Award to cover the position and so this means that we will pay you $2.50 more than the dole, without the benefits, and only if you can raise the money from friends. The superannuation is indeed out of this world and we will remind you of this often enough to ensure that you can still smile at it.

The previous CEO, whilst required to be a Miracle Worker, ran short of miracles. And he was kind of short on Superman skills but he did serve in the job tirelessly for 30 years, everybody loved him, and he’s retiring on a Government pension where he plans to cut lawns for other retirees to help pay the bills. The good name of the organisation throughout the nation is a result of his efforts. The Board thanked him for this on the day we sacked him.

Of course this isn’t true, now, is it?

As the head of a Mission organization, IN Network Australia, I’m grateful that my Board has sought to look after me.. Generally, I have to say that I’ve been grateful to my Board that they were prepared from day one to pay a salary equal to that of a Baptist pastor. It was a huge step of faith as the organization didn’t have the money at the time. We’ve struggled over the past 7 years, enduring growth each year but one, but in effect only just keeping our heads above the fiscal water line.

This may be the way it’s meant to be in Christian mission, but I’m saddened as I travel to see that other staff in other organizations do not always receive treatment equal to that which I have received.

There are many reasons for this. Sometimes the principle reason is lack of funds for administration, after all, this is the most difficult area to fund and yet how can the organization function without money to pay the bills at home?

On one occasion, one of my staff was furiously questioned over the administration levy that we were then charging, 15%. “Why do you charge so much?” The elderly supporter asked. “Well we have to pay for stamps for our letters and pay salaries and so on.” said my faithful worker. “Why don’t you pay for your own stamps?” the lady said.

We might well laugh at that, but I’m afraid that some Christian organizations, churches included, still operate with this mentality. The Board may include some professional people earning high salaries but when it comes to the staff, they are serving the Lord, and as such should be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the table.

Sounds tough, and it is, especially for the workers.

I think every Board member should be prepared to answer the question “Would I be prepared to do the CEO’s job, extra hours and all, for the money he or she is being paid or not?”

John Mark Ministries is a terrific ministry initiative which was founded years ago by Rowland and Jan Croucher. It commenced with the goal of providing support for pastors, ex-pastors, church leaders and their spouses.

On John Mark Ministries website you’ll find an article about the Caregivers Conference in 1999 http://jmm.org.au/articles/8052.htm

In it there is a paragraph addressing issues for pastors in Australia. A similar survey, to my knowledge, has not been performed for the much smaller area of para-church organizations, but I would suggest that strong similarities could be drawn. I’ve inserted some comments in brackets. See what you think:

1/5 of all pastors’ (mission?) families say that they are negatively affected by their ministry.

Many shared they were poorly trained/equipped for ministry eg 45% said they were poorly equipped for mission and 63% said they were poorly equipped for rural ministry (or overseas ministry?).

15% said they were burnt out and 55% said they were on the borderline of burnout. Some snapshots of the Australian church and people (l996 NCLS)

70% of Aussie non-Christians said they have attended a religious service of some kind in the past year.

55% of Australian churches are stable, 18% declining, 24% are growing 38% said they had high levels of newcomers

There are a large number of people just drifting out of the church eg 15% of Uniting Church people drifted away from their church between 1991 and 1996 and 7% of Baptists and 27% of Pentecostals.

This is a picture of the church, but para-church is still part of the church and so we are affected by this. In denominational ministry, churches have sought to address inequity in their staffing arrangements. I think it is fair to say that most major denominations now have adequate remuneration policies for their staff. You won’t get wealthy from this sort of “ministry” unless you become a televangelist, but you won’t starve either.

Difficulties faced by churches and those in church ministry, are reflected in the wider community. Sexual misconduct by church leaders is seen as an epidemic, whether it is or not, and this creates distrust from the community to the church. It then overflows into all areas of Christian work.

My concern in writing this article is to urge para-church organisations to make it a priority to move themselves forward into the 21st Century as soon as they possibly can, and this not only includes how they present themselves to the world – backward looking groups only go backward – but how they care and provide for their staff.

If they don’t, one day a burnt out Mission Director or staff worker will decide to sue the organisation for the poor practices which would hold it up ridicule and shame in the wider community.

At the beginning of this article I wrote fictitiously: “The good name of the organisation throughout the nation is a result of his (the CEO’s) efforts. The Board thanked him for this on the day we sacked him.”

Any organisation can dismiss staff for valid reasons. In Australia, we have strong governing principles which are enshrined in law as to how dismissals should take place and the obligation of the organisation to provide for the employee. Large corporations even provide counselling for staff to help them transition to another position, or to retirement. You would be surprised to know how few Christian charities are so charitable in their provision for their staff.

David Ayliffe