MISSION: ACCOMPLISHED
S I M E O N M AY / C E O / T H E C H U R C H N E T W O R K / P H I L L M A R T I N / D E P U T Y C E O / T H E C H U R C H N E T W O R K /
Simeon May (center) and his wife, Denise, visit with exhibitor Craig King of
Christians in Business
While a lot has changed in church administration over six decades,
one thing hasn’t: The Church Network annual conference was (and
is) regarded as one of the only places where administrators, executive
pastors — and anyone else tasked with church administration — can
get the in-depth, unique, and hard-to-find training they need, day in and
day out.
For Jack Taylor, CCA, emeritus member of The Church Network and
past president of the board of directors, the conference was what grabbed
his attention at first.
In March, Taylor retired after 22 years in church administration. His
first position was in 1996 at Knox Presbyterian in Cincinnati. On the
recommendation of a friend, he joined then-NACBA right away.
His last church post was Sycamore Presbyterian Church, also
in Cincinnati — and Taylor was still a very active member of The
Church Network.
Having spent his career in the secular workplace, Taylor says the
transition to church work was “like jumping right into a frying pan.”
He knew he had to find some resources to get himself up to speed, and
fast. To that end, the annual conference emerged as the most rewarding
membership benefit.
“It’s just everything that flows from that event — the detail of
information necessary to stay on top of what we're doing,” he explains.
“Plus, it’s the network of colleagues a person like me could build — not just
locally, but nationwide — to help with real-world church administration
experiences.”
Dr. Mark King, CCA, Conference Treasurer and Director of
Administrative Services for Western North Carolina Conference
for the United Methodist Church in Charlotte, N.C., has attended 17
annual conferences.
“The networking with other church administration professionals
is invaluable,” he says. “In fact, there’s no way I would be where I am
today — CFO of the fourth-largest annual conference in the United
Methodist Church — if not for The Church Network. The training,
education, resources, networking and the national conference ‘spirit’ is an
inspiration and catalyst for my ministry on so many levels.”
For Bill Besalski, Executive Pastor/CFO at The Church at RB in San
Diego, what he’s learned at the conference has even translated, literally,
to dollars and cents.
“Five or six years ago, I attended and learned about a more cost-effective
way to process debit and credit contributions,” he explains. “Within a
couple months, we switched vendors. It has saved us more than $20,000
every year, and I haven’t missed a conference since.”
DALLAS, TX
New name, expanded focus
In 2014, NACBA became The Church Network (TCN), primarily in
reaction to the changing job structures and titles for administrative leaders
in congregations. Although larger congregations had administrators with
pastoral responsibilities, the title did not always reflect that distinction.
“In larger churches, there might be an HR director, a chief financial
officer, a facility manager, and so on. The roles of church administrative
leadership are broken out among various individuals,” May explains. “In a
more mid-sized church, however, one person — a parish administrator or
executive pastor — wore all those hats.
As these changing roles gained traction at churches across the country,
the need to demonstrate that the association wasn’t only for individuals
with “church administrator” in their title became clear.
“One of the reasons we rebranded was to broaden the tent,” May explains.
“We needed to make sure that anybody, in any church administrative
leadership role, would feel a part of the Association.”
Martin agrees, pointing out that the organization’s database had
more than 600 variations of job titles at the time of the name change.
“Some were very clear: ‘business administrator,’ ‘pastor of administration,’
‘parish administrator,’ and so on,” he says.
Others? Not so much.
“’Minister of operations,’ ‘executive director,’ even ‘COO’ — they were
all represented,” Martin adds. “People would call us and say, ‘I'm a financial
director of my church. Can I join?’ As if they had to get permission. We
wanted to signify, right up front, that there’s very much a place for them.”
Sherrie Turner, CCA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, director of Business Operations
at Calvary Chapel Newport News in Newport News, Va. — a TCN member
since 2008 — lends a member’s perspective of the shift. For her part, she
appreciated and understood the need for a branding change.
“It exemplified how TCN covers so many different areas of ministry,”
she explains. “It’s not just the administration; it’s not just the finance. It's
the communication, the technology, the facilities, the children's ministry.
It's legacy churches, and it's historical churches. There are just so many
communities of networking that happen within TCN to make it so
powerful, effective and relevant.”
Evolving responsibilities = new educational needs
With the reimagining of the organization’s name came an impetus to
broaden the educational scope of everything it does.
This includes, of course, chapter / local group meetings. It also extends
to the job center; PRISM, a feedback tool for ministry; the e-learning lab;
and more. All these offerings are accessible at any time to The Church
Network’s nearly 2,000 members. (Note: While many local groups charge a
small annual fee to support programming, joining a local group / chapter
does not require national membership.)
These daily resources have proven invaluable to Turner, who first
learned of the organization from an unlikely source: her church’s
software provider.
“The gentleman who came to do my training learned about my
background — that I came from the corporate environment and was
called into ministry,” she recalls. (An understatement, to be sure: With
a background in industrial engineering and organizational behavior,
Turner had been a senior executive at a few different Fortune 500
companies, where she oversaw program management, HR, leadership
development and more.)
Given the questions Turner was asking, he quickly recommended
NACBA as a resource. Ever since, she has made maximum use of TCN’s
literature, books, whitepapers, online groups and more — all of them
dedicated to solving various challenges she faced as her church grew.
Bill Belaski, Executive Pastor / CFO at The Church at RB in San Diego,
has also developed a real appreciation for TCN forums. “Churches come
in many shapes and sizes, as do the staffs that run them,” he explains.
“Through the forums, I’m usually able to find someone who has dealt with
my challenges and can provide invaluable insights.”
CHURCH EXECUTIVE.COM | 7