Ministry in the twenty-first century presents many challenges. Rising inflation. Declining budgets. A divided culture. Leading a congregation through these complicated times can often make a pastor feel overwhelmed. Perhaps you have felt that more training in basic business principles would help you navigate this ministry season. While trained theologically, many pastors find the day-to-day demands of ministry can become overwhelming. For this Southwesterners’ Forum, we were joined by John Mann, Associate Professor of Business and Theology, and Chandler Snyder, Vice President for Enrollment and Student Services and Dean of Students.
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Chandler Snyder 0:00
We are excited to be here with you this morning. And I am so sorry that I am not Hance Dillbeck on a lot of levels, I suppose I want to take a minute introduce myself and then let Dr Mann kind of talk about his CV and resume and what qualifies us to have this conversation. I think that’s important. It’s an important topic, business matters in the church, and how these things intersect with theology, and how successful leadership reflects healthy theology and healthy business practice. Like I said, my name is Chandler Snyder, and I had the pleasure of serving as an International Mission Board missionary appointed through my local church in the Southern Baptist Convention, where I served in Sub Saharan Africa. I served in rural parts of Madagascar to urban cities of Cape Town and Nairobi, and had the pleasure of having to learn a lot of different things quickly when I was in Madagascar a rural church planter, and got to kind of do the church planting thing when we moved to Cape Town. We continued that, but had to do it from a business point of view, starting a business and running a non profit, and thinking through how to successfully engage in an urban center while not primarily identifying as a missionary. So I had to cut some teeth really quickly. My background degree is not business, it was political science, so I don’t want questions on that at the end, just to be real clear, that’s a lunch and coffee conversation. So that’s me moved to Fort Worth Texas about a year and a half ago, where I had the pleasure of serving in a couple of different areas of the institution now. So that’s my resume. Dr, Mann, I want you to talk about yours really quickly.
John Mann 1:37
Yeah. Thanks and Chandler, thank you for jumping in to help us out today. Unfortunately, Dr Dilbeck unable to be with us, but certainly I don’t know anyone that I would rather have here in his place than you. So thank you for for your willingness to do this on on short notice, my my testimony, if you will. I came to Southwestern in 2000 as a student, went all the way through, did did PhD work, and served as an adjunct professor in systematic theology for about eight or nine years. And during that time, I was pastoring a church, and so I pastored here in Texas for a little over 20 years, just west of here, for West of Fort Worth, and enjoyed that time in the pastorate. But one of the things that I began to discover is that though I had been very well equipped to do theology, to do preaching, to be able to do the various day to day roles of what it means to be a pastor, loving people, relating to people, learning how to lead a church. I was so grateful for everything that I learned, and yet I knew that that I struggled when it came to learning how to engage in in business conversations, to the degree of examining the financial health of the church, learning how to think from a perspective that was not that in and of itself, was not unbiblical, but was a way to think about doing church with a mind and a heart that was well informed, both biblically and from a business perspective. And those two things themselves are not necessarily separable. So in the process of just asking the Lord to help me to learn how I might be a better leader of my church when it comes to things in relationship to business, we we felt like the Lord was was leading us to do another degree, my wife and I, and so I began to apply to do an MBA, and and the Lord led us to Baylor, where I did a master’s in business administration and studied there just business principles, everything from finance to marketing to communication theory, management, all of these different business aspects. And was able to begin to implement that into my own ministry. From there, I went on to serve at a small college in East Texas where I served as the Chief Business Officer and learned how, not only to do it from a theoretical point of view, but also from a very practical point of view. And it was during that time that I received an invitation to come back to Southwestern seminary this past summer. And so I’ve been back for about seven months, and am serving as a professor of business and theology.
John Mann 2:51
Okay, so when did you go to Baylor?
John Mann 4:38
I graduated from Baylor in 2019, 2020, okay. And so started about 2016 2017.
Chandler Snyder 4:45
Okay, and you lean in hard to the Baylor Bears. Now, don’t you? All right. There you have that. Sorry for those of you that aren’t bears. All right. So as you went and you engaged in that MBA program, how did you balance the. The realities of of church management, church leadership and faithful church engagement with everything that you were learning. And were those dissonant, or did you find a way to engage both of those in a way that was balanced for your church community?
John Mann 5:12
Yeah, I discovered that as that, as I was doing the MBA, that there was not only real, practical applications in terms of what it means to be a pastor, how better to lead the budget or the finance team, how better to lead the church, to commune or communicate ourselves to the community. But also discovered that really at a theological level, good business principles flow from a good theology. Okay, and we can, we can just begin that conversation by looking at what, at creation itself. In Genesis chapter one, what is good business principles, except for the fact that God has has built within creation the principles that help us learn how to do business. We might say that it’s part of his general revelation, or it’s part of the creative law that is within creation itself. For example, in Genesis chapter one, what is creation itself, except for God bringing organization out of what was was otherwise chaos. We read in Genesis one, one that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, but then in Genesis, one two, that there was a void that was within that. And we see the Spirit of God hovering over the surface of the deep. And then when God begins the actions of creation, we are seeing God, in an very orderly fashion, bringing his creation into existence. And we see that in in in the daily activities there of God, when God said, Let there be light. And in the creation of light, we see this repetitious form where God is speaking and things are occurring. It was morning, it was evening, it was the first day. It was morning, it was evening, it was the second day. And God is communicating to us that the very best business principles are principles that are consistent, that these things flow forth from the very nature and works of who God himself is.
John Mann 7:24
Now, what is business? Well, if we were to take three primary business principles, this idea of communication, this idea of finance and this idea of entrepreneurial thinking, if you will, we see each one of those being performed God. God creates by himself, communicating God said. And then, of course, we we see where, where, where the spokenness of God is introduced to us in John chapter one as the very Word of God, the second person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus, Christ and and so we see from that that the very nature of God is communicative. And if we want to be good ministers, we want to be able to communicate in a way that is consistent with the nature of God and business principles. Discover that whether those who teach business from a secular perspective recognize that or not, finance consistent principles that we do that help us with economic theory, that help us learn how best to manage the finances of the church, thinking entrepreneurial what, what is, is God doing, but, but doing things that, in many ways were unexpected, because there was no one there but God. But God acts in ways that are often unexpected, ways never outside of his character, but in ways that we may not otherwise perceive or recognize before God does them.
Chandler Snyder 9:08
Okay, I’ve got like, four threads I want to pull on. Kind of start with the thing you said last regarding entrepreneurship. Yes, what does it actually mean to think entrepreneurially in a church, because I know we’ve got a huge cross section. I see recent graduates on this call to some old, respected alumni that are, you know, spread out all over the country. Not everybody feels like they have that gifting. So how would you encourage and counsel a church leader in this space to take. And first step to thinking entrepreneurially.
John Mann 9:44
Yeah, so first of all, the very first question of entrepreneurship is, where is the need? I mean, you look at at entrepreneurial principles, you look at entrepreneurial theories, and it always begins with what. We’re looking for a need. Peter Drucker says that really what entrepreneurship is is that it rests on the theory of economy and society. That is to say, we look at the things that we have, we look at the people who are as pastors under our care, and we figure out ways to leverage what we have limited resources. How do we leverage those limited resources toward those things that we are trying to accomplish? How we’re trying to meet those needs? And so entrepreneurial thinking is this is what I have at my disposal. This is what needs to be accomplished. This is the need. How can I, as a Christian entrepreneur, or as a Christian who thinks entrepreneurially, leverage the resources at my disposal to meet the needs that are at the congregational level in the area to which we’re trying to minister?
Chandler Snyder 11:00
Okay, and I think as you’re talking about this, one of the things that I would encourage us to do when we’re working to think entrepreneurially is to invest in prayer. If this is a trait that God Himself has and is communicating to us, we want to make sure that we’re praying and asking the Spirit to lead us in this route so that we can avoid thinking in terms of widgets and outcomes and seeing the God designed people that are in front of us working to leverage Kingdom growth and kingdom advance for the glory of Christ. So I would that’s one encouragement that I’d make in addition to that. All right, so, all right, question I want to put out there for you, when thinking about entrepreneurship, I know that is a virtue in the church planning movement of the last 15 years has been really elevated. We need entrepreneurs. Do you think we’ve gotten that a bit off balance lately in the church planning movement, and has it created an unnecessary division between potential legacy type churches that are operating, yeah.
John Mann 12:05
So let me answer that, I think, from a couple of different perspectives. And first of all, just in terms of the entrepreneurial thinking as it relates to church planting in what is, what can sometimes be distinguished from, you know, Legacy churches and things of that nature. First of all, let’s draw a distinction between entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship, okay? And so entrepreneurship, of course, is that we’re thinking in terms of something that is is new, something that we might consider from a church perspective. Being a church plant, we’re looking at something new, okay, but entrepreneurship also can be used in terms of what some have recently deemed entrepreneurship. That is that I’m not starting a church. I’m not planning a church, but I’m pastoring a legacy church and and for me to think intrapreneurly is for me to realize that I’m not starting something new, but I’m start but, but I’m taking something that that has this legacy, and I’m helping us to think through how we can can consistent with the context of that particular church, how we can meet the needs of that church in The community around us by prayerfully thinking in in a a new, maybe somewhat imaginative type of way. And of course, that begins with, as you’ve already indicated, a prayerfulness, right? We’re not trying to do thinking separated from the activity of the Spirit of God and the congregational unity that we need to be able to have, and for for ministers and for pastors to lead in this way, reminds me of of what our own Dr, Jeff Bingham said yesterday in chapel, when when he talked about calling and and he said that if you come and ask him about calling, he’s going to ask you about your character. And so for us to think entrepreneurially, whether it’s in a legacy church or in a church plant, is for us first of all to make sure that our character is aligned with God, that we are virtuous people as we seek to lead our churches or to plant churches in a way that honors and glorifies the Lord/
Chandler Snyder 14:22
Man, so good. All right, let’s hit the rewind button and go back to your testimony and your story. When you came out of seminary, what do you in stepping into the church ministry and the church pastor, what’d you feel like you had a good handle on like, what do you feel prepared and ready to do.
John Mann 14:41
Oh, yeah, I was wonderfully prepared, you know, from our faculty here to preach, our preaching faculty did, has done an outstanding job, and I learned a great deal from our preaching faculty about how to communicate the Word of God, how to go in exegete, the word of God. And take that, that exegesis, and turn it into a message that is faithful to the text of Scripture, but is also something that that the average person on on Sunday morning can walk into their church and they can walk out feeling like it is applicable to their lives. And so the faculty here did a wonderful job of helping me to be able to do that my own primary discipline of systematic theology. You know, I learned that wonderfully well from people like like our provost, Dr Madison grace, from Dr Jeff Bingham, that I’ve that I’ve already mentioned, and, of course, from from my own theological mentor, Dr Malcolm Yarnell, learning how to think in a way that is again faithful to the text of Scripture. Has learned how to interact with the theologians of the past, to draw from historical theology, but then also being able to think in a systematic theological way, so that I am able to engage in the questions of the culture. Just a tremendous job that Southwestern has always done at equipping us to be able to go into the church and to communicate the Word of God effectively.
Chandler Snyder 16:16
But, as you step into the church, Pastor, and this is everywhere, this is my experience stepping onto the field. You don’t know what you don’t know. That’s right. So what do you wish you had known looking back now.
John Mann 16:27
Well, I remember the first time that I was called upon to lead a business meeting as a young pastor.
Chandler Snyder 16:31
And everybody knows how to do just inherently.
John Mann 16:35
You know, I had Robert’s rule of order already memorized. You talk about income statements, balance sheets. I knew it front and back, not hardly, and so the treasurer of the church walked up said, you know, as a Sunday evening, said, our business meeting is this coming Wednesday. Here’s the balance sheet and the profit and loss statement. And I looked at it and I said, Okay, that’s a lot of numbers on a piece of paper that I have no idea what they mean.
Chandler Snyder 17:04
And I bet that’s a similar experience to so many that step in to a new church setting.
John Mann 17:09
When I talk to pastors, that is the the the thing that they say they wish they had a better handle on when they they walked into the role of the pastor. It is, as you well know, one of my my other roles, my primary role, really here at Southwestern seminaries in terms of church relations and pastoral relations. And so as I travel across the state and and and across you know, our Southern Baptist Convention, meeting with pastors and and they find out that, you know, my faculty role is business and theology that always leads to very good conversations, and more often than not, there is a conversation about how they wish they had been more prepared to read financial statements.
Chandler Snyder 17:56
All right, so you walk into that church, and he hands you the balance sheet. What’d you do? What was the next thing you did?
John Mann 18:04
I went home, and I called my pastor, and I said, I said, I’ve been given these sheets and and they act like I’m supposed to know what they are. And I was a little bit embarrassed to tell them that I didn’t know what they are. And he gave me some very good advice that led me to have some conversations with our state convention representatives as as well as with other faculty members who who are here on staff. And so that that really, I think, began a thirst that I had to learn how to do business better.
Chandler Snyder 18:34
Okay, all right, so what are as a person, you just highlighted the need for humility here for me in any of these roles, and that’s one of the things that I’m even learning in my role here. I’m working with Dr Mann myself to increase my business acumen capacity, and he’s given me good books and resources to read, just personally so that I can continue to develop in this area. All right, so specifically, when we’re looking at a group of men and women and alumni that have finished school here who may have stepped into a situation just like you, where would you tell them to start? Like, how can they start developing these business acumen muscles if you’re the friend that they are calling right now, like there’s a good number that have engaged this call because they want to talk about this. Yes, you would say, hey, Harrison, start here.
John Mann 19:28
Yeah, yeah. So I would say, first of all, start with talking to people who do have a good understanding, and so that may be, you know, a resource here at Southwestern seminary. I’d love to be able to connect with anyone who would like to be able to have these conversations. Secondly, I would say, and I teach my classes this all the time. Readers are leaders. Learn to read broadly, and if one of your areas where you need to learn is is in relationship to business. I learned to read broadly, just, you know, a few book recommendations, and I could give multiple but you know, ones like Crucial Conversations, learning how to have hard conversations. You can also look at various resources on how to read financial statements, places like Investopedia and things of areas like that will help give you some good resources so that you know how, how to how to look at financial statements and see the health of that organization. And then I think the final thing that I would say, in terms of where to begin, you know, I’m so glad that we’re able now to offer this here through our Texas Baptist College, and I’m looking forward to some ways where we can expand that and give those offerings to pastors where they can that they can study in terms of, alright, I know how to preach, I know How to Do theology, I know how to execute the Bible, but we also want to begin to connect with our churches to help them learn how to do this from a business perspective, and I’m excited about some ways that we’re looking at doing that in the near future.
Chandler Snyder 21:14
It’s holistic Christian leadership that’s where we’re working to serve the church and serve our constituencies and students. Okay, so one thing I’ll recommend you’ve talked about some book recommendations. I’m gonna put you on the hook after the call. Okay, to work with Becca, and that’s something that we can include in the communication out to this group and on Facebook, is a link to some recommendations for books that can help your learning journey along the way. Okay, so how did, as you began to really bone up on business acumen, because you had an immediate need to you were thrown into the boiling pot of water? How did it change the dynamics with deacons who were professionals in their field? Like, how did it actually deepen the relationships that you were able to have in the church?
John Mann 21:56
Yeah, that is an excellent question. And I think that the experience that I had with that is really just invaluable, because what it did for me when I learned how to have these conversations, some of those deacons who maybe they themselves, didn’t have a good business acumen, they didn’t know how to have these conversations, it gathered for me from them a little bit more trust in my leadership, because they did begin to see that I was willing to do whatever it took for me to become a better leader. And then for those deacons who did have, you know, some business acumen, perhaps they were serving as financial advisors. Maybe they worked in a bank. Maybe they were involved in some finance industry. They gained a lot of respect in feeling like we could have a conversation in terms of setting a church budget. And so it wasn’t no longer them feeling like they needed to, if you will, hold my hand through the financial conversation, but we could have a conversation within that financial conversation, and I could learn from them, who is doing it on a day to day basis in very high level business world, again, financial advisors. But they could also learn from me, who is doing business from the church world. And so it created much more robust conversations when it came to church budgeting.
Chandler Snyder 23:24
That’s great. All right. So speaking of church budgeting, for those that are developing a budget for the coming year, what guiding principles should these leaders keep in mind as they walk through that process? What are the factors that need to be considered in development?
John Mann 23:40
Yeah, so I’d say first of all, kind of a mantra that I always try to work with is this idea that we want to budget by faith, but we don’t want to budget by foolishness, and so we want to recognize that right now, the Lord has given us these resources. These are the resources that we have available. And yet we also want to be aware that that God wants us as churches to do our part, to reach the community that is around us, to reach the world that is around us, to engage in missions, be that locally, nationally and internationally. And so we want to budget by faith, but we don’t want to be foolish in the way that we budget, we we want to be well informed in terms of what it means to budget. We want to plan and we want to pray for for growth, but we also want to be prepared to make quick adjustments. And what I mean by that is that we want to measure our budgeting processes, keeping in mind that we need to have some areas where we can quickly adapt if things become very difficult, obviously the most challenging thing that that we faced within this generation of of. Pastoral ministry has been covid, and in covid for many churches just became financially crushing because they weren’t able to quickly adapt, and so they had to make some very harsh decisions. Some other churches flourished because they kept some some some areas within their budgeting items or line items, that they could adapt and adjust really quickly, and so they were able to flourish.
Chandler Snyder 25:26
Okay, all right, as budgeting processes occur, always a delicate discussion for Churchill heaters is, how do I create more opportunities for my staff or myself to make more money? Yeah, and that’s not a selfish thing. It’s the reality everybody needs raises and needs to increase their cost. You know, cost of living goes up. They need to adjust. Yes, how would you give counsel to those leading a deacon board or finance committee through that particular process?
John Mann 25:57
Yeah? So the first thing that I would say to a deacon board or to a finance committee is, is, is really learn what is the standard, we might say, the industry standard for the pastoral role. And one of the best places to be able to do that is through this, the compensation study, that life way does every I believe they do it every year. And so find that compensation study that Lifeway does you can narrow that down to your particular state, to the size of your church, any numbers of ways that you can filter through that information and just find out what is the target, if you will, for what your church ought to be paying in terms of salaries, usually, staff salaries ought to be somewhere around 50% of the church’s budget, give or take, depending on the particular context. But that’s just kind of a rough target for which a church should should aim. Secondly, I would say, not only inform yourself about where that church is but but also look at areas where you may need to cut in order to take good care of your pastors. Because if you’re taking good care of your pastors, those pastors are going to be more free to take care, good care of the life of the church. Try it. We see this in Scripture, not to muzzle the ox that treads out the grain that the farmer ought to be able to eat from the crops that that that he is responsible for stewarding, that he is responsible for tending. And so make it a priority within the conversation of your church to take good care of your pastor, because that will make him a much better pastor, and he will be able to take better care of his family, and thereby be able to take better care of His church.
Chandler Snyder 27:52
Okay, now I know we’re talking to a number of pastors, and my encouragement in that is make sure that we’re doing the work that’s required. Yes, we want to invest deeply in relationships. We want to invest deeply in prayer, but we also don’t want to neglect the role that evangelism and discipleship play in creating a flourishing community of faith that’s growing so that the Lord continues to entrust with more resources for the work of the ministry. I think there’s a direct line connection to the work of deep discipleship and faithful, fruitful evangelism in that process as well. Yeah, go ahead.
John Mann 28:30
Well yeah, I was just going to, you know, say, in regard to that, consistently teach stewardship. That’s one thing that our own Dr, David mcquitty and and had had developed here, and him, along with some of our other faculty members at the time, had developed good stewardship classes and good stewardship principles that could be taught, and so we ought to be teaching those things in every aspect of our evangelism and discipleship, from the pulpit in the classroom, one on one, relationships, let’s teach people how to be good stewards as Christians.
Chandler Snyder 29:06
That’s great, and one of the ways that Southwestern is working to do that ourselves is by creating, hopefully in the near future, series of videos that show how we’re working to be faithful and financially responsible with the gifts that have been entrusted to us that you could use in your churches to even begin to spur that conversation, we want to partner with you in that work. All right, I’m gonna wrap up. I have one more question, and then we’re gonna turn it over to the group. I’ve got a question for you, okay? Before that, I wanna pose a question to them, okay, so that they can think about it. So as we as Southwestern we look to the future of what schools should be engaging in and what theological higher education does. How could we better equip students of the future for this discussion? So I pose that to you all, looking for some insight in helping us think about the future. Now I’ll turn back to you. You made a comment at the beginning about bringing order from chaos. Yes, what God did and what God does. Yes, and we think about that in the church. So when we think about a church going through a financially difficult time, yeah, how would you and what advice would you give pastors for that moment who are laboring and prayerfully bringing order from chaos.
John Mann 30:16
Yeah. So I’d say first of all, just be transparent. Okay, be transparent. I know a lot of times when I talk to pastors, one of their concerns is that if they really tell the church the challenge of where the church is financially, it’s almost as if their leadership is is, is going to be called into question, perhaps they’re going to feel like a failure that they have let the church get to that that point, that’s a matter of pride. That’s a matter of pride. I would say that the first thing that you need to do is you simply need to be transparent. But secondly, be confident. Be confident, by which I mean that that the church needs to be able to look to you as the pastor and as the various roles in ministry, whatever that role may be for you, particularly, they’re going to look to you to help guide them through what is a challenging time. And so you need to be able to be transparent with him, but you need to be able to say that we’re trusting the Lord. We’re going to meet together as staff. We’re going to look at where we are, we’re going to make recommendations to the relevant committees and teams, and we are going to do what we have to do to get the church back to being in a healthy state of ministry. So be transparent, be confident, and then finally, just just be be diligent. One of the key areas of leadership is consistency and and your people need to be able to see you being a person who is consistent in the way that you’re leading the church. And sometimes, especially when we feel like we are under stress. We feel like we are under, if you will, duress, we can begin to make decisions that are not well informed, they’re not well thought out. And we begin to choose Option A, and then we lose confidence in option in option A, so we move over and we pose option B. Our churches, our people, want to see us. Be consistent in the way that we lead, and so as you’re leading through those financial difficulties, be transparent, be confident, but be consistent and be diligent.
