Inside the Church

Inside the Church takes an in-depth look at the characteristics, impact and interactions of the diverse components of today's Christian church and how they combine to accomplish the overall mission of the church. To accomplish this task, Inside the Church documents ten frequently-occurring ministries for three levels of systems analysis to understand the individual ministry, examine its stand-alone system functionality and how it works within the complex system of church systems. Each level of analysis reveals unique information on the selected ministry from views seldom seen in non-technical literature. The ten ministries are Outreach, Evangelism, Preaching, Teaching, Ordinances, Discipleship, Inreach, Music, Serving and Leading. The analytical tools are the six-level taxonomy, the systems view and the system of systems view. The taxonomy is used to investigate the ministry's name, list its functions, describe its tasks, deconstruct the ministry into its contributions, evaluate the value of those contributions and reconstruct the tasks for peak efficiency and operation. The system level view looks at the required inputs, processes, outputs and output feedback to see how the ministry can work as a separate entity. The system of systems view observes the ministry as it functions within the complex of all ten ministries performing together. It is at these levels of component and inter-component relational interaction that church leaders can assign and reassign resources to the right areas of concern to maximize ministerial effectiveness, minimize participant frustration, and maintain staff and volunteer morale. Further, this level of systemic understanding facilitates planning from strategic, tactical and operational levels. From the strategic level to formulate goals, set objectives and assign responsibilities; from the tactical level to develop plans, assign resources, and set and measure performance expectations; and from the operational level to execute plans, engage resources, and evaluate performance effectiveness and efficiency.