Sania ita Ce oe ee eee . CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY In compliance with current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard 239.48-1984 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 1993 Scientific Management in the Churches THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Lgents THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY NEW YORK THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON AND EDINBURGH Scientific Management in the Churches By SHAILER MATHEWS Dean of the Divinity School of The University of Chicago THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Q ~ Ae yt CopvriGuT 1912 By Tue Universrry or Cuicaco All Rights Reserved Published February 1912 Second Impression January 1913 Composed and Printed By The University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. FOREWORD This essay was first read at the Sagamore Beach Sociological Conference in the summer of 1911. The interest shown in the matter by the press of the country warrants the hope that in its present ex- panded form it may, to some degree, help the awakening church to magnify its own mission. After all due credit has been given the various movements in which church members have of late been engaged, the simple fact remains that the individual churches themselves must decide whether and how they are to meet the duties properly theirs in the division of labor determined by our changing order. The Christian spirit must be institutionalized if it is to prevail in an age of institutions, v vi FOREWORD and the churches should be among its most effective agencies. Only superficial observ- ers can doubt they will be indifferent to their function and their opportunity. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN THE CHURCHES Scientific management is a working philosophy which by no means necessitates in its followers a knowledge of the details of the business to which it is applied. In order to apply its principles, for instance, to the manufacture of paper, it is not necessary that, in the beginning, the efficiency engineer should know anything about paper mills. A capacity to under- stand actual conditions and to study them in the light of certain definite rules is what the efficiency program demands. Mr. Frederick W. Taylor, one of the two chief representatives of the system, never tires of insisting that scientific management is not mere speeding up, but is a practical philosophy destined to replace haphazard, I 2 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT traditional methods. This philosophy may be set forth in this formula: There is a normal and a standard method of per- forming a task which is to be discovered by observation of those actually performing the task. The four underlying principles of man- agement, according to Mr. Taylor, are: (1) the development of a true science; (2) the scientific selection and training of indi- vidual workmen; (3) the co-operation on the part of the management with the men so as to insure that all work is done in accordance with the principles of the science which has been developed; (4) intimate, friendly co-operation between the management and the men, the manage- ment taking over work which it is better fitted than the workmen to perform, and planning the workmen’s tasks in detail. According to Mr. Harrington Emerson IN THE CHURCHES 3 the twelve principles to be used for the study and classification of any given process by production are: (1) ideals; (2) common-sense and judgment; (3) compe- tent counsel; (4) discipline; (5) the fair deal; (6) records, reliable, immediate, and accurate; (7) planning and despatching; (8) standards and schedules; (9) stand- ardized conditions; (10) standardized operations; (11) written standard-practice instructions; (12) efficiency reward. Of these principles the first five and the twelfth are described by Mr. Emerson as fundamentally altruistic and applicable everywhere as well as in shops. They are also clearly less those of practical method. Of the other six, the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh are in effect corollaries of the seventh and might be summarized as the formulation of definite programs for standardizing tasks under the direction of 4 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT those who have discovered such standards, analyzed any process into its component tasks, and have thus become able to organize the tasks into a well-rounded process which eliminates waste by restrict- ing the undirected initiative (or lack of initiative) on the part of those performing the tasks. There is, accordingly, no radical differ- ence in the conception of the philosophy of scientific management as set forth by its two leading exponents. It is obvious that this philosophy is formal in character. Just what a true management, the scientific selection of the workmen, scientific education and develop- ment are, obviously remain to be described. Mr. Taylor very properly emphasizes this fact in his constant warning not to mistake the mechanism of management for its underlying philosophy. The same mech- IN THE CHURCHES 5 anism, he declares, “will in one case produce disastrous results and in another the most beneficent. The same mechan- ism which will produce the finest results when made to serve the underlying prin- ciples of scientific management will lead to .. failure and disaster if accompanied by the wrong spirit in those who are using it.” A quality of leadership which such a conception implies obviously is that which Mr. Emerson calls “supernal common- sense.” The elements which such a program involves when once put into practical operation include such matters as time, study of implements, and methods for properly making a given product; func- tional or divided foremanship in the place of a single foreman; the standardization of all tools and implements in the trades, as well as the acts and movements of work for 6 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT each class of workmen; a planning-room or department; instruction cards for work- men; separate tasks for each workman with a bonus for a successful performance of the task; the use of various time-saving implements in management, etc. This all too brief presentation of the essence of efficiency management might be summarized under the following heads: (1) the centering of attention upon operation; (2) the standardizing of operation in terms of function rather than of competition and “speeding up”; (3) the division of labor by which the planning and the performance of tasks are separated and each is highly specialized; (4) the education of those performing the specialized task as to their functions and precise duties; (5) the adjustment of all plans and tasks into verfect co-operation through an appeal to co-operative rather than competitive self- IN THE CHURCHES 7 interest; (6) the use and, when needed, the invention of the appropriate equip- ment; (7) the appeal to motives which will induce workmen to submit to the direction and control involved in the entire plan. LIMITATIONS IN THE APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT TO CHURCH WORK It would certainly seem that these prin- ciples might be applied to organization of church work, but before an attempt at such application is made one should compare impartially the field of church activity with that in which the efficiency manage- ment has been worked out. At the very outset there are to be noticed certain fundamental differences between the two fields: i. Church activity cannot be reduced to concrete tasks with definitely measurable 8 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT products. The handling of pig iron or the proper speeding up of machines is radically different from anything we can expect in church work. The work of the church is essentially spiritual, that is to say, its results are measurable only in terms of personality and social evolution. It is true that we do sometimes measure the efficiency of a church in statistics, and such measurement is not altogether false. If, for example, there were to be a steady decline in the membership of churches, it would argue a decided weakness in their work; and similarly in the case of money raised. But such quantitative standards are to be used with extreme caution. There are some churches fairly dropsical with statistics, and yet of no particular social efficiency, whereas there are other churches of comparatively small member- ship, and to which additions are not very IN THE CHURCHES 9 numerous, which are of great significance to their communities. This distinction between industrial and spiritual fields also applies, as has been recently pointed out, to the entire field in which education is a factor. The efficiency, for example, of a university is not the same as the efficiency of a paper mill. 2. A second difference is obviously similar, namely, the normal standard of efficiency. What, for example, is the standard of efficiency in a church? The number of new additions, the amount of contributions, the average attendance, the number of members engaged in altruistic service, the size of the prayer-meetings ? No such dubiety exists in the case of the manufacturing plant. The standard of efficiency in a shoe manufactory is the number of shoes produced per normal “dose” of labor and capital. The stand- To SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT ard of efficiency in pig-iron loading is the number of tons normally loaded per diem per man. Nothing is more misleading than the statements so frequently met that the cost of converting a soul in one part of the world is so much greater or less than the cost of converting a soul in some other country. The task of the church is something more than making converts. It must educate, inspire, sustain not only individuals but entire communities. A standardized cost of conversion is as fatuous as a standardized cost of parent- hood. Financial considerations are of course not without their significance, but like every other materialistic measurement, they are less accurate than convenient. Similarly, there is no possibility of ever discovering just how much work consti- tutes the normal task of a given worker. In the same proportion as a man is IN THE CHURCHES II possessed by the passion for service does he disregard the clock and fatigue. The careful student can formulate the more efficient rate at which a machine or even a muscle can work, but who would be so rash as to estimate the economical rate of work for a minister, an evangelist, or a teacher? Whenever a task becomes per- sonal, it defies mathematics. 3. A third difference between the two fields lies in the relation of the workers to their task. In the case of industrial process the worker is under authority. He is paid and his efforts are therefore far more under the control of the management than in the case of the church. Business men often fail to grasp this difference. Itisone thing to be in charge of a group of men who must obey your orders or be discharged, and another to be the leader of a group of men and women who must be persuaded, often i2 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT against their inclinations and at con- siderable sacrifice, to do that which must be done in a church. Obviously the success of any plans looking toward larger efficiency of the church must be condi- tioned on the readiness with which the members of the church co-operate volun- tarily with such efforts. And such a difference as this also applies to the motive to which appeal can be made. The efficiency engineer can offer higher wages. The church leader can appeal only to Christian loyalty. And unfortunately this is not always to be presumed. THE APPLICABILITY OF THE PHILOSOPHY TO THE CHURCH Yet, notwithstanding these differences between the two fields of action, in my judgment the philosophy of efficiency can IN THE CHURCHES 13 at least be tentatively applied to the work- ing of churches. For, while the ultimate efficiency of a church may be difficult to standardize, efficiency in its actual organization, that is, as regards its secondary and more immediate tasks, is by no means beyond our definition. The situation in the case of the church is similar to that in the case of the public school. From the point of view of a philosophy of education it is hard indeed to formulate definite stand- ards of a school’s efficiency. But from the point of view of its ability to prepare its pupils to go on to the next grade of a curriculum, a school’s efficiency is some- thing definite. It either fails or it succeeds. A teacher may be judged by such second- ary tests as his ability to maintain order, to keep a class at an approved rate of progress in its lessons, and to perform such 14 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT other definite tasks as teaching has come to involve. That is to say, any institution dealing with human life may be tested by its suc- cess in accomplishing those secondary ends which contribute to the primary purpose for which it exists; the wisdom in the selec- tion of such secondary ends being shown in the general contribution of the institution to its primary function. In the case of the church, efficiency in these secondary tasks must inevitably be tested finally by the character of its members and its contribu- tion to the transformation of the social life of its community and its world; but the tasks themselves are subject to organiza- tion. It is to these concrete problems the church needs to address itself. If its ulti- mate aim is really perceived, attention may wisely be centered on those processes which are intended to minister to this aim. IN THE CHURCHES 15 Nor is it impossible to approximate something like a standardizing of such contributory functions. There are many churches in which experiments have been made with real scientific spirit. Experi- . ence has shown that such efficient churches maintain certain services and follow certain methods of work. Revivals, for instance, are as carefully organized by the leading evangelists as is a department store. We know already the effectiveness of certain forms of clubs, teacher-training, Sunday- school organization, even types of prayers, songs, and sermons. Modern charity organizations with their ability to stand- ardize tasks and methods are also models for certain forms of church activity, while the day school sets standards for certain phases of religious education. To no inconsiderable extent a new efficiency is already showing itself in 16 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT modern church work, both in definiteness of ideals and in the organization of workers. Scientific management has thus data already at its disposal. The im- mediate need is that these data be properly studied, supplemented, and organized. And this is a problem of method. THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF EFFICIENCY IN CHURCH WORK 1. The centering of attention upon oper- ation.—Scientific management no more demands, therefore, that churches lose themselves in the discussion of a philoso- phy of religion than an efficient school- system loses itself in the high altitudes of a philosophy of education. Religious and educational philosophy are indispensable to determine the main function of both churches and schools, but, although such general functions are fairly well under- IN THE CHURCHES 17 stood in church work, there is pressing need of a sharper definition of the church’s supreme function. In a general way, of course, the church understands that its function is the salvation of the world, but as to the process of salvation, or as the efficiency philosopher says, as to the operation in bringing about salvation, there seems to be a considerable difference of opinion. The first step in larger efficiency must presuppose that a given establishment exists for a definite purpose, and that operation must conform to that purpose. Detailed results are wholly sub- ordinate. Handlers of pig iron are not trained to be efficient as workers of wood- pulp machines and to switch men from one occupation to another is fatal to efficiency. At this point there is likely to be con- siderable difference of opinion as to details. The general aim of the church may fairly 18 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT be said to be the development and direction of the spiritual life in social service as well as in individual character. But any given church may find that the particular mode of operation conducive to this end will differ from that of other churches because it needs to emphasize some element peculiar to its own situation. Some churches, for example, are in communities ' which demand institutional work. Other churches find such institutional work inadvisable, and must direct themselves to other forms of activity. Yet the principle undoubtedly holds that a good church must first discover what particular mode of operation is peculiarly adapted to enable it to fulfil its primary function. I venture to say in general, however, that a decision so to act is altogether too infrequent in churches. They are still too much bound by the operations of the IN THE CHURCHES 19 church of a century ago. Worship, of course, can never be omitted from our church life so long as our churches stand for religion, but one cannot help feeling that the church which exists for the pur- pose of holding services on Sunday and possibly on a week day and the co- operative maintenance, as it were, of a private chaplain, has never seriously faced the problem of its own efficiency. If every church once a year were to under- take to study the community in which it actually exists for the purpose of discover- ing its moral and religious needs, and were then to ask itself how best it could be operated to meet those needs, organized Christianity would be wonderfully more efficient than it is today. Just as those business organizations which do not con- stantly attempt to readapt themselves to changing conditions find themselves out- 20 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT classed by their more intelligent competi- tors will the churches who are pursuing a laissez-faire policy find themselves of decreasing significance. Yet at this point there is need of caution. In our new zeal to make the church of social significance, there is real danger lest we translate too freely its religious function into philanthropy and reform. To see the chief duty of a church, for instance, as leading a crusade against tuberculosis or the social evil, is to make over a religious organization into a new competitor among many bodies each with its specific function. It cannot be too often emphasized that a church is not primarily a philanthropic or an ameliorative institution. Such work as is really needed in its immediate environ- ment it must do or see to having done; but the function of the church is pre-eminently that of ministration to men’s spiritual IN THE CHURCHES 21 needs. These it must define, and for their satisfaction it must organize itself. And if in so doing it keeps constantly in mind the truth that, in the Christian use of the word, “spirituality”? means Christlike serv- ice, it will find a vast field of activity in the evoking, educating, directing, and socializing of that Christlike life for which it alone peculiarly stands. Church effi- ciency is not to be gained by substituting sociology for the gospel. Ifa man is to be a true brother of his kind, he must first in sympathy and impulse be a true son of God. 2. The standardizing of operation in terms of function rather than in those of competition and “speeding up.’—In too many com- munities churches compete with each other with the simple standard of numeri- cal and otherwise material success. A minister is employed who will draw the 22 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT crowd, or agencies are adopted which will serve to distance all competitors. Reli- gion is treated no longer as a primary need, but is introduced surreptitiously between stereopticon slides. Doctrinal prejudice is made the basis of a competitive appeal hardly to be tolerated among rival business houses. Denominationalism too often degenerates into sectarianism, and a com- munity suffers in every way from the failure of institutions that should be spiritual leaders to become more than institutional competitors. Such feeling of competition frequently is brought into the churches themselves. They practice mere “speeding up.”’ Con- tests are arranged between Sunday-school classes or between young men and young women or between other groups within the church for the sole purpose of building up membership. There is in this competition IN THE CHURCHES 23 no conception of a standard of functional efficiency, but simply the desire to bring as many persons as possible into relation- ship with the church and, in a general way, under its influences. In many cases such efforts have a seeming success. Attend- ance upon prayer-meetings and young people’s societies is largely increased, and doubtless real good is thereby accom- plished. Such efforts, however, are essen- tially those of the speeding-up process in industry. They are not constructive. There is no training of church members in essential church functions and when once the speeding-up process ceases as, for example, when the “hustling” minister or Sunday-school superintendent departs, the church frequently slips back to a lower stage of efficiency. Further, notwithstanding the difficulties already mentioned as involved in deter- 24 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT mining any absolute standard by efficiency, it is possible to determine in a general way what are the agencies of efficiency. These are three: the individual members of a church; properly organized classes, clubs, societies, and brotherhoods; and a church as an organized whole. The particular function of each of these agencies cannot be standardized precisely as in the case of industrial operations, but none the less it is possible to see that such functions actually exist. a) If the individual church member ever passes beyond a complacent assurance of his own salvation, he at once must see that the very heart of the Christian life is activity. Religion in his case must come to mean less a source of comfort and more an inspiration for adventure in social service and, if need be, sacrifice. To get church members to see that they are under IN THE CHURCHES 25 responsibilities as well as grace is the first step in church efficiency. To determine just what duty they must face is of far less importance than to arouse this conception of Christian life. No matter how ideal a church’s constitution, organization, and program, nothing can be accomplished if its individual members refuse to work. A church as a form of organization can do nothing; it is the church members— actual men, women, and children—who constitute a church who must act if the church is to act. b) But if a church is not an abstrac- tion neither is it a mob of well-intended anarchists. The very genius of Chris- tianity is co-operative. Church members must act together, either in groups or as a whole. The smaller groupings within a church are partly spontaneous and partly determined by leadership. In either case 26 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT they should be so mutually exclusive as to follow logical lines of distinction between functions. Many churches find that there is an immense amount of waste in their internal organization. In other words, these subsidiary social agencies of efficiency are not really efficient. Young People’s Societies duplicate the work of the Sunday school; Boys’ Clubs, that of Boy Scouts; Men’s_ Brotherhoods, that of official boards; Women’s Societies, that of committees on general benevolence. Duplication in itself is not necessarily an evil; but duplication that does not pro- mote efficiency—and this is its common outcome—is waste. While it may not be possible to eliminate waste altogether, it is one aspect of that supernal common- sense of which Mr. Emerson speaks, to see that each organization within a church should work within definite fields for a IN THE CHURCHES 27 definite, unduplicated purpose. And this, while by no means excluding the arousing of enthusiasm by so-called inspirational methods, certainly lays stress on calm, business-like planning, rather than on paper-programs and mass meetings. More than one splendid organization and move- ment has collapsed from an overplus of inspiration and a deficiency of sharply defined function. c) When we pass to the church itself as a working unit, the difficulty is both simplified and increased. For, on the one hand the function of a church is more general than that of its component mem- bers and its auxiliary organizations, and on the other hand it is more specific. It is more general because it must work in view of an end that is world-wide and the common divisor of all Christian tasks; and it is more specific in that it cannot as a 28 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT whole undertake such a variety of tasks as can its various component parts. Yet it is the function of a church as a whole that must determine what these subsidiary tasks should accomplish. In it lies the unity of the other agencies of efficiency. If churches, after they have determined to give attention to operation, rather than to superficial activity, were to question themselves as to just what is to be the aim of this operation and then proceed to organize with the deliberate attempt to increase its efficiency, the results would be perhaps slower in coming, but they would also be slower in going. 3. The division of labor between those who plan, or the staff of management, and those who perform tasks.—It follows that to bring about an elimination of waste and to estab- lish larger co-ordination of the agencies of church work there must be a far more IN THE CHURCHES 29 systematic division between the depart- ment of management and the department of workers in churches than now exists. The ordinary church organization is not well adapted to more than conventional activity. The management lies generally in the hands of a single paid superin- tendent, so to speak, the pastor; a Sunday- school superintendent who is often without any special training for his work; and a board of deacons chosen because of sup- posedly spiritual sympathies, but often quite as conservative as spiritual. With such officers there exist also others, such as boards of trustees. In regard to these various forms of organization a general statement may fairly be made to the effect that in the same proportion as the different interests and divisions of church activity are recognized in a specialized church organization, are such churches effective. 30 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT Thus, speaking generally, the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian churches seem to show a higher degree of consistent and continuous management than do the churches of congregational organization. This is not to say that the one is preferable to the other, but that the specialization of function brings a power of conservation of strictly institutional energies. The con- gregational form of polity demands all the more careful attention to management, just as other polities need more attention to the development of a spirit of creative democracy. It would seem to be no very difficult matter for every church to undertake the organization of what might be called its management staff. It makes little differ- ence under what name this staff exists, provided that it undertakes to plan the tasks for the various agencies, individual IN THE CHURCHES 31 and collective, of the church. Efficiency thus becomes specialized in view of specific functions. Instead of relying upon recur- rent periods of agitation, called revivals, such management would undertake, first, the study of the conditions under which the church is surrounded; second, the adoption of a program of specialized church activity; and third, the selection and adjustment of various members of the church to the accomplishment of the specific tasks involved in the general plan of management. On the face of it, such a policy would seem to involve rather elaborate organization, but it does not seem to me that this would necessarily be oppressively elaborate. The danger of over-organization would be avoided by the functional conception. One group of men in the church should be held responsible for planning the specific duties of the church as 32 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT a whole, although they might also indi- vidually act in the capacity of those who carry out the plans; and this manage- ment committee would see to it that there was no hysterical committee-making, but the assignment of tasks that together should make the church, as a co-operating group of spiritual workmen, effective. The pastor would naturally belong to the board of management. Whether or not any other paid assistants would so belong might be a fair question to be answered according to circumstances. The most desirable plan would seem to be that the paid assistants to the pastor would serve, as it were, as functional foremen for the purpose of outlining and directing the specific phases of church werk, as deter- mined by the management committee. Thus one such assistant might have charge of relief work, another of work for boys IN THE CHURCHES 33 and girls, another of religious education, another of the church canvass. Even if one paid assistant should have charge of more than one such activity of the church, in the same proportion as the plan of management becomes specialized should these paid assistants become specialists. There is decided need of the increase of such paid assistants in large churches, but no church need wait until it is financially able to engage such vocational workers. There are always men and women who can be persuaded to serve as volunteers and their earnestness can soon be disci- plined into efficiency. The separation between the staff of management and those who perform tasks in accordance with plans worked out for them, cannot, of course, be carried out as rigorously in the church as in the factory. As has already been noted, the material is 34 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT human personalities, rather than iron or wood, and even the performance of the task involves a larger degree of initiative than could possibly be permitted in a factory, under the efficiency engineer. None the less I am convinced that the church worker ought to be brought more distinctly under the control of plans, and that such plans should be followed even at the expense of a certain liberty of initiative and applied, as it were, to building up an institution that as such shall have social significance. If, of course, we are to have mere “movements” rather than institu- tions, this entire discussion is unnecessary. The initiative of the working church member, like that of the patriotic soldier, should be restrained within well-conceived plans and a proper division of labor. 4. Education in specialized tasks.—When it comes to the organization of those per- IN THE CHURCHES 35 forming the allotted tasks, it is essentially involved in a plan for an efficient church that its members should be studied by the proper representatives of the management committee with a view to locating them in such activities and in such tasks as they are fitted to perform. This, if well done, would involve the utilization of a much larger proportion of church members than now is the case. For churches’ activities are not sufficiently specialized. The same persons are called upon to perform a great number of duties, and as a result there grows up in every church a large number of men and women who have no conception of large social or religious tasks, beyond the conventional contribution of funds. One of the most beneficial results of proper analysis of the function, and therefore of the tasks of the church, would be the opening up of positions in the church for 36 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT more of its church members. There are men and women who are particularly adapted to such work as boys’ clubs, women’s clubs, philanthropy, Sunday- school teaching, finances, co-operation with charitable organizations, and if the management committee were seriously to outline the task their energies could be used. As it is now, too many of our churches are utterly without real organiza- tion beyond official positions. Theoreti- cally the church should be regarded as a body of workmen ready to perform definite tasks as these tasks are outlined for them by its committee of management. The conception of a church as a body of properly directed workmen obviously necessitates the education of the rank and file of its members in more ways than one. In the nature of the case efficiency must limit amateur initiative on the part of the IN THE CHURCHES 37 church workers. They must be taught to work under direction according to plans. This is precisely what the philosophy of efficiency demands. Mr. Taylor insists that industrial plants should move slowly in putting his system into operation. The workmen must be educated to see what efficiency really is, as over against the speeding-up process which is the bane of so much industrialism. Similarly in the case of the church, the committee on management must under- take the general education of the entire church body and of individuals in particu- lar in the conception of what the church really must do, and as to the plans which it must follow. In many churches this will prove the most difficult of all tasks. Churches have not been organized in the business sense of the word, and church members have rather been urged to adopt 38 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT a highly individualistic attitude toward religious work. The efficiency philosophy would demand that various members be trained to their various tasks, some as teachers, some as workers with boys, some as charity workers, and so on, and that they then be trained to follow directions and plans. Obviously such education requires time and patience, and cannot have reached its true results until the church conceives of itself, as it were, as a body of workmen each with a specialized task which is being performed in accord- ance with plans set by those who are in a position to plan wisely and progressively. A church has instruments for such edu- cation ready at hand in the Sunday school and in the Young People’s Society. The educational possibilities of each of these institutions are still undeveloped, although the Sunday school is being reorganized on IN THE CHURCHES 39 the basis of the experience gained by the public school. The chief criticism to be passed from the present point of view upon the educational efforts of the church is that they do not have Christian efficiency as their goal. The Sunday school is com- mitted to informational ideals. Children are taught—as of course they should be taught—a considerable number of biblical and other facts and truths; young people are more or less unwillingly led to read and report upon some magazine or book. But in neither Sunday school nor society is there a systematized effort at training young Christians to recruit new members for the church, render elementary service to the sick or lonely, or to undertake vol- untarily mission or branch work in some neglected field. Care for the poor may be shown at Thanksgiving and Christ- mas, but of education for intelligent and 40 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT continuous social service, both in the church and in co-operation with various charitable organizations, there is even in our best Sunday schools an all but- complete lack. Now any attempt at scientific manage- ment of our churches would from the very start provide for the education of at least volunteers in these and other specific tasks which a church must fulfil if it is to be really efficient. Just how such an educa- tional process shall be maintained will be determined according to the particular circumstances of each church. But of one thing we may be certain—it will involve, first, the inculcation of an enthusiasm for the ideals of the church as a working body; and, second, the training of young men and women, and even of children in the per- formance of tasks by participation in the tasks themselves as they are performed IN THE CHURCHES 41 by those accustomed to them. As the physician trains medical students in clinics so will the staff of management of a church train their younger brothers and sisters in Christian service by example and compan- ionship. In church work as everywhere else practice under proper direction and criticism will make perfect. Let some young woman accompany the “friendly ’ visitor” or “visiting nurse” upon her daily routine, and she will get real training for similar if not the same service. So, too, if the young men of a church be once intro- duced into a well-organized “follow-up” system of calling upon strangers in their neighborhood with an invitation to some definite social or meeting, they will develop a real interest as well as efficiency in such forms of church work. Even in the more difficult and delicate work of personal evan- gelism, a church should offer both oppor- 42 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT tunity and training. Whether or not it shares in special “revival services,” its re- cruiting forces should be constantly ready. In this process of educating the church members as to their tasks, there should be large use made of the experience of success- ful business men, although always with the recognition of the differences between the field of business and church activity. Business men can contribute much to the conception of efficiency in organization, and if they once grasp the fundamental conception of church function, they can do much in the way of educating young men and women in the same conception. In such educational process the pastor must, of course, be a leader, and this neces- sitates the proper education of the minister himself. I do not wish to join in the rather indiscriminate criticism of theological semi- IN THE CHURCHES 43 naries now current, but my experience leads me to-believe that the time is coming and, in fact, is already in sight, when theological seminaries will undertake to give future ministers a different sort of education from that most of them now attempt to give. The curriculum of theo- logical seminaries, as a class, is one which prepares men to minister to congregations in little towns which perpetuate the social life of several generations ago. It rests upon the assumption that the minister is a preacher who must give his message. He must, therefore, study the Bible in its original languages, he must make sermons, he must have a system of theology, and he must know something about the historical development of the church. He is given some general advice as to how church affairs should be conducted, but, except in the fortunate cases of a few seminaries 44 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT where the matter is taken more seriously, he is given only a smattering of sociology and psychology and all but no practical training in his actual vocation. Personally I am a revolutionist in this matter. I believe that the fundamental conception of a theological education looks to church efficiency, i.e., the preparation of men trained to lead the churches to the performance of their peculiar function in a given community, rather than the train- ing of men to remember and defend a general message. My idea of a pastor is that of an apostle rather than a prophet; a man who institutionalizes a belief and an attitude toward life rather than a man who simply proclaims truth. I am con- vinced, therefore, that the fundamental conception of the minister’s education must be changed from that of a man with a message to that of a leader of a social IN THE CHURCHES 45 group with a definitely religious and moral function. I would, of course, have preachers know the fundamentals of Chris- tianity; and I certainly would have them trained to be real preachers of the Word. But I would also have them trained to be chairmen of committees of management with the capacity to study situations and adjust churches to situations, rather than merely to preach good sermons. In other words, I should train ministers to be practitioners rather than lecturers upon spiritual therapeutics. I would train them to be leaders of men rather than merely exhorters of men. I would have the seminary send them out trained in efh- ciency rather than merely informed as to orthodoxy. A curriculum to be efficient in producing such ministerial efficiency must be con- cerned with the needs of our social order, 46 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT the psychology of religion, the methods of organizing church agencies from Boys’ Clubs to Sunday schools, and the best means of conducting studies of neighbor- hoods and the other concrete problems of a pastorate. It should demand as sincere scholarship on the part of its teachers and students as that demanded by any gradu- ate school, but it should be so constructed and so taught that the minister’s task may be seen to be worthy of young men alive to the needs of the modern world. Exe- gesis, history, and theology ought to be made to yield not merely the information without which a minister is crippled, but also that perspective of his vocation that will show him that the church is no mere survival of the past; that it never has been static in thought or method; and that what it has done in the past must be done over again in a way that shall make IN THE CHURCHES 47 it a dynamic force in our modern world. A theological curriculum that looks back- ward is a prophecy of churches that test themselves by the past. The modern world is the only world in which the stu- dent will work. He should be educated under conditions as nearly as possible those under which he must work in after- life. And this means ¢raining in actual church tasks as a part of the curriculum. A minister should be scholarly; he must not aim primarily to be a scholar. Class- room work is only a means to efficiency in leading a working church. - These personal convictions, which are ex- plicitly those of the institution with which I have the honor to be associated, are, I believe, simply one phase of a growing conviction in our best seminaries that the point of view of ministerial education must be changed to conform to the changing 48 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT function of the church. If our churches could have men capable of planning their work wisely in view of actual conditions, and of educating men into a sense of the function of the church, and of inspiring them as well as educating them in a proper sort of activity they would be remade in a generation. 5. Co-operation v. sect competition. Efficiency as over against competition demands co-operation not only in individ- ual churches but in the broader field of Christian comity and denominational un- dertakings. Personally, I have not much sympathy with the sentimental rhetoric which so often constitutes the plea for church unity. I do not myself see why denominationalism may not be regarded as a phase of division of labor in the church universal; but denominationalism is not sectarianism and denominationalism can IN THE CHURCHES 49 be and must be co-operative. Such co- operation should be something more than a truce; it should be a genuine community in planning. In the same proportion that the church is conceived of as functional rather than as an end in itself will this become an end in view. The chief end of the activity of the church is not to get men into its fold, but to get itself into society; to get its ideals into the reconstructive forces of society itself. Complete success in such an undertaking will be possible only as men of different churches plan co-operatively. Bad politics, social evils, unsanitary streets and houses, long hours for women workers, the labor of little children, rotten municipal administrations will continue as long as churches continue to regard themselves as rival groups without social functions. They will be to a large extent mitigated, if not in many 50 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT cases destroyed, if the churches of any community deliberately undertake the process of evangelizing public opinion. This does not imply that churches should enter politics as churches, but it certainly involves the entrance of Christians into politics. A regenerate life that is content with unregenerate institutions is an an- achronism. A church that seeks to pre- pare people for heaven alone is even more anachronistic. A church that lives atom- istically, unco-operatively in the spirit of rivalry is worse than anachronisms; it is an enemy of true democracy. But churches which, under a definite policy and plan, deliberately undertake to organ- ize themselves for efficiency as spiritual forces in social evolution will have tre- mendous influence in spiritualizing and moralizing the changing order. The ambi- tion to have part in such social evolution IN THE CHURCHES 51 is growing, but it has not yet reached a stage of real efficiency for the reason that churches are not working in accordance with definite plans for specialized tasks, and have not yet undertaken to eliminate waste by means of that co-operation which all efficiency involves. Staff management and planning must be carried beyond the limits of the individual church. There should be in every com- munity a general program at work for the churches as a whole. A step toward this has been taken in a number of places; and particularly in Chicago there has been organized the Co-operative Council of City Missions, in which representatives of five denominations meet monthly for the pur- pose of considering what may fairly be said to be the co-operative advance of Protest- antism in the city. New churches are not established by one denomination without 52 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT the knowledge and, it may be added, practically the consent of the others. New and rapidly developing fields are, as it were, allotted under terms of comity among the denominations, and a working program has been reached for activity among foreign-speaking people. While it is not possible, of course, for such a body to have authority, it is none the less true that it is in a position to plan. Many similar movements are to be found in various sections of cities where local churches undertake co-operative planning for their particular districts. An even more comprehensive plan is outlined by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, and is already in operation among the official boards of Home Mission Societies. On the foreign fields it is gratifying to see that this co-operative movement has gained appre- IN THE CHURCHES 53 ciable impetus, and, as has so often been the case, foreign missions are teaching home forces how to adjust existing and new agencies to the ends which Christianity really exists to further. 6. The use and, when necessary, the inven- tion of the proper equipment for efficiency.— To speak of tools in connection with the work of a church may seem inappropriate. In many ways a church works without tools, by the personal services of its mem- bers. But its equipment is for a church what its factory building and its machinery are for a manufacturing establishment. Scientific management never neglects this material side of efficiency. The substitu- tion of one sort of tool for another has often had most remarkable results. In church work the need of proper buildings has been very keenly felt wherever modern methods have been tried, but systematic 54 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT study of this vital matter has not been general. Our church building is still too much dominated by the opinion that the chief function of the church is to listen to preaching. ‘‘Meeting-houses,”” many of them beautiful and well adapted to wor- ship, are scattered over the country. But what equipment are we planning for the other agencies of church activity ? Fortunately the Sunday school is being better housed than formerly. Few build- ing committees would think of approving plans in which no provision was made for classrooms. The agitation in behalf of better instruction has not been without effect in this regard. Yet a study of too many church edifices will show that Sun- day schools are even yet imperfectly fur- nished both with rooms and with the apparatus that effective teaching demands. Classrooms are too often an adjunct to IN THE CHURCHES 55 the audience room, and are almost never in sufficient number. Economies are prac- ticed in erecting the workshop of the church in order to provide space for oc- casionally large congregations in the ‘‘main building.””. Nothing could be more illogi- _ Z cal./ A church must ultimately rise and : ' fall with its Sunday school. To cripple | . or to limit the expansion of the latter is to _place a premium on inefficiency. | “And yet, “J fancy, most churches will appropriate more money for a quartette choir than for maps, apparatus, textbooks, instruction, and other indispensable requirements of a thoroughly equipped Sunday school. There is need also of providing clubs and societies with the proper means of carrying on their work. Most churches are now being built with kitchens and pantries, but few have clubrooms, libra- ries, and other rooms for the work among 56 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT young men and women. A most promis- ing tendency is to be observed, however, toward furnishing church gymnasiums in communities where boys are to be reached, but there are still many good people who look with some suspicion on this phase of church work. But every live church needs a parish house if it is to be a center of social life. Especially is this true of churches in the country and in the boarding-house districts of cities, even when institutional work in the full sense of the term is not undertaken. Here again staff management is of the utmost importance. A resolute pastor may be able to have provision made for such needs in new edifices, but only the church itself will be able to provide for the necessary remodeling of old buildings, and proper appropriations for the equip- ment of already existing agencies. IN THE CHURCHES 57 And one of these days we shall discover that it is as important to ventilate a Sun- day school or a church building as it is to heat them! Growth in spiritual efficiency is hardly to be expected of people who are being poisoned by filthy air. Efficiency demands also that a church keep proper records. The days have long passed when the only documents which a church needed to possess were an uncor- rected members’ list and the clerk’s minutes of meetings. A really efficient church should have application blanks for membership which cover pledges to render service, cards for the assignment of par- ticular tasks to the various members, blanks on which they shall report, and a card catalogue, always kept up to date, of church membership and of past members of the church or congregation. A highly specialized church will keep a record of the 58 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT activities of each member of the church. The work of keeping such records is considerable and a church of any size should allow its pastor paid clerical assistance and have its office in which its books and records are kept. If this seems to make the church something of a busi- ness establishment it is precisely what should be the case. We have too long regarded the church as capable of per- forming its possible services to the com- munity without the most elementary means of administration. 7. The appeal to motives that shall insure the performance of tasks —At this point we meet a radical difference between the church and the manufacturing plant. In the latter it is possible to induce work- men to submit to the new conception of scientific management by promise of a share in his larger production; that is to IN THE CHURCHES 59 say, by an increase of their wages. Such an appeal is obviously out of the question in a church. And yet experience shows that no reform will be stronger than the motives which prompt men to undertake it. The difficulty with too many reforms is that they utterly neglect the driving force of motive. It is sometimes proposed that the precinct system of politics should be applied to the church. In general there is such to be said in favor of this system but it must not be overlooked that the motive which operates in party politics is all but lacking in church work. The precinct captain is a good party man because he gains influence in his party sufficient to obtain office for himself or for some of his friends. Other motives of course operate in many cases, but only rarely has there been an efficient and long-lived political organization built up on motives which 60 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT did not ultimately involve personal gain. Evidently such motives cannot be empha- sized in church work. To what motives, then, can appeal be made? There is naturally the appeal of the great object of religion itself—the redemption of the individual and of society. With the most devoted church members this will be all sufficient. But it must be admitted that it is generally difficult to get men to work enthusiastically from primary mo- tives. The call to serve God and to bring in his Kingdom often seems neither suf- ficiently distinct nor personal for efficient organization to build upon. Effective motives are all but universally associated with more immediate although secondary goods. It is here one sees the worth of a denominational appeal as also of pride in the local church. Neither of these mo- tives need degenerate into mere sectarian- IN THE CHURCHES 61 ism. Just as the various branches of an army may have each its own esprit de corps, may the various groups of Christians possess theirs even while they are funda- mentally loyal to the main object for which the church exists. There is a decided need of a revival of what might be called a rational ecclesiasticism, that is to say, an enthusiasm for the church as an institution and for each local church in particular. It has often happened that a church has worked best when it was least established. Its members were sensitive to a real call to self-respect. Loyalty toa cause will work far greater results than constant appeals to duty. The first thing which the management of a church seeking to be more efficient should undertake is to arouse this pride in one’s own church. If this is properly correlated with the ultimate aim of the church in terms of spiritual life 62 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT and social service, there is no more danger of selfishness and pride than in the case of the appeal to ambition and loyalty in any phase of life. A church that cannot stir the pride of its members in its own success is never efficient and cannot be made efficient, however many efficient indi- vidual members it may possess. THE CONSERVATION OF ENERGIES AND THE ELIMINATION OF WASTE The net result of the application of these principles to church activity can be ex- pressed in the general formula of conserva- tion of energies and the elimination of waste. Such a formula will refer not only to the outward but to the inward life of the church. A definite purpose and properly adjusted agencies and methods will bear fruit in the better performance of definite tasks, but quite as truly in a new IN THE CHURCHES 63 sense of the church’s legitimacy and mission. Scientific management that adds simply one new cog to an already compli- cated machine is a misnomer. Both in theory and practice scientific management will tend to limit organizations formed on the impulse of the moment. The waste in our church life will be reduced not only by a better distribution of tasks, but also by concentrating in the church some of that energy and wealth which are now devoted to furthering good but overlap- ping agencies outside the church. In so doing scientific management will also tend to deepen a rational enthusiasm for the church itself. An institution that has a clearly defined function and is properly organized to fulfil that function never fails of supporters. It is because of a distrust of the practicability of certain dogmatic beliefs and ill-defined objectives that so 64 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT many able men and women turn from the church to other agencies of social service. To enlist their interests is a vital necessity for church, society, and themselves. Scien- tific management is only one of various means of re-establishing loyalty to the church, but it is certainly a means. To apply these simple principles may mean effort, but it will also mean efficiency and enthusiasm. Such an attempt by no means need be indifferent to the caution with which I began. The spirit is more than machinery or organization or method. Back of all plans and agencies must be a readiness to be genuinely religious. The Spirit of God is not to be replaced by staffs of management or church members trained to definite tasks. A prayerless church will be impotent as a church, no matter how well organized or how well instructed. To IN THE CHURCHES 65 substitute a program for the gospel is to defeat the purpose of the program itself. Business methods are imperative in their place, but they cannot save a world. The church can have its share in that great mission only as it intelligently embodies and socializes the Spirit of the Living God and seeks to make men brothers by first making them sons of the Father whom Jesus revealed. Yet the recognition of the extra-methodi- cal, spiritual element in church efficiency does not exclude or antagonize the plea for thoroughgoing method in church work. Today, as in the day of Paul, all things should be done decently and in order. While the churches, in their search for larger efficiency, cannot use the economic motives of scientific management in in- dustry, it is possible to apply to them in a large measure the philosophy of efficiency. 66 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT Doubtless experience will suggest many points both pro and con which have not been touched upon in this essay, and merely theoretical ingenuity is to be avoided as earnestly as paper constitu- tions; but I am confident that in the new epoch upon which the church is entering, there will be dominant two great concep- tions: First, that a church has spiritual and social functions which can be definitely formulated; and, second, that in organiz- ing agencies fit to enable a church to fulfil these functions, it is possible to develop genuine efficiency through the adoption of the general principles of scientific management. a etal ae Ete alae AE Seri Cts wh Ss ererera r Sa ee ret het AS cate emt cw Rh ae he ae : Pies Gi Par f WS Se eh ee nee areas Bea Sours A Sete aN ‘ ape as Str