Managing God's Business: Religious and Faith-Based Organizations and their Management

Religious and faith-based organisations constitute a large and important group of organisations. This is the first book to study systematically their characteristics and the distinctive challenges they pose to the people managing them. Malcolm Torry discusses how to define religious and faith-based organisations, how to study them, and the secular context in which they operate in Western Europe and the USA. There are chapters on congregations, denominations, governance, membership, the clergy, leadership, and religious and faith-based organisations' relationship to civil society. The book relies on research-based literature and case studies and contains full bibliographies, making it an essential tool for anyone studying the important new field of religious and faith-based organisations.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Foreword; Introduction: The study of religious and faith-based organizations and their management; Defining religious and faith-based organizations and defining them as voluntary organizations; How should we study religious and faith-based organizations?; Secularization; Congregations: how they work and how they change; Federations of congregations: sects, denominations, churches, and more...; The governance of religious organizations; Faith-based organizations; Membership in religious organizations; The clergy: priests or professionals?; Religious and faith-based organizations: their contribution to civil society; Leadership in religious and faith-based organizations; Conclusion; Select bibliography; Index.

About the Author :
Dr. Malcolm Torry is Team Rector of the Parish of East Greenwich, and Senior Research Associate, Centre for Non-Profit and Voluntary Sector Management, Roehampton University, UK.

Review :
'From his own work as a priest in the Church of England and his interest in the theory and practice of the management of religious and faith-based organisations, Malcolm Torry has written a significant contribution to the field. I warmly commend this book to leaders and led, to those who often work against the odds, but most of all to the ordinary people (lay and ordained) who manage God's business in their corner of this world.' Extract from the Foreword to Managing God's Business, by Wesley Carr, Dean of Westminster 'Leaders and managers of religious and faith-based organisations grapple daily with management challenges which are very different - and often more demanding - than those faced by their counterparts in private companies or public sector agencies. This ground-breaking book offers them - for the first time - the intellectual tools that can help them understand the complexities of their role and get to grips with the challenge of Managing God's Business.' Colin Rochester, Director of the Centre for Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Management, Roehampton University, UK 'For some time Malcolm Torry has been one of the leading exponents of the need for religion to understand how voluntary organizations function... He therefore has an unusually rigorous understanding of the interrelation of the worlds of organized religion and voluntary bodies... remains a book which will be very useful. It summarizes a great deal of information in a clear and succinct manner... I hope this book is widely read... here is a very interesting contribution to the issue of management and religious bodies. Malcolm Torry has left us greatly in his debt.' Theology