Floyd Flake, Elaine Flake, and Edwin Reed, African American Church Management Handbook. Judson Press, 2005.
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Referenced in: Church Administration, General Manuals
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
This book addresses the unique administrative contexts of African-American churches. Flake argues, for example, that while many churches of the so-called Christian right have focused on issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and prayer in schools, most African American preachers focus on issues of civil rights, poverty, and justice. (p. 3) This is part of the larger mission of bringing oppressed people to freedom. (p. 3) Also, while many white multi-staff churches often assign leadership to the senior minister and delegate management to an administrator or executive minister, black senior pastors usually must juggle both effectively. These and other differences cannot be treated effectively simply by an added chapter or two, but must be woven throughout the book. The authors do this on topics such as daily operations, managing people, managing money, and legal issues. There is also a section on the minister’s role in community and economic development. An extensive appendix includes sample mission statements and constitution/by-laws, a strategic plan checklist, and sample church and event budgets. While African American ministers may certainly benefit from church administration manuals not addressed exclusively to them, this is perhaps one of the few texts that speak to their specialized needs. The authors emerge out of an African Methodist Episcopal perspective, but have written in a way that makes their material accessible to people in other traditions. Another volume on the unique dynamics of black churches, though not as highly recommended, is Floyd Massey, Church Administration in the Black Perspective (Judson Press, 2003), which is designed more for churches with Baptist heritage.
From the Publisher
Highly regarded pastor Floyd Flake; his wife, co-pastor, author, Elaine Flake; and church chief financial officer Edwin Reed offer a design based on key needs in the black church, and their experience at one of the nation’s most respected and largest black churches, Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral in New York. This unique, detailed, and thorough resource for black churches of any denomination covers virtually all aspects of church management from the theoretical and theological to the practical “nuts and bolts” of church administration. The authors include a special section offering principles for economic development, an area in which Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral has experienced extraordinary success. The African American Church Management Handbook is sure to find a permanent place on the desks of African American pastors, seminarians, and church leaders for many years to come.
About the Author
Floyd Flake is the senior pastor of the 20,000+ member Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral in Jamaica, NY. He is the current president of Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, OH, the nation s oldest private African American university. For ten years, Flake served in the U.S. Congress, and is now a commissioner on the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education. Preaching since the age of 15, Flake holds a B.A. from Wilberforce University, and a D. Min. degree from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH. He is author of The Way of the Bootstrapper.
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