Video Transcript: Introduction

Welcome to this class. My name is Steve Elzinga. I'm going to be with you for  these 36 sessions together. The name of the class is management by the book.  And when I say book, I mean the big book, the Bible. Interestingly enough, the  Bible actually says a lot about management. We have the father in law of  Moses. His name was Jethro. He actually comes to Moses and hands him a  modern day organizational chart, and we'll be looking at that, but we're going to  be looking at what Jesus said about management. We're going to be looking at  what the Apostle Paul had to say the class is really divided into three sections.  At first, we're going to look at what the Bible says about the tasks of a manager.  Then we're going to look at the qualifications, or kind of the personality, of what  a manager is. And then finally, we're going to look at the it's the smallest book in  the entire Bible, the Book of Philemon, where Paul, who is in prison in Rome,  writes Philemon, who has a runaway slave named Onesimus, and Paul has to  deal with a tricky situation. And that whole book is a great study on how you deal with people, and if you're going to be a manager in a church, a manager in a  nonprofit, or even a manager in a for profit organization, you'll have to deal with  people. That's what managers do. Now, management doesn't sound that  glamorous. Being called a manager, I don't know if people you know, that's the  first thing that they think of when they you know, I want to be, I want to grow up  to be a manager. A lot of people think maybe an inventor or or or a leader. But  the truth is, most organizations succeed or don't succeed because of the  manager. There are a lot of people that have dreams and visions of doing this or doing that. But unless there's someone that comes along and makes it happen,  maybe we shouldn't call these people managers. Maybe we should call them  people that make things happen. They make it go without the manager. All the  great ideas and all the plans that other people have never come to come to  reality, managers are not always liked, because the manager is the one that has  to get people to cooperate. The manager is the one that sort of drives projects  forward. The manager is the one that, you know, has to tell people, Look, you're  not. You're not, you know, doing your part. The manager is trying to put all the  different pieces together. And sometimes the manager has to be the one  pushing things along, and people don't like that. A lot of times in an  organization, you have manager types, and they're sitting in offices and, you  know, playing on the computer, and then you have people on the floor who are  actually doing the work, and the people on the floor resent the people sitting  behind the screens and typing away and then telling people on the floor what to  do, and then you have the owner of the company or the organization, or the  leader of the organization who you know is busy dreaming and thinking and  planning and talking to other people and and the manager can be sort of  sandwiched in between the actual workers and the dreamer and so a lot of  times, managers sort of get in trouble from both sides, but both sides, the  people on the floor and the people dreaming, need the manager. Management 

is the, probably the most important thing in an organization, maybe you're  planting a church and you're the leader and you're the dreamer, but when you're planting a church, you don't have anyone else, and you become the manager. If  you're a parent, you are managing the raising of your children. If you're married,  you have a marriage to manage. Management is everywhere. If you're the one  in the family that takes care of the cooking and and cleaning and making sure  the house is in order, that's all management. Management is about taking the  complex the many and making it simplified and more organized. So I think, I  think you're going to enjoy this. I think you're going to learn some principles from the Bible that will help you to become a better manager. And I think you will see  that as you manage things better, more things are organized, more things are  put together. People are now cooperating. You'll actually see good things  happen, and you will accomplish the goals that you have in mind. So enjoy this  class. Go through each session, do all the homework, and my guess is at the  end of it, you'll become a better manager than you are now.