Master Thesis Study: Friendship Baptist Church
Friendship Baptist Church is a religious non-profit established in Merced, California. Friendship is experiencing a decline in organizational membership and effective ministry opportunities
Organizational History: Friendship Baptist Church
Friendship Baptist Church, founded in 1976, by a small contingency of disgruntled members of a local church. The group separated from the offending church and elected their first leader. A demographic profile of the group is African American (five women and four men), median to poverty level income and vocational classification and little or no formal education. The demographic numbers as to population of target location show a large segment of Hispanic and Asian …show more content…
Traditional activities and services rendered by the religious non-profits of the era were based on assumptions and historical developed thinking. The biblical paradigm is that of altruistic activities and doctrinal conversion to the life and learnings of Jesus Christ. The times have changed in that the modern religious non-profit functions more in the vein of a for profit; business plans, marketing strategies and fiscal solvency. Service and selflessness has all but vanished. It is now imperative that Friendship now seek the means to re-engage the spiritual purposes of the religious non-profit and define the mission, purpose and values that will give direction to the organization for generations to …show more content…
Coward makes the following observation, “Businesses that lack mission statements, or operate with half-hearted, empty ones, do themselves a disservice” (Cowan, 2014). Friendship falls in the cause of the former. There has never been, in the 44-year history of the organization, a declared or consistent mission statement. The lack of mission statement can largely be attributed that the assumption was made that the members of the organization as well as the organization itself was operating on mission. The Church, by and large, has solidified the fact that their mission is to make disciples. That is a valued and reasonable pursuit. Yet without stating the mission and providing visual re-enforcement, the members are left to decide if that is a mission that they are willing to follow. Most members, even the most senior and tenured, function under archaic thinking that the leader/pastor is the expected conduit to growth and development of the membership within the organization. This, in part, is valid. The divergence occurs when the leader/pastor makes similar assumptions that members are capable and committed enough to achieve that without must oversight and supervision from leadership at all. Usually the thinking centers around “divine” demonstration of growth and development. Both leaders and members