Just take a look at your church.

If it has a senior pastor, five associate pastors, two youth pastors, three children’s ministry directors, two worship pastors, three small group directors and a congregation of 50 people, that’s a problem, wouldn’t you say?

Top heavy, perpetually over budget, ridiculous amounts of overhead.

Now say it’s located near an inner city and its main goal is to do targeted outreach. Now the church is potentially lacking in both talent and funding to achieve its outreach goals.

Mission and budget are crucial pieces of the puzzle for an organization. They drive strategic planning one year and five years down the road and govern the here and now.

They help dictate the best structure of an organization and enable managers to make important decisions around hiring — Who? For what purpose? When?

Last year alone Compassion grew by 371 full-time employees — a 19 percent increase. We have more than 1,500 International Program staff in the field — 67 percent of our total staff is made up of nationals. That says a lot about how we use our resources and go about our mission.

Organizational structure is important, especially for us as we have been growing so rapidly.

You all know we’ve surpassed 1 million concurrently sponsored children. What on earth does it take to support a boatload of new employees and more than 1 million sponsored children?

Well, let’s take a quick look at the mission-keepers and budget preparers at Compassion. They fit under the umbrella title Global Support Services and are one part of what makes things tick here in Colorado Springs.

Global Support Services serves all of Compassion across the board. Made up of Ministry Services and Administrative Services, it is one of four main business units within the Global Ministry Center.

The International Program Group, International Partnership Development, and USA are the other three. (We’ll talk about them another day).

Above those four business units are the Chief Financial Office, Executive Vice President David Dahlin and a small group called MI2 or Ministry Integration and Innovation, which provides across-the-board leadership and coordination for the long-term success of all of our ministries.

Providing oversight and invaluable leadership is the Chief Executive Officer, and the heart of Compassion, the beloved Wess Stafford.

But we wanted to get into the nitty gritty, right? Well, here goes.

The business unit I work in, Ministry Services, is made up of a few different departments. Some are fairly self-explanatory and others might need a descriptor or two.

In no particular order, we’re talking about Human Resources, Information Technology (IT), the Global Strategy Office, Facilities, Travel, the Distribution Center and Procurement. (Apologies if I’ve missed any).

Administrative Services is made up of Finance and the Office of Risk Management. And maybe these sound like laundry lists, but each one is a living, breathing organism. These are some of the gears in the great Compassion machine.

In Administrative Services, take Finance, for example — the budget preparers. (And budget preparation is only one small aspect of what they do). The Finance department alone has a key objective, values and a vision statement.

The Finance function enables the mission of Compassion by

“providing excellent financial services that promote integrity and stewardship while equipping the global organization to make wise ministry choices.”

Its values center on trust, teamwork, communication and being proactive and customer-focused.

Lastly, its vision by 2015 is to transform in order to

“provide value-added, influential and outstanding financial services globally while modeling excellence in customer service, innovation, collaboration and education and training.”

These are talented folks. I’d personally like to invite a few to work some magic with my personal finances, but alas, they are busy serving Compassion’s mission to make sure that we are financially viable now and in the future to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name.

In Ministry Services, let’s take a quick look at the Global Strategy Office.

It is made up of the Office of Corporate Planning, the Global Project Office, Global Internal Communications and Business Enterprise Architecture. Intimidating sounding names, eh?

I thought so when first coming on board.

Well, Corporate Planning folks are essentially the mission-keepers. They work to ensure that “both the long-term (three to five years) and short-term plans (within the fiscal year) for Compassion and all Compassion domains are clearly aligned with the mission to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name and move Compassion closer to our envisioned future.”

Biz talk for they keep us on track. They connect our mission to measurable outcomes so we can know we are doing what we set out to do.

Mission. Budget. Organizational structure. There is a lot more to talk about with regard to these things, but I’ll leave us here for now.

Next time we can explore some of the other major business units or dive into a smaller division, like the Distribution Center, to finally figure out how all our child letters get in and out.

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This past summer, I interned at Compassion in the Global Ministry Center. There, I worked to establish the Delivery Community* as well as to formulate a detailed road map for upcoming project management training intended to further equip and empower Compassion staff.

When I started my internship, President and CEO Wess Stafford offered a revolutionary idea during my first day of staff orientation. He held up his hands and used his thumbs and index fingers to form a triangle. This top-down pyramid is the traditional model of leadership.

Yes, I’d heard this before. This is how the working world functions — the base supports the top, and the top, due to its position, makes the final call on all projects, decisions, etc.

But then Wess moved his hands, flipping that triangle upside down and said this is how leadership is supposed to look.

I gawked as Wess explained he may be in a position of leadership, but that didn’t mean he was at the top of the triangle.

Instead, he calmly clarified that because of his position in leadership, he was the bottom point of the triangle. As a leader, it is his responsibility to serve and support the rest of the organization — the staff, the global partners and, most important, the sponsored children.

That day I squirmed in my chair, confused by this role reversal. This is not how business functions. This is not how projects are executed. This is not how the world works.

But while this is not how the world works, this is how the kingdom of God is meant to be.

Philippians 2:3-8 adds value to this worldview and the concept of servant leadership. In the New International Version (yes, I prefer this version over ESV) this reads:

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death — even death on a cross!”

When I arrived at Compassion, I came as a culturally aware college student from a secular university. I saw these verses in Philippians as vital to following Christ. Yes, implement them at home, with friends, at church and in the streets. But in my occupation?

Surely, this didn’t have a place in the power plays of the business world.

Due to previous work environments at my past jobs, I was baffled by the integration of Compassion’s core values into the attitudes and work of all staff, from the bottom to the top.

Why was everyone so nice? Why is everyone poured into their work 100 percent with no complaints? Why aren’t people fighting their way to the top of the ladder, of the triangle? Why do they want to help me? Why does my role matter to them? Why do I matter?

I didn’t understand the idea of the upside-down triangle. Perhaps more striking, I didn’t see its place in a grand-scale organization.

But after a mere month my heart changed as a result of working in such a Christ-centered environment.

Through what I (far right) saw in others, I saw a need to change within myself. I was blessed every day by the servant attitude my co-workers and supervisors exhibited.

I learned that to lead I must serve, that to give is better than to receive, and that to help others is better than to solely help myself.

As you carry out your work, regardless of your position, you are in a position of power. You have the opportunity to lead, to execute and to finish projects that matter to the people involved.

I encourage you to not buy the lie, the worldly and culturally acceptable belief that traditional leadership denotes power. We don’t need all-knowing decision-makers. We need responsible leaders who lead by example — by Christ’s example.

Compassion has a long history of good stewardship. Partake in that legacy. Do nothing out of selfish ambition, be consistently humble and look to the interest of others. Actively seek to invert the triangle, and then watch God’s kingdom impact our world.

*The Delivery Community is targeted to Compassion staff interested and engaged in Project Management. Through regular group meetings and the Intranet, employees come together to learn how to more effectively manage projects and deliver them on schedule, on budget, and within scope.

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