A Study On The Social Services Of Contemporary Urban Christian Churches

Taking the Church S located in Kunming as a case,this study analyzes and investigates the current urban church social services form in types and content,production and reproduction mechanism and process through field investigation.In this paper,the Christian church is regarded as an organization.The author discussed organizational structure design,information control,input and decision-making of social service production and the absorption of human and material resources of the Church S based on an open system and a structured analytical framework.In addition,the author analyzed the current environmental factors of the church S in the aspect of social service production,pointed out how factors like the organization structure,the system of environmental elements restrict and affect the production of the church S,and how the church S,under the existing structural constraint,both accepts and attempts to broaden social services,and then forms three kinds of strategies and actions about social services reproduction.Under the guidance of Max Weber’s ideal type,through field investigation,this paper classifies the social services as "the sacred and the profaned" and "the group and the individual".The author argues that the current social services of S Church could be mainly divided into four types,they are "Sacred and group orientation","Sacred and individual orientation","Profaned and group orientation" and "Profaned and individual orientation".Based on the reality of social service of church S,the author uses Swinth’s abstract model of control system as a framework to point out that the Department of Social Work is a core department of Christian organizations.The production of social services needs to exchange information and resources with the external environment.The church S’s information input comes from three major approaches: "two sessions"-oriented,co-workers-oriented and followers-oriented,which is mainly determined by the labor union,the information decision source.In terms of the absorption of human and material resources,based on the objective fact that the clergy are the dominant and core force of S Church’s social services,the church has completed the absorption of key human factors in social services through directional absorption,active absorption and flexible absorption,thus forming the human resource structure that clergies work as cores,the volunteers,lay believers and volunteers work as a complement.In addition,the material resources of church social services are mainly gathered through special devotees’ contributions,fellowship contributions,temporary contributions,church subsidies and foreign subsidies.The author argues that the organizational environment also has structural constraints on the production of S Church,whose manifestation acts as a social service reproduction strategy and action based on the duality of structure.The social service production of the church S is affected and restricted by relevant policies and laws,historical and cultural traditions,the relationship between church and government,and social attitudes,which is a witness of recent dynamic changes of social services boundary.However,the church S is facing challenges of organization environment for social service practice.And the church S,under the structural and institutional restriction,gradually reorganize the produce and reproduce of social services,based on which forms three reproducing strategies,they are “selective game”,“targeted group replacement” and “ally inside organization”,which is reflected on institutional practice about reproduction on the current organizational environment.