Strategic Management for Churches

Part of the Church Administration Course Series

Take this course for only $59. Discounts available for the full Church Administration Course Series.

Online For Alumni For Church Staff For Clergy CEU/CE Credit

Church leaders are often called to articulate a clear vision for their congregation while also guiding goals, values, culture, and measures of faithfulness. This course explores how strategic management can be approached as strategic stewardship, helping pastors and lay leaders discern God’s direction for their church and lead their communities in God-centered, theologically grounded ways of realizing that vision.

Estimated time commitment: 15 hours | CEUs awarded: 1.5

Pastors and lay leaders frequently find themselves navigating complex questions about vision, priorities, and direction for their congregations. While churches often borrow tools from organizational strategic management to clarify goals and assess progress, these tools require careful theological reflection to ensure they serve God’s purposes rather than merely organizational efficiency.

This course is designed to help church leaders approach strategic management as strategic stewardship—discerning God’s vision for the church and faithfully stewarding the practices that help bring that vision to life. Drawing on theological reflection and practical wisdom, the course reframes common strategic management tools as resources for faithful leadership in congregational settings.

Throughout the course, you will explore key elements of strategic stewardship, including vision, core values and culture, goals and objectives, and metrics. You will examine how each element functions as a management tool and how it can be reappropriated for theological ends. In addition, the course addresses the kind of pastoral leadership required for strategic stewardship and includes real-life examples from Duke Divinity School alumni who share how they have implemented these practices in their own church contexts.

This is the second course in the Church Administration Course Series. When taken together, the four courses in the series equip church leaders with a holistic set of practical skills informed by a theological focus that situates these practices within the church’s mission of discipleship, worship, and witness.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

Articulate why strategic management is important for organizations.
Explain why and how to approach strategic management for churches theologically as strategic stewardship.
Assess your strategic stewardship of church vision, core values, culture, goals, objectives, and metrics.
Develop plans for establishing or modifying strategic stewardship for your church.

Instructor

Rae Cho

Rae Cho earned Th.D. and M.Div. from Duke Divinity School, and an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business. He teaches classes on theology and practice of Christian leadership and administration and Asian American theology. He served as the church administration head at an Asian American church in Silicon Valley while working at a management consulting firm and then a high-tech startup, and he has provided consultation to churches on church administration. He also holds M.S. and B.S. degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

You may register for any number of individual courses in the course series for $59 per course, or you may register for all four courses for a discounted price of $189. In order to get the discounted price, you must register for all four courses in the same transaction.

The registration deadline is 11:59 pm ET on April 17, 2026. Registered learners will gain access to their courses hosted in Duke University’s Canvas system on April 22, 2026. You will have until October 20, 2026 to complete any and all courses you have registered for.

What to expect during registration:

Register online for the course(s) or full series, as desired, using a debit or credit card with our secure registration system. Add the course(s) to your shopping cart, create a student account when prompted, and then follow the instructions for checking out.
You will receive an email with next steps almost immediately upon registration. Check your spam or junk folder if you don’t see this.
At the end of the registration window, your course access account will be created. At this time, you will receive an email to activate your account from Duke OIT, and you must complete that process within 72 hours of receipt.
On your course access date, you will receive an email letting you know when you can log in and begin coursework in Canvas.

Email learnmore@duke.edu if you have technical difficulties with registering or paying for your course(s).

If you have questions about the content of any particular course or about the course series as a whole, contact us at divinityonline@duke.edu.

Additional Information

All registrants must meet the following requirements:

Be at least 18 years of age
Possess word processing and internet browser skills
Be fluent in the English language (including reading and writing)
Have reliable internet access and a valid email account (Please note that personal email accounts are preferred to business emails, as they are less likely to be blocked by firewalls and spam filters)
Meet the minimum technical specifications below

In order to earn a non-credit Certificate of Completion from Duke Divinity School for this program, learners must successfully:

Pay fees in full upon registration for all four courses in the program,
Complete the four courses in the program within the six-month access period (beginning on the course access date for a given registration window), or re-register/pay and complete in a later registration window,
Complete all assignments in each course with a minimum score of 80% (learners have unlimited attempts at all graded assignments and tests).

Learners must submit the information about their digital badges (for courses) or Certificate of Completion (for the series) to their denomination to obtain CEUs, awarded as follows, up to a total of 4 CEUs for the entire series:

Church Administration Theology and Time Management - 1.5 CEUs
Strategic Management for Churches - 1.5 CEUs
Human Resource Stewardship for Churches - 0.5 CEUs
Financial Management for Churches - 0.5 CEUs

In order to successfully participate in this course series, participants’ technologies must meet the following minimum requirements:

Operating System:
- Windows XP SP2 or newer
- Mac OS 10.4.11 or higher
- Linux/Unix (any recent version)
Hardware
- 1 Ghz or faster CPU
- 512 MB RAM
- Video card
- Sound card and headphones or speakers
Software
- Any modern Office suite: Microsoft Office, Apple iWork, OpenOffice (free download available at openoffice.org), or LibreOffice.
- Latest version of Adobe Reader/Acrobat Reader (free download available at adobe.com)
Web Browser
- The latest version of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or Safari. (Other web browsers may work, but may not render all features of the course).
- Cookies and JavaScript must be enabled.
Internet
- Reliable internet connection.
- E-mail account, preferably a personal rather than business email account (to be able to register and to receive e-mail from the system regarding registration, course status, etc.)

Refunds (minus administrative fees) will be provided only if a course or bundle cancellation request is submitted in writing to learnmore@duke.edu at least five business days prior to the course access date (by 11:59 pm ET on April 15, 2026).

Administrative fees:

$10 per course for individual courses,
$30 for the course bundle.

No refunds will be issued for cancellation requests received later than five business days before the course access date.

No extensions will be granted. Students who require additional time to complete the course(s) they registered for will be responsible for re-registering and paying for the course(s) a second time.

Course fees and expenses are sometimes tax deductible. Please consult an accountant concerning this matter. Non-credit programs from the Duke Center for Teaching and Learning do not generate 1098-T forms, in accordance with the following IRS guideline:

Instructions for Forms 1098-E and 1098-T published by the Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, states “You do not have to file Form 1098-T or furnish a statement for: Courses for which no academic credit is offered, even if the student is otherwise enrolled in a degree program…”

Registrants are not matriculated Duke University students, and university student privileges do not apply to registrants in this program. All programs are offered on a non-credit basis and are not transferable to a degree.

This program is offered exclusively by the Duke Divinity School in coordination with the Duke Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). The CTL or Duke Divinity School reserve the right to withhold registration or require withdrawal from the program of any learner or registrant.

The materials used in this course are copyrighted and are intended for individual use by registered learners. Unauthorized or illegal use, or attempted use, of these materials will result in a suspension and/or cancellation of the user’s account.

While these courses were designed by and the video content is presented by Duke faculty, the courses do not include any live interactions with these faculty.

Interest List

If you are interested in the Church Administration course series but are unable to register for the Spring 2026 session at this time, join our interest list to be notified when registration opens for the next session.

Join the Interest List

Strategic Management for Churches

Instructor

Additional Information

Interest List

Contact Us

Directory

Strategic Management for Churches

Course Details

Learning Objectives

Instructor

Instructor

Registration & Enrollment

Questions?

Additional Information

Eligibility

Certificate of Completion Requirements

CEU Requirements

Technical Requirements

Refund Policy

Extension Policy

Tax Deductions

Disclaimers

Interest List