From accounting to technology and more, there are plenty of tasks on a church administrator's to-do list. While certain administration topics receive the lion's share of attention, there are a few areas that aren't as obvious to consider.

Here are three areas every church administrator should devote time and attention to managing:

1. Risk management

A church, like any other organization, faces certain risks. Natural disasters, fires, theft, moral failure of a senior leader and a lack of succession planning are a few examples.

While you can't completely prevent all risks, you can reduce the likelihood of them happening and/or lower the impact if they did happen.

A risk management strategy involves identifying potential risks and how each could occur, then taking reasonable steps to prevent or mitigate their impact. A risk management strategy takes significant effort to create initially, but can then become a routine aspect of your annual administration tasks once it's in place.

2. Maintenance

If your church has its own facilities, you'll need to ensure maintenance is kept up on the buildings, equipment and outdoor spaces. This includes HVAC maintenance, sound and lighting upkeep, repairing cracks in the sidewalk, patching potholes in the parking lot, caulking around windows, replacing torn carpet and more.

The expenses and effort involved in properly maintaining church facilities is certainly less than making major repairs down the road. Set up a schedule of maintenance activities to complete weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually.

3. Policies and procedures

Policy and procedure documents may not be the most exciting to read, but they do provide clarity to church staff.

If you don't already have an employee handbook, that's an excellent place to start. By documenting policies such as appropriate use of church computers, time off, maternity/paternity leave, and employee benefits, you can reduce confusion and prevent receiving the same questions regarding these topics.

Other policies and procedures you may want to document include emergency evacuation, background checks for staff and volunteers, accounting processes and more.

While these aren't the first things we think of when it comes to ministry, these activities support what happens on Sunday morning. When we provide a safe environment, maintain the facilities God has entrusted to us, and offer clear direction to church staff, we reduce obstacles to effective ministry.