Britain's most notorious boss David Brent struck a familiar chord with audiences in recent TV hit The Office, but bad management is also a reality in many churches, according to the national director of Christian Management Australia (CMA) Gary Williams.

High workloads, low salaries and "abusive' employers can foster pain in Christian workplaces that are built on environments of trust and grace, Mr Williams says.

This leaves church organisations such as schools, missions and parishes susceptible to the woes of modern workplaces such as stress, burn out and painful exits.

"We've seen effective youth ministries go from many staff to one staff [member] because of bad governance, therefore allowing ministries to die," he says.

"We've also seen churches fall over because of ignorance and appalling staff practises. [In] many cases" godly staffing doesn't lead to good HR [Human Resources]. There's a lot of wasted potential."

Mr Williams has been in Sydney speaking prior to a CMA conference, Ministry in Challenging Times, held this week at the Wesley Centre.

CMA was formed in 2002 between the Australian Evangelical Alliance and Wesley Mission and aims to "wave the flag for spiritual gifts of administration'.

Sydney Anglicans attending the two-day event included parish ministers and managers in diocesan organisations.

The growing popularity of the conference is a sign that ministry workers have to deal with increasingly complex and regulatory workplaces.

Seminars addressed a range of subjects, such as changes in church law, anti-discrimination and handling conflict, as well as religious vilification in light of a recent Victoria court case in which two Christians were sued for mocking Muslims at a church meeting.

Speakers included CEO of World Vision Australia Tim Costello, Superintendent of Wesley Mission Gordon Moyes, and Peter Kaldor, Director of the National Church Life Survey.

Mr Williams says Christians need to take good business practices seriously as part of honouring God and not view a Christian approach to management with suspicion as part of "secular' mindset.

He suggests that church organisations could conduct in-house surveys to ask their staff how they really feel about working there.

"We want Christians to be more effective at what they do," Mr Williams says. "If we do this better, people will come to faith."

For more information visit the CMA website.