Monthly Archive for June, 2010

34. Review Article # 1 – Michael Anthony: The Effective Church Board (1993)

Published by Dr. Larry Perkins on June 22, 2010 in Board Chair and Book Reviews. Closed Tags: , , .

The Effective Church Board. A Handbook for Mentoring and Training Servant Leaders by Michael J. Anthony. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers 2000 (originally published by Baker Book House, 1993). 301 pages.

Dr. Anthony writes as an experienced Christian educator, pastor and scholar, having taught at Talbot Seminary. His purpose in writing this book centres on a desire to help “church board members and senior pastors work together effectively” (11). It is his belief that the senior pastor carries the responsibility to train and develop effective board members.  This book is now almost twenty years old and so much has changed. For example, the emerging church phenomenon has “emerged.” The “missional church” vision has shaped the perspective of many. Large churches particularly are wrestling with the application of “Policy Governance” as defined by John and Miriam Carver. Denominational structures are less rigid or authoritative. The literature on leadership has exploded and the role of pastor as leader has become a major focus of discussion. Interaction with Dr. Anthony’s ideas will recognize the timeframe in which he was writing, but acknowledge that some key things have changed.

Given this time differential, why give attention to this volume? The primary reason is simple — there are so few books devoted to developing effective church board members that each one, despite possible datedness, still deserves attention. This volume also reflects data from a survey of about 200 senior pastors and church board members, giving us a snapshot of such leadership perspectives in the early nineties. This provides some useful comparative data.

Part One defines the roles of senior pastor, church board member, attempting to define the roles of pastor, elder, deacon and deaconess. Chapter 6 provides useful guidance for developing position descriptions and includes a proposed description for the chairman of the board (in this case a deacons’ board) (83-84).

In Part Two Dr. Anthony considers fundamental issues, i.e. how a church board should function in relation to pastoral staff and what the primary responsibilities of a church board should include (defining mission statement and organizational structure, establishing goals and plans to reach those goals, conflict resolution and developing spiritual character).

The third section considers how a church board might lead through different crises. These include the resignation of a pastor, financial distress, moral turpitude, legal challenges, divisions, responding to chronic complainers, and “bringing renewal to a declining church.”

He concludes with two appendices. One relates general wisdom he gathered in his survey from pastors and board members. The second is a series of four case studies that a board can use to test and develop its capacity to respond to diverse issues.

All in all Dr. Anthony has developed and written a useful guide for church boards. However, some aspects require further exploration and perhaps careful evaluation.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

33. Evaluating A Church Board Member

Published by Dr. Larry Perkins on June 14, 2010 in Board, Board Chair, Board Governance and Board Member. Closed Tags: , , , .

Say the word “evaluation” and many people run the opposite direction. It’s reputation is sadly sullied and scarred for many reasons — some valid and some undeserved. Employees expect evaluation as a normal job requirement. When it comes to volunteers, however, organizations hesitate to require evaluation. They do not want to offend or de-motivate their volunteers. After all, the volunteers are doing the organization a service just by showing up!

In the case of a church board we have to consider its role within a non-profit agency, as well as a spiritual community. Measuring the effectiveness of the board and its members consistently can demonstrate to external and internal bodies the serious attention the board gives to its work. As well, the relationship between church health and a spiritually vibrant and effective board indicates how critical is the capacity of a board and its members to lead well.

Theologically we should not have to justify evaluation in any ministry setting. The accountability that Jesus holds us to as believers, the many references to a “tested” faith, and the indications by Paul that only reliable people, i.e. those who demonstrated spiritual wisdom and leadership should be appointed as leaders, all point to the benefits of consistent, thoughtful evaluation. Church boards are doing evaluation (or should be) in the case of key vocational ministry leaders, programs, resource management, etc. This is the only way the board can assure themselves that the key results essential to the vision are being achieved. So evaluating themselves as board members should not be a surprising innovation or expectation.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

32. The Transition into the role of Church Board Chair

Published by Dr. Larry Perkins on June 9, 2010 in Board, Board Chair and Board Member. Closed Tags: , .

So the annual church elections are finished and you are now one of the board members. But more than that, the board at their first meeting asked you to serve as chair, because the previous chair person had completed his term with the board.

What now will you do in the first few months to fulfill this responsibility well? Perhaps the following checklist might help you set your course well.

1. Reflect on the context of the transition — the state of the board, the state of the congregation, the relationship with the pastoral staff, the style of the previous chair’s leadership. Try to describe in a sentence or two what your perceptions are in each case.

2. Establish what your priorities as chair will be in the first year, in the light of the expectations others have for you in this role (whether higher or lower than your own). Write these down. It will form a useful check at the end of your first year in the role and also keep you on target through the year.

3. Gain a clear grasp of process, bylaws, and precedents. Often a board has traditional processes that are not in writing. Are you aware of these? Perhaps a conversation with the prior board chair will help you discern what these might be.

4. Commit to building an effective relationship with the lead pastor and with other board members. How have you communicated this and what specific action will you take to initiate it?

5. Develop a means of building and maintaining the respect of the other board members. There is a positive and negative aspect to this. Do you know what kinds of actions as chair will cause you to lose the board members’ respect? On the positive side, what specific ways will your leadership develop a reservoir of respect that can help you through the challenging times?

6. Develop a mechanism of getting good, balanced feedback on my own leadership and the decisions that the board is making. Who will be help you in this? “Triangulation” is a good strategy — having three or four people with very different perspectives will help you gather valid understanding and not be swayed by bias.

7. Create a plan for sustaining your own spiritual life in good order. Perhaps this is the most important issue of all. Who will be your accountability partner, someone you will meet with regularly for prayer and confidential spiritual interaction?

8. In order to give this responsibility the attention it deserves, what limitations will you place on other work you have been doing in the church?  Here again there may be some expectations that others have for you, but you know better than anyone what limits you must establish personally in order to “maintain the pace” as board chair.

Do you have any other advice that you would give? Perhaps you have served as a chair for a number of years and would have additional guidance based upon your experience that would help other board chairs. Please share it in the response mechanism following this article.

31. Measuring a Church Board’s Productivity

Published by Dr. Larry Perkins on June 3, 2010 in Board, Board Chair, Board Governance and Board Member. Closed Tags: , , , .

When all is said and done, how do you as the board chair know whether or not your church board is being productive? Church boards get busy, but are they achieving results? Church boards process a lot of ideas and have significant discussions, but at the end of the day has the mission of the church advanced through all of these efforts?

Maybe its time for you as chair to do a productivity audit.

1. Take the minutes from the last 6 board meetings. Review them carefully and note the explicit decisions that the board made or specific directions given. Now comes the tough part — as you analyze these decisions or directions,  how many of them actually achieved results, i.e. made a difference in the life of the church? What new ministry began, what ministry was transformed, what discipleship occurred through teaching, what improvement in serving the congregational needs resulted, what new evangelistic activity occurred, etc.?

2. Did your board establish some goals they believed the church should seek to achieve in this year or the next year? Locate those goals. Now comes the tough part — relate the decisions or actions taken by the board to the goals. How many of those decisions or actions actually enabled the church to achieve these goals? Of course, if the board did not set goals then you have no means of measuring whether or not the board is being productive in its work.

3.  Did your board in its decisions or directions name who was accountable for implementing the decisions? Review the decisions and actions and note who was assigned such responsibility. Also note where decisions were made or actions directed, but no one was named to implement. Now that you know who was made responsible for implementation, ask yourself what reporting has come back to the board regarding the progress made in that implementation? How does the board know whether the decision or action is being fruitful, accomplishing its intended objective?

4. If the board made a decision or took an action, but nothing has happened, take some time to analyze why this is the case. Perhaps no one was made accountable for implementation. Or perhaps no resources were allocated to support the implementation. Or maybe efforts were made, but for some reason were not successful. Or maybe someone had second thoughts and so nothing was done, without ever reporting back to the board why. Perhaps leadership changes meant there were no personnel available to implement. Changes happen and so some decisions are still-born. However, the board would benefit from knowing this and doing a bit of analysis as to why this happened and what might be done differently in the future to prevent such things from recurring.

The church board chair is in a wonderful position to track the big picture of the church’s advance. If the chair is not keeping a finger on the board’s productivity, then who is? While this must be a collective board responsibility, the chair has to take the lead and encourage the board in this exercise occasionally. It will be a source of great encouragement, sober reflection, and stimulation to do things better. Presenting the results of such an analysis at an annual board retreat would provide significant grist for prayerful discussion and reflection. You might also discover that the minutes being taken for the board are not sufficient to enable such productivity to be analyzed. This in itself is a good discovery and can lead to healthy change.