Monthly Archive for October, 2010

49. Defining terms #3: Governance — Acts of Compliance or Acts that Innovate?

Published by Dr. Larry Perkins on October 27, 2010 in Board, Board Chair, Board Governance and Board Member. Closed

Governance can function in a compliant or an innovative mode. By compliance I mean that a church board does the expected business of monitoring key indicators of institutional stability (e.g. finances, report from the lead pastor, policy review, etc.) and asks questions. However, it rarely involves itself in visioning the future, discerning ways and means to advance the mission, or educating itself about developments in its community, culture or religious context. Passivity marks its mode of operation. Missional growth is not perceived to be an expectation emerging from the Great commission. It’s greatest concern may be checking and poking, but even then it may not be sure what questions it should be asking. After all, the reports are produced by the very people responsible for the operations the board members are seeking to check and monitor!

Monitoring for compliance to stated objectives and values and to manage risk remains a necessary and significant board member responsibility. A board should expect the lead pastor or executive pastor to be providing reports regularly on the key items the board considers important, i.e. preservation of financial assets, operational budget risk, facility care, employee care, progress towards stated goals, etc. It is the board that should determine what it needs to know to assure itself that all key risks are being managed responsibly. The principle is trust, but check. If the board is not sure about the information it is receiving, it should ask for external assistance to provide an “objective” view, but only after it has given the ministry leadership full opportunity to provide any clarification. Rarely should board members themselves seek to do this kind of checking. It creates too many awkward issues and has the potential to damage relationships significantly.

What’s the danger in governing in a compliant mode? Compliance usually generates complicity. While board members may think they are asking good questions and receiving complete information, that may not be the case. Asking questions in response to reports is a reactive mode of governance.  Another danger of the compliant mode is movement into micromanagement. If the board thinks the ministry staff is not able to do the job, having evaluated their reports, then it might be tempted to take over the responsibility itself. While this might be required in an emergency, it cannot be a long term solution.

If a board thinks its work is done after it has measured compliance, then it has failed in some of its primary responsibilities — advancing the mission, anticipating risk, and providing strategic leadership.

A church board operating with an innovative mindset handles the monitoring process expeditiously because it knows that its primary job is to ensure mission fulfillment. Maintaining the status quo violates that mandate. Strategic leadership requires board members to give the majority of their time to the big questions, ensuring that their meeting agendas are not filled with busy work, but in fact keep their attention on the important issues.

What might some of these big questions be?

a. where we do believe God wants this church to be in five years? What will it take to get there?

b. what are the biggest threats to the fulfillment of our mission and how should we respond to these threats in order to advance the mission?

c. given the many possible things we might do, what is the one thing we must do in the next 6 months in order to advance our mission?

d. how do we know that our ministry projects are effective? How do we measure effectiveness?

e. is our congregation healthy? How do we know? If it’s not, what do we have to do in order to restore it to health?

You can discern the question(s) which would be most stimulating and helpful for your board to consider. Discussions around such questions can be the most spiritually motivating conversations board members will ever experience and energize them significantly with respect to the church’s vision.

Another strategy to keep the board leading strategically relates to its education. Is there ever a time in the annual schedule of the board when someone with specific expertise is invited to help the board expand its understanding about a critical segment of congregational life, the external community, or theological issues? Perhaps your board is struggling to understand the issue of financial stewardship in the life of the church. Consider inviting someone (always consult others about your idea before moving ahead to make sure the right person is invited) who has expertise and experience in helping congregations learn how to invest in God’s work joyfully. It may be the catalyst to a whole level vision and ministry. Or perhaps your board is struggling to understand how to lead the congregation to engage in global missions in a responsible and effective way. Here again there are probably people with knowledge about this issue who could come and in 40 – 60 minutes give your board new perspective, new ideas, and perhaps even discernment about the best way forward.

Because governance is all about mission advancement, strategic leadership is an essential quality to nurture within the board so that its governance is innovative in the best sense.

48. Defining Terms: # 2 — Governance and How its Shared

Published by Dr. Larry Perkins on October 11, 2010 in Board, Board Chair, Board Governance, Board Member and Senior Pastor. Closed Tags: , .

Decisions in a local church are often tricky things to manage. For instance, a group in the church may be urging the pastoral leadership to initiate a ministry to seniors. Who decides whether this should happen? How is that decision processed? The answers to such questions involve governance.

These questions include:

  • Does such a ministry advance the mission of the congregation?
  • Is it a substantive change to the previously approved strategic plan?
  • Which groups in the congregation should speak into this decision and who decides?
  • If the decision is positive, who decides which person or group will be responsible to implement?
  • Who determines what resources should be devoted to this initiative?
  • If there is risk involved, who is responsible to manage this risk so that the congregation does not become liable?

Good governance enables a congregation to sort through these matters, reach an appropriate decision, and implement that decision well. The church board chair often finds that he or she works at the very centre of these processes. Like an umpire, the chair ensures that “the rules of the game,” i.e. the bylaws, policies, and legal boundaries of the congregation are sustained as this kind of decision-making proceeds.

The fact is that authority for major decisions within congregational polity is shared among various entities. The congregation retains ultimate authority in terms of governance within a local church operates within the terms of congregational polity. The congregation entrusts the board with authority to make sure that the stated processes are followed fairly, completely, and in a timely manner. However, the congregation will require the board to refer some matters to it for decision (e.g. major facility development, borrowing money, appointment of the board members, appointment of the lead pastor, etc.).  The board in turn delegates to the ministry staff appropriate responsibility and authority to implement and oversee the doing of ministry. So governance is shared among the congregation, the board, and the ministry staff and the chair helps the board fulfill its responsibility to oversee this “sharing of governance.”

One understanding of “shared governance” is that various groups within the agency by virtue of role, assigned responsibility, and competence have legitimate voice in respective decisions. Sometimes this voice is mandated in bylaws or policies and sometimes it occurs because a particular group either has special competence or is going to be affected by the decision significantly. Theologically this concept of “shared governance” honours the concept of the church as “body”, respects the “priesthood of believers”, empowers those who exercise ministry oversight, and enables the wisdom of the Holy spirit to be heard through various people within the body.

In church board governance it is critical to understand, appreciate and respect these various roles and ensure that decision-making processes are being made with the right input.

1. The congregation’s bylaws will define the decisions that the congregation must discern. In the example previously used, the introduction of a senior’s ministry will probably require additional financial resources, i.e. an adjustment to the annual budget. Often the congregation must approve such budgetary changes. The new ministry may require the hiring of a new ministry staff person. Depending upon the status of this role (e.g. it may be pastoral, or coordinator, or something else), the bylaws may require the congregation to appoint the candidate by direct vote.

The rationale for giving the congregation such authority would include:

a. they are primary stakeholders;

b. they must have confidence in the spiritual competency of their ministry leaders;

c. as members in the charity they must ensure that financial decisions are being handled properly;

d. many in the congregation will probably be affected by this ministry initiative.

2. The ministry staff will have some voice in this decision because they possess certain competence that will help the congregation make a good decision. As well, they will have to work closely with the new staff person and so enabling their input expresses how the congregation values them as leaders. Further, probably more than anyone else in the congregation, the ministry staff will appreciate the dynamics that this new ministry will generate and the kind of person necessary to lead it successfully.

3. The board will play a pivotal role. First they must discern whether this proposed initiative will advance th emission of the church. Second, they will have to consider whether this initiative, among others, had priority and why this is the case. Third, they have to ask what the risks are and ensure, if it is implemented, that the congregation is adequately protected. They have to ask whether the plan for resourcing this ministry is prudent and sustainable. Finally, they will consider whether the plan of implementation and evaluation is rigorous enough.

The church board chair, in collaboration with the lead pastor, has responsibility to ensure that the appropriate groups have opportunity to give input and even make decisions about certain aspects of this initiative. When the proposal comes to the board, a key question in the board’s deliberation will be:  what is the decision-making pathway that this initiative must follow? Outlining this pathway formally for the board will bring clarity and remove what otherwise might be a contentious issue. When the congregation sees the board paying respectful attention to these elements of shared governance, it gives them confidence in the board and its leadership.

Some board members might think that shared governance diminishes the capacity of the board to exercise its proper role. However, in shared governance the board always retains the authority entrusted to it by the congregation. What the board does is distribute the decision-making because there is distributed ownership of the mission among various groups within the congregation.

To explore this subject further you can access the article on the website entitled The Delicate Dance of Congregational Government, which provides more extensive biblical evidence regarding this perspective.