Few things impact the life of your church more, but are thought about less than that of your governance and leadership paradigm.
Recently I was in a board conversation where a board member said, "this is the first time in decades that we have evaluated ourselves or how we do our work as a board." Think about that. All major ministry decisions go though a leadership board in most churches, but we rarely pay attention to how well we do the governance/leadership role.
Why do we regularly update our ministry strategies to meet the needs of a new day but rarely update our governance/leadership strategies to meet the needs of a new day?
Jesus designed the church to be the most effective, flexible, and missional organism on the face of the earth. Yet, our leadership systems are often clunky and difficult to negotiate. Remember this:
- In many cases our leadership systems come from many years in the past when the church was founded. A different day with different needs and a different understanding of leadership paradigms.
- Governance/leadership systems were put in when the church was small. If your church is over 150 on a Sunday it is no longer a family church.
- Nearly every growing church has reexamined their leadership/governance systems to ensure that it serves them well today. What got you to here, got you to here but it won't get you to there.
- Boards and church leaders should examine their systems annually, yet many have not done so in a decade if ever.
- Church leaders often have frustrations about their leadership paradigms that could be eliminated if so desired.
- All this matters because the return on our ministry investment is eternal. The stakes matter and our ability to remain effective, flexible and missional is always at stake.
