Confusing, outdated, unclear and vague church governance systems

Many churches are long overdue to change their governance systems, but I am still surprised to read many church constitutions that make real leadership very difficult. Church leaders who would never structure their business the way their church structures leadership are seemingly OK with the fact that it is almost impossible to do any kind of leadership within their governance system.

Yes, churches are not businesses. They are far more important that a business because eternal lives are at stake. Yet we continue to hamper leadership that would help the church to be more effective. Here are some common governance issues that congregations still allow to hamper their leadership.

Keep the leadership from controlling the budget

In what other arena would you find a system where those who are charged with the direction and effectiveness of the ministry (elder, Deacons or whatever the group is called in your polity), must go to another board (often trustees) to designate funds toward ministry initiatives. One board is charged with the effectiveness of the church ministry and its direction and the other board holds the dollars to carry it out hostage.

Such systems are absolute foolishness from a leadership perspective, yet they continue to exist. Every decision the first board makes must then be negotiated and made by a second board when it involves funds. And a board that is not vested with the direction of the ministry can determine whether they release the funds or not. In the best scenario this is a waste of time and energy. In the worst scenario, it sets up conflict between the two boards.

Multiple boards and multiple authorities

When you give a group the designation of “board” you give them implied authority. So, when you have multiple boards such as elders, deacons and trustees you have multiple groups with implied authority. Of course, this raises the question as to who is ultimately responsible for church leadership. When no one is in charge, everyone is in charge!

It is these kinds of structures that cause the best leaders to stay out of church leadership. They cannot lead and when they do, it is a very frustrating experience. And because no one desires to give up their power it is hard to change. In both scenarios, the power issue keeps people from making needed changes. We would not admit it, but it is true! And again, key decisions must be negotiated with multiple groups.

Confusing, overlapping and vague authority

Reading many church constitutions is a laborious activity because they are often full of confusing, overlapping and vague authority that makes it impossible to interpret who is responsible for what. Good governance documents should be simple, clear and designate lines of authority with precision. When this is not the case, the authors (well intentioned I am sure) set the congregation up for conflict and endless discussion.

If it is not simple, clear and delineate clear lines of authority it is a poor governance document and should be revised. Yet we resist revision because “you cannot change the bylaws.” Actually, you can since the bylaws serve the mission of the church rather than the church serving the bylaws. And you should.

What many don’t realize is that these kinds of poor governance structures keep leaders from leading and the church from moving forward. If you like the status quo this is a great strategy. If you care that the church is effective it is a terrible strategy. Often it takes the courage and diplomacy of a true leader to help others realize that their structures need to change if they want to be effective.

Let’s call poor governance systems for what they are and revise them for the sake of the gospel. 

The culture of your church staff directly impacts the culture of your congregation

How healthy is your church?

One of the leading indicators of that question's answer is the health of your staff culture. The culture of your staff is generally a microcosm of congregational culture, and whether good or bad, will ripple on the rest of the congregation. When I work with congregations who are struggling with significant issues, one of the first things I do is to get a handle on the culture of the staff. It will tell me a great deal.

The best way to understand the staff culture is to do a staff audit. These are 30 to 60-minute individual conversations with all staff with a carefully chosen series of open-ended questions - usually conducted by an independent third party that staff will feel free to open up with. Having completed many of these, I have learned that staff are willing to share honestly about the joys and challenges of working in their environment. The results of such an audit help senior leaders understand where they are doing well and where they could do better.

In this process, you can learn how empowered or controlled staff feel, whether they have what they need to do their jobs, whether there is alignment throughout the team regarding ministry direction if there is clarity around who the church is and where it is going if they are coached intentionally or left to their own devices if there is a collegial or competitive spirit and even the general happiness of staff in their work.

Here are some observations.

• Where staff are not empowered, volunteers in the congregation are not empowered either.
• Where there is openness among the team and the freedom to talk and share honest opinions and ideas, there is generally an open atmosphere in the congregation where people feel free to tell their stories without fear of censure. The opposite is also true. 
• A happy staff usually indicates a happy congregation.
• Leaders who control staff members often try to control people and ministries across the church.
• Where leaders allow unresolved issues to fester on staff, they also tend to allow the same in the congregation. 
• Leaders who don't shepherd and care for their staff often do not do so with the rest of the congregation.
• When there is a culture of grace on the team, you usually find that same culture within the congregation.

Much of staff culture reflects the commitments of the senior leader. The best leaders pay careful attention to the culture they create on their staff, knowing that what they build there will become the culture of the congregation as a whole. Self-absorbed or controlling leaders are more concerned about themselves and the church's image than they are about the health of their staff. The result can be a ministry that looks great on the outside with a significant lack of health on the inside. Many congregations fit that bill. This is true of some of the largest congregations in the country.

Staff turnover reflects dysfunction within the staff environment and its leadership. Healthy churches have low staff turnover and, interestingly, greater retention in the congregation. Where turnover is high, someone needs to pay attention and ask why. There are always reasons. 

The lesson: As it goes on staff, it goes to the congregation. Pay attention to your staff culture. That culture will ripple on the rest of the community in good ways and bad. Problems within the staff culture may also indicate problems in the congregation. Your culture is your brand.

Five ways a calendar can revolutionize your life

A critical principle each of us must learn is the value of time. Time is far more valuable than money because you can never get it back. Money comes and goes, but time just goes. Every time we place an obligation on our calendar, we write a "time check" that we cash on the day and time it is written for. What we often forget is that our calendar is a fabulous tool to help us use our time most wisely.

Here is something to think about. A calendar is not just a "time to do list" to remind us of everything we have committed to. But that is how we often use it. We dutifully put our obligations on our calendars so that we don't forget them, but that is not the primary purpose of a calendar. That is simply a to-do list with a time and place attached to it.

A Calendar, rightly used, is far more than this. It can be a fabulous tool to help us achieve our calling in life, our responsibilities at work, our marriage and family commitments, and all of those things that are of importance to us. It is not a "time to-do list." It is a sophisticated tool to help us achieve our goals in life. Let me explain.

Organizing our time
At its most simple, calendars help us organize the elements of our lives that are all time-constrained. Like the filing system for our email, a calendar helps us to organize our time because we believe that time is valuable. Anything of value is handled with care and stewarded. If time is valuable, we need to handle it with care and organization.

Prioritizing our activities
Not all activities are of equal value. But how do we ensure that we are focused on those activities of the greatest value? Here is a simple principle: Those things that are most important always go on our calendar before other things are added. This is true in our work, our family, our marriage or any other part of our life. This is far different than a "time to-do list." It actually helps us schedule our priorities first because we want to live intentionally rather than accidentally.

Evaluating our spending
Not monetary spending but "time" spending. Think of your financial decisions. An analysis of our bank statement can tell us not only where our money is going but also whether we are using our finances to achieve our financial priorities. If retirement is important, but we are putting only a small amount into our fund, our spending does not reflect our priorities. In the same way, our calendars tell us in real-time if we are actually spending time in a way that reflects our priorities. Thus, our calendar helps us to evaluate our lives and commitments.

One way to use your calendar to determine your "time" spending is to color code your commitments so that you have a visual picture of where you are spending your time. It is visual management for your life.

Aligning our time with our values
Values represent what is important to us. My marriage, for instance, is important to me. That means that my time commitments to my wife and the health of my marriage should be reflected on my calendar. If it is not, I need to realign my time priorities to align with my values.

Because our time commitments should reflect our values, wise people read their calendars often, and as they do, they ask themselves the question, "Am I spending my time in ways that reflect my values?" And "Where do I need to realign my "time" spending? It is helpful to take scheduled time each month to examine one's calendar and ask these important questions.

Choosing to say yes or no
How often do we have a problem saying no? When we should! Your calendar can help you determine whether you ought to say yes or no to commitments that come your way. A great way to do this is to develop the habit of saying, "Let me check my calendar and see if it fits" when asked to add something to your calendar. Don't answer on the fly. Rather, take a day or two, look at the time commitments you have, and give yourself the freedom to agree or say no on the basis of how it fits into your priorities. Don't cash time checks you don't want to!

One final thought. There is a video from Bill Gates making the rounds entitled "Busyness is the new stupid." I agree. Yet we fill our schedules to overflowing and, in the end, get too little rest, think time family time, and live with fatigue and frustration. Use your calendar to manage your time so that you don't live in the tyranny of the urgent - at least most of the time!

Six questions to ask in any reconciliation process

Trying to reconcile broken relationships is a tough job. In conflict, things are said, actions taken, motives judged, offenses given and received and by the time you are finished a great deal of damage has been done. Like divorce: If you were not enemies before the divorce you may well be when the contentious process is concluded. By that time, both parties see one another through a lens of suspicion, mistrust and often anger and even the most innocent actions are seen from a negative perspective. 

There is nothing easy about trying to bring peace to a broken relationship and those who try are to be commended. As Jesus said, Blessed are the peacemakers! It is a humbling, difficult process that involves our hearts, our minds and our future commitments. To say nothing of the necessity to forgive those who we believe have hurt us badly. In our humanity we want our pound of flesh even if we keep that private. 

In any reconciliation process it seems to me there are six questions that need to be explored. There is no guarantee as you enter such a process that reconciliation will be possible but working through these six questions gives it a chance. 

First: Do I truly want peace with the party I am in conflict with? Our natural response to that is "of course." But that is not necessarily true. Conflict brings with it pain and hurt and in the wake of that conflict it is often more comfortable to nurse our pain than to extend forgiveness for another's actions and ask for forgiveness for our part in the conflict. Often, one or both parties resist any reconciliation because they don't want to contemplate the forgiveness issue. 

Reconciliation is rarely successful until both parties desire to reconcile - to the extent that they can. Often this first question is the most difficult and requires the most work. No matter how bad the conflict, when both parties come to the conclusion they want peace, the outcome is usually positive.

Second: What are the issues? Because conflict creates relational chaos it is necessary to try to identify the issues that created the conflict and the further issues that ocurred during the conflict. Making a list of these issues helps to separate those issues from our emotions and give us a clearer picture of what happened and after it happened how one or both parties contributed to further issues. Usually it takes a third party to walk the two parties in conflict through this exercise - and those that come. 

Having identified the issues the third question: What can be resolved? When you can isolate the issues involved there are usually a number that can be resolved quickly. Often, they include assumptions one party made along the way regarding the actions of the other. Sometimes, a long period of conflict is found to have been the result of a simply misunderstanding that escalated because of incorrect assumptions. If two parties are open and humble, many issues can usually be resolved through honest conversation and careful listening.

The fourth question: What issues cannot be resolved? There are often issues that it is not possible to resolve. Often, because of the lens through which we see the opposing party and our inability to hear or believe their explanation. Sometimes the events are too murky and shrouded in emotion to resolve. This does not mean that these issues will never be resolved but only that they cannot be resolved at this time. Record these and leave them for another day or agree at some point to let them go. 

Question five: Where can forgiveness be extended or asked for? Here is where significant closure starts to take place. When we forgive we give up our offense and when we ask for the same we humble ourselves and admit that we too are fallible. Asking for forgiveness creates an atmosphere that breaks down barriers leading the other party to do the same. Asking and extending forgiveness often breaks the dam of animosity. It also often makes the issues that cannot be resolved mute. They no longer matter because a level of relational peace has been attained. 

Question six flows out of the other five: Can we agree to live in peace and without rancor? This is a decision to cease hostilities and agree to live at peace. This means that we will not speak ill of the other party, that we will no longer nurse anger or resentment and that we will lay down our animosity in exchange for peace. This can be a hard decision even after this process because it requires us to give up the bitterness we have nursed, the attitude of entitlement we have toward the hurt that has been inflicted on us and lay it all down. Like the first question this is an act of the will. 

None of this is easy. It is a choice and a hard choice but it brings amazing freedom and blessing. "Blessed are the peacemakers."

Creating cultures of organizational excellence
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