Ten suggestions for ministry policies

Policies are an important part of organizational structure but they can be put in place for the wrong reasons, hinder or help ministry and either protect or control. Here are some things to think about in regard to policies.

1. Policies should protect the organization from practices that could hurt it. Financial policies, for instance, are designed to minimize fraud or waste and to properly control spending. HR policies, likewise keep the ministry legal and protect its staff.

2. Policies should cut down on the number of decisions that need to be made. Rather than taking situations one by one, a policy means the decision can be made once rather than over and over.

3. Policies should not be used to control people who make unwise decisions. Reactionary policies usually hurt others in the organization. If there is a problem employee, deal with the individual rather than write a policy that impacts everyone.

4. Policies should serve people, not control people. Organizations that seek to control people through policies are unhealthy organizations. Policies are not meant to control but should empower staff in healthy ways.

5. Policies should be reviewed annually. It is amazing how many ministries have policies from years ago that make no sense in today's world. Review, add, and delete on an annual basis.

6. Policies should have a good rationale. If a policy cannot be explained easily it probably should not exist. 

7. Policies should be minimal to protect the organization but not restrict opportunity. Have as few policies as you need to protect the organization. 

8. Policies should be fair to everyone. Policies that carry advantage for some but disadvantage to others need to be carefully scrutinized. 

9. If you are writing policy find out what others have done so that you are not starting from scratch. Others have probably thought of things that you have not.

10. Communicate policies clearly. No one likes a surprise.

Moments of clarity - don't ignore them

One of the gifts God gives us from time to time are moments of clarity when something about life or God become crystal clear. It may be the goodness of God when He intervenes on our behalf, or a sinful pattern that He gets our attention on, a job we know we should give up or a family matter that grabs our attention. 

It is a moment when a bright light shines on our soul and we wake up to something that we had not experienced before.

Saul had a moment of clarity when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. David had a moment of clarity when Nathan confronted him regarding his sin. Moses had a moment of clarity at the burning bush. 

Moments of clarity are precious moments, holy moments when they  move us closer to God or point out something in our lives that demands our attention. The loss is when we either ignore them or forget them which we often do.

Think about the moments of clarity God has given you over the years and then consider whether you are living up to the clarity you were given in that moment. We become poorer when we ignore those moments when truth and understanding shine through. It may just be that God is speaking to us at that moment.

Pseudo or real spiritual transformation

Someone comes to Christ and we celebrate! As we should - Scripture says that parties occur in heaven when a new individual steps into the kingdom. Of course, this new believer comes with all the habits, behaviors and thinking of the newer nature and we desire to help them start to the journey toward spiritual maturity. At this point we face two choices and the choice we make will have a direct impact on the spiritual transformation or lack of it of this new believer.

Choice one is to quickly help this new believer understand what is acceptable and unacceptable as a Christ follower. What this generally includes are the grey areas of the Christian life where our brand of "Christianity" has made decisions about what is acceptable or not. I call this life or behavior modification. It is not based on an internal heart change but by the behavioral expectations of the group. The key component here is that we take personal responsibility to help them understand what is acceptable - or not.

The key problem is that behavior modification in itself has nothing to do with spiritual transformation and in fact may become a substitute for the transformation of the Holy Spirit in one's life. In fact, behavior modification can be nothing less than a legalistic way of looking at following Jesus: I do so by this set of rules.

Choice two is to quickly get this new believer into fellowship with other Christ followers, a good church where Jesus is proclaimed, and to encourage them to start reading God's word and applying it to their lives as they see application. Coupled with an active prayer life and the example and encouragement of other Christ followers who rather than playing the role of the Holy Spirit (this is what you need to do) encourage the new believer to see what God has to say on issues of life and make application from His convictions. 

In this case, there is also behavior change but not because it is what others suggest but because it is what God desires. It comes from the inside (the conviction of the Holy Spirit and a desire to follow Him) rather than the outside (what others believe they should do).

We often overestimate our responsibility with new believers and underestimate the Holy Spirit's ability to speak to them, convict them, encourage them, and transform their hearts. We can convince someone to transform their behavior but only the Holy Spirit can transform their hearts leading to authentic inside out change. 

When our focus with new believers is on behavior modification to fit our Christian group or even our own personal convictions we engage in a pseudo transformation. It may look good on the outside but it does not emanate from the Holy Spirit's work but rather from our own. It is no different than the pseudo transformation of the Pharisees.

When we focus on helping people embrace a followership of Jesus, based on what the Holy Spirit teaches and convicts them of, we are engaging in real transformation from the inside out. As we model that kind of lifestyle for them, we become an encouragement for them to follow. When we point them continually to the Scriptures and a life of prayer we point them to the One who is the source of their lives and the authority of their lives.

The first is all about us and the second is all about Him.

For those fifty and over: think convergence

Much of our lives are spent learning who we are, what our gifting is, where our strengths and weaknesses are and through the experiences of life and work finding out our strongest lane. 

Ironically, it is often in our fifties and sixties and beyond that we have our greatest impact. No longer running on raw energy we are living with greater wisdom, doing less but accomplishing more and seeing greater results. Hopefully we are also comfortable in our own skin with nothing we need to prove and nothing to lose. It is a good place to be.

There is also the greatest possibility of convergence in our lives where our biography, experience, training, gifts and passions come together in a powerful combination for maximum influence and impact. I call this convergence and if you are fifty or over I would encourage you to think about what convergence would look like for you and then ask whether you can arrange your life and work in a way that helps you get there.

We accumulate activities and responsibilities in our personal and work lives over time and often don't take the time to shed those that are old, or that are not truly in our lane of effectiveness. It is like the stuff in our garage that just sits there, of no use to us anymore but we continue to let it accumulate.

Convergence comes when we are able to let go of those things that someone else can do and we are not truly gifted in to focus on areas of passion, skill and greatest impact. I often ask ministry leaders in their fifties what their greatest passion is and then, how could you arrange your life and work so that you spend the greatest amount of time in those areas of passion? Often they have never realized that they could actually do that.

But this is not just for leaders. It is for all of us who want to make an impact in whatever area of life we inhabit. We can declutter our lives for greater focus in areas where God uses us the most. And this is where we find our greatest joy and satisfaction anyway. 

Disciplines, Habits and Lifestyle

The concept of "discipline" in our lives evokes various responses but for many it is not an overwhelmingly positive concept. I prefer the concept of "disciplined practices" of those activities that will lead to  the kind of lifestyle that I believe Jesus will be happy with. We either live accidentally or intentionally and there is no intentionality without a set of disciplined practices.

The value of well thought out disciplined practices is that over time they become habits. Habits can be our ally in living a Christ centered life. King David had the disciplined practice of praying in the morning and the evening. It became a habit and you see it reflected in numerous Psalms. His disciplined practice of memorizing God's word became a habit which is also reflected in the Psalms. These habits that lead to a God honoring life start with a decision to a certain discipline and rhythm in our lives which practiced long enough become instinctual.

Many Christ followers wonder why they don't make more traction in their Christian life. Often, it is because they have not considered the intentionality of healthy practices that become habits and which in turn become our lifestyle. Doing something often enough - good or bad- actually rewires the connections in our brain to make the practice habitual. It is our brains way of operating in a lean fashion. It can work for us or against us. In unhealthy addictions it works against us. In developing healthy practices - which takes intentional effort on our part - it works for us.

In his writings, the Apostle Paul talks about old habits and practices that need to be discarded and new habits and practices that need to be put on. With the help of the Holy Spirit and our own discipline we can indeed do that. But it does not happen by itself - it happens when we focus on disciplined practices long enough that they become habitual and which in turn inbed those healthy practices into our lifestyle. 

Think about the habits of your life. Which of them are contributing to your followership of Jesus and which of them are distracting or even undermining that followership. Then ask the question: What disciplined practices would change the equation of they became habits and then became part of your lifestyle?

Accountability for missionaries - rethinking the paradigm

It is time to rethink how we hold missionaries our churches support accountable and how we collect that information. What usually happens today is that every church has their own forms that need to be filled out annually creating significant extra and unnecessary work for mission personnel. 

I recently had a senior ReachGlobal leader mention that he was working on an eight page evaluation from one of the churches that supports him. Now consider doing the same for the other nine major supporting churches and you get an idea of what it looks like to satisfy the needs of multiple churches.

Many of the accountability paradigms for missionaries grew up in a day when they worked relatively alone and had little direct supervision from their mission organization. Today for most organizations it looks very different. All personnel, for instance in ReachGlobal operate with annual Key Result Areas, an Annual Ministry Plan that is connected to the team that they work with. In addition, they have a monthly mentoring/coaching meeting with their supervisor and an annual review.

In ReachGobal, for instance, there is actually a higher level of both empowerment and accountability than is found in staffs of many churches. A best practice for mission committees is to find out what the reporting structure is for the mission their missionaries work for and coordinate the information they ask for with what the mission requires so that there are not unnecessary redundancies in reporting that a staff member needs to do.

If mission committees asked for three things – the job description, the annual plan and what was accomplished on that plan they would have a great deal of information. And, it would cut down on the duplication of systems that missionaries must satisfy for multiple churches that support them.

The additional complication with generic forms to be filled out is that it does not take into account the actual job of individual missionaries. The three pieces of information above are what we use to evaluate a staff member so if a church asked for the same three pieces of information it would have more relevant information than they often get without requiring their missionary to do extra and unnecessary work.

Operate without a church board covenant at your risk!

I have recently been reminded by several conversations how important it is to have a board covenant that spells out how board members relate to one another and work together. It takes only one board member to cause significant chaos in a church and on a board when acceptable behaviors are violated.

Verbal agreements about board behaviors are not enough. They can be forgotten and disputed. Written covenants that are agreed to and signed by board members clearly delineate what is expected of those who are serving as leaders. It is hard for other board members to ignore behaviors that are clearly defined, in written form, and signed by all involved.  

Here is an example of such a covenant from my book High Impact Church Boards.

Knowing that we, as leaders of this congregation, must model godly relationships before one another and the church, we commit ourselves to:

• Pray daily for fellow members of the leadership team and for the ministry of the church
• Never speak ill of any member of the team
• Resolve broken relationships personally and quickly
• Forgive one another when offended and hold no grudges
• Always support the decisions of this board once they are made unless a biblical, moral issue is at stake
• Care for one another when a member is hurting
• Always be honest in board deliberations and never devious in seeking personal agendas
• Never betray the confidence of the board
• Hold one another accountable for this covenant and agree to step off the board if there is a regular violation of these agreements.

The most crucial piece of the board covenant is the last one. When there is a violation of acceptable practices, the rest of the board will hold the one(s) who have violated the covenant accountable for their behavior. 

Why? Unhealthy boards compromise the health of the church! Board behavior is the model for congregational behavior. Boards that don't hold one another accountable for agreed-upon behaviors cannot hold others responsible for their behaviors. And it takes only one unaccountable board member to poison the board and cause chaos in a congregation. There are numerous stories of congregational pain and conflict when a board member violates acceptable practices, compounded when the rest of the board does not hold them accountable.

Too often, we ignore board covenants, assuming that everyone will behave. Some don't. Too often, we ignore violations as not a big deal: They are! Overseers are told to protect the flock: it starts with themselves. Ignore board covenants and problematic behavior to your own peril.