Removing Roadblocks to Board Unity

My stomach was churning as I turned over in bed. I just couldn't keep my mind from replaying the meeting.

Another sleepless night, I thought, eyes wide open. Why does this happen every month? The ritual torment had to stop, but as long as our board meetings were like tonight's, I knew it wouldn't.

We'd begun with perfunctory prayer and devotions. Jim tried hard to minister to our spirits while most of the group was casually leafing through the financial statistics. A few stared into space.

Following our usual round of reports, we moved on to the evening debates. This time we were considering two possible purchases: a new Communion tablecloth and tires for the church-owned pastor's car.

The tablecloth brought a long and petty discussion. The tires sparked a full-scale argument. Two men squared off about the relative merits of new tires versus retreads. I felt the whole discussion was misdirected; I didn't want or need the car in the first place.

Now wide awake in the dark, I kept thinking: We have to find a way to replace our posturing and battling with a new spirit of teamwork and cooperation.

Eventually we did find a way. In the process I learned an important lesson. Most of the confrontation and divisiveness within our board was not rooted in the board members themselves. It was rooted in our board's structure.

Like many other churches, we had unwittingly set up ourselves for disunity.

When I learned to recognize and remove these structural roadblocks to unity, harmony increased. Here are four of the roadblocks and what we did to remove them.

Meeting in the Wrong Place

When I first came to the church, we held our worship services in a high-school cafeteria. Our monthly board meetings took place in my office, a large, refurbished garage.

On the first Thursday night of each month, I witnessed a mysterious transformation. What had earlier in the day been a place of study and prayer suddenly turned into a battleground of ideas and personalities. Members who had been warm and friendly on Sunday turned critical and petty on Thursday. People who took copious notes of everything I said in the pulpit now questioned everything I said in the board meeting.

I gave little thought to the effect of our environment on the meetings. The chairs were uncomfortable. The lighting was poor and the room a little cold, but though far from ideal, the conditions seemed no worse than the sterile board rooms and long conference tables in my previous churches.

Then one day, in desperation, I suggested we meet at my home. I hoped the ambiance might help.

When we began meeting in my home, members' body language, terminology, and even dress subtly changed. Everyone seemed to relax. Rather than squaring off across a table, we now sat on couches and chairs. When meetings were over, people began to stay and talk rather than quickly leave.

This switch paid the quickest dividends of any change we made. When a board meets in an office or board room, it is surrounded by symbols of the corporate world, where confrontation and competition are expected. A home, on the other hand, is usually identified with warmth, cooperation, and friendship.

There are times when it is best to meet around a conference table, particularly when we want to focus on a specific task, such as budgeting or laying long-range plans. Yet we've found most of a board's work can be completed effectively in the more intimate setting of a home, even when the board is large.

As I've studied other churches, I've become convinced meeting in the wrong place is one of our most common mistakes. Many boards meet in cramped, uncomfortable, or poorly lit rooms. Others gather in cold and sterile environments that practically call out for confrontation. Doing so places an unnecessary roadblock in front of board unity.

Not Enough Focus on Relationships

Our tendency to downplay the building of relationships erected a second roadblock to unity.

I opened one board meeting with a series of "getting to know me" questions. The next morning over breakfast, our chairman informed me that elder meetings were not the proper time for such nonsense. "It's just too inefficient. We have other times and places for socializing."

This "meetings exist for business and business only" outlook meant little time was spent developing relationships. Cultivating trust in the absence of quality relationships proved to be extremely difficult.

To get around this roadblock, I began to look for ways to make sure board members spent more social time together.

First I scheduled an all-day elder retreat. While traveling together in vans, stopping for breakfast on the way, and meeting in a different setting, our sense of unity and togetherness blossomed. We laughed as a die-hard union man and a top-level manager exchanged teasing barbs. We listened intently as one man explained the frustrations and pressures he had been feeling at work. For most of us, it was the first time we had any idea he was seriously considering a move. By the end of the day we had experienced more laughter, kidding, and deep personal dialogue than in all our previous meetings combined.

We now go on a retreat twice a year. Along with building better relationships, these times have consistently produced our best brainstorming sessions and most insightful critiques of ministry, staff, and programs.

Once I began seriously looking for ways to build relationships, even our refreshment breaks offered an opportunity. I simply stopped serving food and coffee at the beginning or end of our meetings. Instead, I served them in the middle of the meeting during a fellowship break.

Prior to this, a few board members arrived just after meetings began and left immediately after they were finished. Rushing in and out, these men rarely shared in the casual conversations needed to cultivate friendship. Yet they were usually the very members most in need of better relationships.

With a refreshment break in the middle of our meetings, every member participated in the small talk and pleasantries that accompany food and drink. No longer could a board member easily avoid social contact with the others. It became increasingly difficult for the loner to be alone.

These opportunities for casual conversation laid the groundwork for a deepening appreciation and understanding of one another. As these developed, a growing sense of trust and unity soon followed.

Not Enough Meetings

A third roadblock was our tendency to meet as infrequently as possible. In our busy world, the last thing most people want is another meeting. Our board members were no exception.

Each summer someone would suggest we skip a meeting because vacation plans and the resulting schedule conflicts made it difficult to get everyone together. We were always quick to agree. With a summer break, we often met fewer than twelve times a year.

While this may have been great for freeing up busy schedules, it played havoc with our board's unity.

Like many other pastors, I had often wondered why church board conflict was so common. One day it dawned on me that most of our conflicts didn't spring from issues as much as our different backgrounds and frames of reference. When a corporate executive, a self-employed contractor, a middle manager, and a school administrator get together, it's no wonder they see things differently. Their educational and professional backgrounds give them radically different points of view. Similar terms and phrases take on totally opposite meanings.

For instance, the man who argued for retreads on the church car was a long-time blue-collar worker. He and his wife shopped at garage sales. The man who wanted the new tires was a former mayor; he was used to overseeing the expenditure of millions. I don't think he'd been to a garage sale or bought anything second-hand in his life.

Without adequate time together, it was impossible to understand or appreciate the unique background and frame of reference each member brought to the board.

Researchers of group dynamics have discovered an important principle: "Whenever a group of people increase the amount of interaction with one another, there is a corresponding increase in their regard and appreciation for one another." I observed this phenomenon many times during my days as a youth pastor when special retreats or conferences pulled a group together.

To help resolve the conflicting frames of reference on the board, I did something I never thought I would do. I added an extra monthly meeting.

I called it a "shepherding meeting." No votes or business decisions were allowed. Instead, we focused on prayer, team-building exercises, instruction in practical ministry, seeking a common vision, and other important concerns we often neglected under the pressure of completing our regularly scheduled business.

At first, these meetings met some resistance. While attendance at the business meetings was perfect, a couple of board members showed up only sporadically at the shepherding meetings. But within one year the problems with absenteeism had disappeared.

By making these extra meetings permanent, I insured long-term benefits. I had previously participated in many board retreats and special meetings designed to renew or solidify a church board. Their impact was almost always short-lived, lasting at most until the membership of the board changed. These ongoing meetings have allowed our board members to continue building a common frame of reference even as the membership of the board has changed.

I believe larger church boards can particularly benefit from this added meeting. Their size limits the number of face-to-face encounters and makes it difficult for members to develop common points of reference. In my experience, the larger the board, the more likely it is to schedule fewer (and longer) meetings in the hope of enabling everyone to attend. No wonder larger boards have lower levels of unity.

Careless Selection Process

Finally, we had structured ourselves for disunity in our selection process.

In our early days, we focused exclusively on spiritual qualifications when selecting board members. While it is still our primary consideration, we have begun to ask some new questions: What effect will this person have upon the unity of our board? How will this person fit in with the ministry team we've developed?

This does not mean potential board members must agree with everything the board has previously decided. It does mean they must be in agreement with the basic thrust of the current ministry. We've found there are good and even godly people who should not serve on our board. Their lack of harmony with our stated goals and direction makes conflict inevitable. Crusaders who want to radically change the direction of ministry or ride a personal hobbyhorse only handicap the ability of the board to carry out its work.

In our quest for unity, we were forced to face a fundamental question: Is the primary purpose of a church board representation or leadership? The answer significantly impacts a board's potential for unity.

When the board's primary purpose was viewed as representing all the opinions and desires of the congregation, we found no legitimate reason to exclude those bent on individual crusades for change. As church members, they had a "right" to push for their viewpoints.

On the other hand, when our purpose was seen as discerning God's leading, rather than "representing" the congregation, there was no need to insure that every holder of a minority opinion was placed in leadership.

Boards that see themselves as representatives rather than leaders have a harder time achieving and maintaining unity. Each minority opinion becomes sacred in the name of pluralism, democracy, and congregationalism. When leadership is the primary task, however, what counts is the ability to work in concert with the general philosophy and direction of the board.

When I began lobbying for a change from "representation" to "leadership," I was amazed by the inconsistent thinking of some resisters. Business people who would have decried a mixture of divergent business philosophies on their company's board of directors turned around and championed pluralism and heterogeneity within the church's leadership board.

Gaining acceptance of the idea of leadership rather than representation took a couple of years to complete. Then we found ourselves facing still another difficult question: Who would be willing to speak out when the nominating committee put forth names of people who would undercut board unity?

It seems everyone agrees that Scripture forbids putting a contentious person in a position of church leadership. Yet many times I've seen just such people appointed or elected to the board.

In one church I watched as a particularly contentious and critical (but highly influential) individual was nominated to serve on the board. He disagreed with just about every ministry decision we had made in the previous three years. When his name was first proposed, one of the other pastors leaned over and whispered, "They've got to be kidding! He'll make a mess of everything!"

I nodded. All of us on the staff knew what his election would mean. We moaned to one another, but not one of us spoke to the nominating committee. We all waited for someone else to say the obvious. A few weeks later he was elected to a three-year term, and, true to form, he became a major source of problems. Mercifully, his term ended one year early when he left the church in a huff.

To avoid this type of situation, someone had to muster the courage to speak up. I finally decided that I, as senior pastor, must lead the way. As long as I refused to speak, no one else would either.

I still remember the first time I vetoed a nomination. A godly man with a philosophy of leadership totally different from the rest of the board had been suggested to the committee by some members of the congregation. When the nominating committee came to his name, an uncomfortable silence followed. He was a good man who had faithfully served the church in the past, yet every one of us knew he wouldn't fit in with the team. The problems would be philosophical, not spiritual, but problems nonetheless.

Finally I swallowed hard and said, "I don't think we should recommend him; we'll spend all our meetings going around in circles."

That broke a barrier. The real issue was now on the table. A couple others spoke in agreement. Another questioned if the differences were all that great.

After a brief discussion we unanimously decided to nominate someone else. That consensus would have remained unspoken and unacted upon had I not spoken up. Since then, others have learned to speak out. No longer am I the only one, or even the first, to give a negative report.

We've never had a problem with confidentiality because we expect those on our nominating committee to have the maturity to know "what is said here remains here." Even so, we try to be careful with what we say and how we say it. I certainly don't want everything I say repeated. But if it happens, I can live with the consequences if I have spoken truthfully and weighed carefully my words.

Choosing to get involved in the selection process can be risky for a pastor. A pastoral veto can lead to great hurt and increased animosity. My own decision to become an outspoken member of the nominating committee contradicted the advice of some of my most trusted advisers. But after careful, prayerful consideration, I did so anyway. I figured I had little to lose. I'd already witnessed and experienced the results of silence too many times.

The Unified Board

Removing these roadblocks to unity radically changed our board. One particular incident stands out in my mind whenever I reflect upon the contrast between those early confrontive days and the unity we now experience.

A young father and I sat talking in my office. A change in his wife's work schedule and other commitments had made it impossible for him to serve on the board during the coming year.

As he told me his decision, his eyes filled with tears. I knew him well, but I had never seen him cry before. He wasn't the type.

When he finally spoke, he said simply, "I'm going to miss the gang."

Though disappointed by his decision, I couldn't help myself; as soon as he had left my office I let out a shout, leaned back in my chair, and sat there with a silly grin. We had definitely turned the corner.

Yes, unity is possible. It can be developed even in boards that have never known its joy before. Board meetings can actually become an enjoyable and fulfilling part of ministry-if we first learn to get the roadblocks out of the way.

Larry W. Osborne is pastor of North Coast Evangelical Free Church in Oceanside, California.