Most church board meetings are filled with “business items.” Decisions need to be made, proposals to consider, reports to receive. Yet the primary focus of the Church should be people and seeing lives changed by the Gospel.
So, here is an idea to help keep the focus on people and encourage the hearts of board members: invite someone to come and share their story of how life is different because of Jesus Christ.
For example, the agenda was full for the elders at Christ Covenant Church near Charlotte, N.C. However, just days before, one of their elders, Sam Wilson, was diagnosed with advanced cancer throughout his body. Sam had to be wheeled into the meeting in a wheel chair.
Church board meetings can be a time to find encouragement, gain valuable insight from everyone and set a tone for excellence throughout the church.
He and his wife, Harriet, shared the wonderful reality of Christ in their lives, in the midst of the worst trial they had ever faced. That night, the business items were put into proper perspective as tears were shed, prayers were offered and praise was sung. And this was in a Presbyterian church, not exactly known for being overly emotional.
Perhaps there is a couple whose marriage has been restored, or a person who recently came to faith in Christ. Have them come and share their story with the board members. Everyone will be encouraged, Christ will be honored and the meeting will take on a new tone having been freshly reminded of the power of Christ.
Do Things Together
Do something to promote your church board members getting to know each other in a whole new setting—do a ministry project together. Being together, outside of the normal business meetings, will create informal conversations. Board members will relate to each other on a whole different level.
Plus, doing a ministry project together will involve your board members where they should be in the first place—doing ministry.
Here are some project ideas. Work on a Habitat for Humanity house together. Become a work crew to repair a parishioner’s home. Do a special project on the church property. Do a car wash with the teenagers to raise money for a missions trip. Have a workday at the home of a needy family.
You get the idea. Be creative. It will also be a blessing to the congregation to see their church leadership working together on a project.
Train, Empower Members
You may have had some initial training for your board members, but what are you doing for ongoing training? An effective church board continues to learn and grow.
Bridges Church near Los Angeles has an annual board training budget. Once a year pastor Jeff Timblin arranges for some type of training to help equip, empower and educate the church board.
However, your budget may be tight. There are other options. If you have a special speaker on a Sunday, ask if he would be willing to meet with your church board that afternoon for a time of conversation and training.
For instance, Steve Douglass, president of Campus Crusade for Christ, spoke at my home church. It would have been a great opportunity to have a mini-training with elders on how to turn conversations into opportunities to share ones faith.
Investing in the board shows them that they are appreciated and vital. Also, board members many times find that what they learn in a training session can be helpful in their work away from the church.
Encourage Discussion
You may have heard that in a group 20 percent of the people talk 80 percent of the time. My observation of church boards is that 20 percent of the people talk all the time and 80 percent of the people don’t say a thing. Yet, people in the “silent 80 percent” often have some of the wisest input and best ideas.
Here is a way to get 100 percent of the board members involved and contributing—break your board into small groups of 3-4 to discuss an issue. Then everyone is sharing ideas and offering opinions. The key is to have every group report back to the whole what conclusions, ideas or suggestions came out of the group. Everyone then feels they contributed and were heard.
Trinity Presbyterian in Charlottesville, VA had grown over 15 years from a church plant of a few families, into a church averaging 1,000 each Sunday. The church board also grew from less then 10 to nearly 25.
The discussion dynamics had changed significantly because of the increased size. The open forum approach had become frustrating and unwieldy. Once they saw the effectiveness of the small group discussion technique modeled during a training session, they latched onto it quickly.
Self Evaluation Effective
People are used to performance evaluations at work, whether in the marketplace or in the church. However, few church or nonprofit boards evaluate themselves. Why is that? Somehow volunteers seem to be off limits, maybe because they are donating their time. Also, many wonder who does the evaluating. And of course, what person really wants to sit down with a volunteer and tell them how they are doing.
The best way to do a performance evaluation of board members is to ask board members to evaluate themselves. That’s right—do self-evaluations. Here is the key (which is patterned after the board evaluation forms in the NextLevel Leadership workshops for church and nonprofit boards):
- Establish the criteria or standard on which the members should be evaluated. This is probably the most important step. People want to know, “What’s expected of me?” Then they can evaluate how they think they are doing.
- Create a scale of ABCDF, or 1-5, or 1-7. One end of the scale is high. The other end is low. Board members circle the number or letter that best reflects where they think they are on each standard.
- Make sure board members hand in his or her self-evaluation to someone. Either the chair, pastor or someone else.
- The most important step is to personally follow up with each board member and review their self-evaluation with them. Without this step, then the process has no real significance. If they are doing well, then a phone call may be enough. If the board members do not rate themselves high, then maybe it would be good to meet face to face to discuss their evaluation.
A church board can also evaluate its overall functioning and performance as a whole.
It is good to do the self-evaluation and board evaluation once a year. In that way board members are reminded annually that they are accountable, there is a standard, and excellence is a value.
Church board meetings can be a time to find encouragement, gain valuable insight from everyone, and set a tone for excellence throughout the church. Let me know what works for you. I’d welcome hearing from you.
Bruce Johnson is president of NextLevel Leadership in Charlotte, N.C. He specializes in working with CEOs, senior pastors, executive boards and leadership teams. The NextLevel Leadership Series is a complimentary resource written for the benefit of leaders in nonprofit organizations and churches. Please feel free to forward this article to other leaders with compliments from Bruce Johnson.
