Last week I considered who makes up a board and training being a necessity for the members to live effectively into their role – as helpers. 

                Today, many times we go to a secular model for our church boards rather than a biblical one, and we see the church board as a board of directors which has as a major part of its job to direct and evaluate the pastor.  Perhaps even more that than helping the pastor.  Moses enlisted the first elders and he asked them to be helpers.  There's no where in the text that they are appointed to be his Board of Directors evaluating him.  Not that he couldn't have used that.  Every leader should have this. 

                 Imagine all those boards above, comprised of those particular people, not helping the banker, dentist, and pastor but directing them and evaluating them.  Not that that couldn’t effectively happen or shouldn’t happen.  I’m not saying that.  But again it should not happen without real training in how directing and evaluating and how banking or dentistry or ministry really works. 

One very simple maxim for a board undertaking such a role is, “If you haven’t said clearly how it ought to be, you have less right to evaluate how it is.”  In other words, have the board members and, say, the pastor, ahead of time agreed to what the duties are, what the results desired are?  If not, then what can happen is that evaluation happens against whatever the desire de jour is or whatever the last performance gap was.  “You haven’t given us enough fellowship events.”  There may be a felt need for those events but was that actually asked for?  If no, it isn’t a fair evaluation.  

Usually, we find that our supervisors evaluate.  Sometimes it is peer review.  Sometimes it 360 degrees.  So a banking board, a peer group of dentists, and, in our case, a presbytery would be sane to have doing this role.  Don't you think?

A Board is a Board When ...

                Imagine a banker being given a board (as in Board of Directors) to help him or her with the bank.  The people are housewives, high school coaches, mechanics, and doctors.  They all say, “I’ve touched money.”  They say it with a sense of this qualifying them for being on the board. 

                Imagine a dentist being given a board to help him or her with the dental practice.  The people are plumbers, software engineers, and building contractors.  They all say, “I’ve got teeth and I’ve brushed my teeth.”  They say it with a sense of this qualifying them for being on the board. 

                Imagine a pastor being given a board to help him or her with the church ministry.  The people are lawyers, retired painters, and computer consultants.  They all say, “I’m a Christian.”  They say it with a sense of this qualifying them for being on the board. 

                In each case, the banker, the dentist, and the pastor, may truly be assisted by a perspective that is novice to that particular industry.   Indoctrination has its perils for the professionals.  Wasn’t it groupthink that had space scientists trying to invent a pen that could write without gravity when someone not caught in that suggested using a pencil?  There is always the value of fresh eyes.  There is a consumer and layman’s orientation that is invaluable. 

                But there is also a need for both training and differentiation.  Differentiation, the professional banker has a deeper and wider and more nuanced understanding of money generally than those who just have had dollar bills in their wallets.  Same thing with the dentist who has looked into hundreds of mouths.  Even true with a pastor.  And training those board  members to know some of what the 24x7 professionals know, will help them be real helpers. 

                Pastors, do elder training.  It’ll help you, them, and the whole church.  

What is a Good Pastor?

Albin Institute consultant and author, Roy Oswald, has an exercise in his book Making Your Church More Inviting in which he poses choice points.  They are choices between the good and the best in terms of what will help a church grow.  For example, if a pastor has only time to do one what should he or she do

·         Visit more shut-ins or prepare a better sermon?

·         Attend a wedding reception or go on a retreat with a parish staff?

·         Call on prospective members or conduct a training session for church officers?

·         Visit a bereaved family or help two church officers resolve a conflict?

·         Make a hospital call on a fringe member or attend a continuing education event?

·         Give pastoral counseling to members or attend a planning event with officers?

·         Call on parishioners or recruit leaders for church event?

·         Attend an activity with parish youth or critique a meeting with a church officer?

This is not a both/and but an either/or choice that is posed.  It is posed for both the pastor and the congregation.  It’s a problem  if the pastor chooses one and the congregation chooses another (and don’t think this doesn’t really happen). 

Most of the time, unless they are familiar with delegation, the church opts for that choice which is comforting and shows the pastor as, well, pastoral.  We invest in “pastoral” the meaning of social, relational, person-centered.  These are good and important.  “Pastoral” can also have invested in it the meaning of leader, trainer, maker of tough decisions, pulpiteer.  Typically, however, we instantly think, at least this is what I have found in my experience, of pastors as those who call on members and get to the hospital.  If you do this well, you are a good pastor.  If the church doesn’t grow because you don’t multiply yourself and deputize others, that’s okay, you’re still a good pastor because you called on shut-ins and noticed everyone who was sick.  It’s an approach, and not a bad one, but one that sees member care more naturally rather than organizational development.  However, at the end of the day it really is going to take both for a church to succeed.  Let’s stretch the meaning of pastoral so that this happens.

Strategic Value

If a custodian has been employed by a church for twenty years, and if he or she has been given yearly cost-of-living increases, his or her salary could be a good percent of the personnel budget (especially, if the church is small).  Bring in a new pastor with a fresh seminary degree and it’s conceivable that the new pastor’s salary is pretty close to the “tenured” custodian.   Someone could argue, with reasonableness, that the custodian’s strategic value to the organization is high.  Who else is going to turn on the furnace on cold mornings and chilled parishioners are no good, right?  But when we talk about the weightiness of decisions for the organization’s rise or fall, the issues of confidentiality, the interface with the public, the connection with the key mission of the organization, the number of dollars managed, … we can get a sense of how important a position is to an organization, apart from who is in the position or how long the post has been filled.  The higher the importance, the more pay there should be.  The lower, the less.  Have you weighted the positions in your organization by the seriousness and strategic value?