In the front of the room stood an old blackboard filled with names, each a potential nominee for the deacon board. There must have been twenty-five on the list, more than enough to fill the eight slots. Then, just as the meeting was about to close, someone suggested a name. Dutifully, the chairman put it on the board.
Immediately, one of the other staff pastors leaned over to me and whispered, “They’ve got to be kidding!”
I nodded. All of us on the staff knew what his election would mean: trouble!
He was a man of great personal charisma, an expert at “God talk.” But behind the scenes he was contentious and critical. To make matters worse, he was a disciple and personal friend of one of the most rigid Bible teachers in the nation. Always quick to notice an interpretation or practice that differed from his favorite scholar’s, he was apt to see a conspiracy behind any decision he didn’t like.
We waited for the senior pastor, the chairman of the board, or someone to speak up, but no one did. Apparently, they figured it wasn’t worth the risk of further alienating him and his friends. Besides that, his name was at the bottom of the list, too far down to have a serious chance of making the final ballot.
But one month later, there the man was, one of the final nominees presented at our annual congregational meeting. His name had worked its way up the list when many of those ahead of him had been unwilling or unable to run for office. Sure enough, he was elected to a three-year term, during which he became a major source of division. Fortunately, his term ended early when he left the church in a huff over a decision he didn’t like.
Similar scenarios are played out every year in churches across the land. Each time, the unity of the board, and often of the entire church, suffers. While we usually direct our frustration at the person who causes the problem, the real culprit is actually quite different: a faulty selection process.
Three Key Questions
I’ve found only one cure. We have to “guard the gate.” It’s too late to try to build unity after we’ve allowed a contentious or divisive person on the board. The damage has been done. At that point, the best we can hope for is damage control, not unity.
But guarding the gate is delicate and dangerous. To pull it off effectively, some key questions first need to be answered:
1. What is the board’s primary purpose?
2. What are our minimum qualifications?
3. Who should guard the gate?
Representation or Leadership?
Is the primary purpose of a church board representation or leadership? Our answer has a significant impact on our potential for unity.
Many, if not most, churches have opted for the representative model. It fits well with our American democratic principles, as well as one of our most cherished doctrines: the priesthood of believers. It insures that everyone has a chance to be heard, not just those who are powerful or well connected. And it is one way to guarantee the board stays in touch with the needs and desires of the congregation.
But a board of representatives also has its negatives. To begin with, the emphasis on representing the various interest groups in the body makes it difficult to justify keeping anyone off the board. From a representative perspective, any church member, no matter how divisive, has a right to be part of the leadership.
Second, it’s harder to come to a consensus when faced with a controversial issue. By definition, a representative board seeks to protect minority opinions; this often results in a stalemate rather than a solution.
Third, members of a representative board also can start to see themselves as lobbyists representing a specific constituency. Jack may become the champion of traditional worship, while John defends the youth. Meanwhile, Susan fights for the rights of the Sunday school. Forgotten in the fray can be the most important thing: finding and carrying out God’s will.
For these reasons, and more, I’ve become a strong advocate of a leadership-oriented board. Compared to representative boards, leadership boards have a completely different agenda. Rather than figure out what everybody wants them to do, the members of a leadership board have only one focus: finding the best course of action and following it. They are more concerned with leading than responding to every whim of the congregation. When faced with a difficult decision, they ask first, not “How will people react?” but “What does God want us to do?”
This is not to say a leadership board is unresponsive to the needs and concerns of the body. On the contrary, good leaders are always in touch with their people. But a good undershepherd never forgets he works for the Chief Shepherd, not the sheep.
Leadership boards have an easier time guarding the gate because they don’t assume every crusader who wants to radically change the direction of ministry has a right to lead. From such a board’s perspective, when it comes time to select board members, it doesn’t matter whether a person represents a significant portion of the body. What matters is whether that person can help the board fulfill its primary objective: knowing and implementing God’s will.
Someone like the contentious nominee I described earlier would have no place in a leadership board. Despite his popularity, his record of taking every issue to the mat and castigating all who disagreed with him as heretics would be enough reason to exclude him.
Leadership boards also have an easier time coming to a consensus when faced with a difficult issue. The reason? They have a common goal-discovering the will of the Lord-rather than conflicting individual goals of defending the rights of special-interest groups.
When I came to North Coast, our board leaned heavily to the representative side of the scale. As a result, whenever we dealt with a controversial issue, the first thing most board members wanted to know was, “What will they think?” They represented a nebulous group of people who might complain if changes were made. No one knew who they were, and they seldom actually complained. But they were powerful; we spent a great deal of time every meeting seeking to keep them happy.
Now that we lean more heavily to the leadership side of the scale, instead of first asking what they would want us to do, we ask first what God would want us to do. Not only is this a better question; it’s a tremendous unity builder. It undercuts any tendency to see ourselves as lobbyists, defending the rights of the young or the old, charismatics or non-charismatics, or any other group in the church.
I envision our board members as lobbyists for God. I often remind them that their job is to discern and carry out God’s will, not the congregation’s. Yet, ironically, the more we’ve moved in this direction, the greater our congregational unity and support have become.
For instance, when we changed our worship style, a number of folks objected. But since our leadership team was convinced that God wanted us to make the change and it was best for the church as a whole, we kept on moving. If we’d had a representative board, we’d probably still be debating the relative merits of contemporary and traditional music. As it was, once we made the decision, a few people who felt strongly left, but the vast majority went along with the change, particularly once they saw that our leadership team was united. It was enough to convince me that most people prefer to follow a loving and united group of leaders rather than bickering representatives-even when the decisions aren’t always what they would choose.
What Are We Looking For?
Even if we’re convinced that board members should serve as leaders rather than representatives, there is still another important question that needs to be answered before we can guard the gate effectively. What will be our minimum qualifications?
In many churches the primary qualification seems to be a willing heart. Anyone who faithfully supports the church and works hard eventually finds himself or herself rewarded with a seat on the board. While I know of no church that claims this as their method of selection, I know of plenty where it is, in fact, the way things are done.
Passages such as Acts 6, 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, and 1 Peter 5 make it clear that a willing heart is not enough. There are spiritual qualifications, and they don’t stop at being born again. They go way beyond to issues of character. While not everyone will agree on the exact interpretation and application of each passage, one thing is certain: the New Testament church considered spiritual maturity to be a minimum qualification for leadership.
By spiritual maturity, I mean a life that consistently exhibits the character of Jesus Christ. That’s not so much a matter of what a person knows as who he is. You’ll notice that all of these passages deal more with character than giftedness, Bible knowledge, or zeal. We shouldn’t be surprised, since some of the most self-centered and divisive people in the church are highly gifted, know the Bible inside out, and exhibit a zeal that puts most people to shame. And when they get on your board, watch out!
In attempting to apply these biblical standards to real situations, we need to strike a balance between two extremes. The first is to interpret these passages so no one can match up. I recall a pastor telling me that in his church of more than five hundred people, no one except he and another ordained minister were qualified to lead. It didn’t dawn on him that this could be an indictment against his six years of ministry there.
The other danger is redefining or watering down the qualifications. I’ve found that in many churches, when someone fails to match up, many folks prefer to look the other way. Take, for instance, a board member whose family is falling apart. He’ll receive sympathy and support, and maybe gossip, but he’ll seldom be asked to step down. This, despite passages that teach that a good home life is a necessary qualification for church leadership (1 Tim. 3:4-5, 12, and Titus 1:6). And how often have we seen board members who were contentious, self-willed, materialistic, or hotheaded, despite clear biblical warnings not to allow such people to lead?
What if there aren’t enough qualified people willing or able to serve on the board? In that case, I recommend taking the best people available, and as the church grows and matures, slowly raising the standards.
As important as spiritual maturity is, to build a harmonious and effective leadership team there are other qualifications to look for as well. We’ve learned to ask two more questions:
1. Is this person in basic agreement with our current philosophy of ministry?
2. Will this person fit the leadership team we’ve already assembled?
If the answer to either is no, we’ve found it is a mistake to add the person to the board, no matter how spiritually mature he might be.
There is no guarantee that spiritually mature people will work well together. While they will usually share the same goals, they may find a number of conflicting ways to get there. And when their convictions are strongly held and mutually exclusive (as were Paul and Barnabas’s plans for dealing with John Mark), terrible things can happen. That’s why it’s important to have philosophical and relational qualifications as well as spiritual ones.
That doesn’t mean every potential board member has to be in total agreement with everything we’ve previously decided or done. It does mean the person has to be in agreement with the basic thrust of our ministry. Otherwise, conflict is inevitable.
As you can imagine, I met strong resistance when I first began to say this. Some folks couldn’t understand why we ever would want to keep a spiritually mature person off the board simply because he disagreed with our current direction of ministry.
Frankly, I was amazed by such inconsistent thinking. Executives who would have decried a mixture of divergent business philosophies on their company’s board of directors championed pluralism and a lack of homogeneity on the church’s leadership board. Somehow they felt church leaders could work well under conditions that would splinter any other group.
Imagine a pulpit committee deciding that the only qualifications necessary in a pastor were spiritual maturity and pastoral gifts. If they failed to consider the importance of a good fit as well, they’d be asking for trouble. It seldom works to bring a blue-collar pastor into a white-collar congregation. And a social activist (no matter how spiritual he may be) has little chance of succeeding in a church with a long history of bus ministries and prophecy conferences. Any wise pulpit committee wanting to see a long and successful ministry obviously would take these things into consideration. Is a good fit any less important when it comes to selecting lay leaders?
Determining a good fit can be time consuming, but it’s vital. The more carefully our qualifications are thought out, and the more strictly they’re held, the greater will be our chances of experiencing a harmonious and healthy board.
Who Should Guard the Gate?
There is one more question to answer before we’re prepared to guard the gate: whom do we want to guard it?
Make no mistake: the question is not, “Should someone guard the gate?” for someone already is. The questions are, “Are they doing a good job?” and “Are these the people we want to stand guard?”
Every church has gatekeepers. They are the folks who have the power to appoint or nominate; most often they are members of a nominating committee. Unfortunately, many churches underestimate their influence. Even churches that carefully choose a governing board can be casual when it comes to deciding who will control the initial selection.
I was in one church when an announcement was made asking anyone who wanted to serve on the nominating committee to show up the next Tuesday night in the fellowship hall. If you came, you served. Other churches throw open the process to anyone willing to come to an all-church business meeting a month before the election. The method guarantees ineffective gate watching, because no matter how out of line a nomination may be, hardly anyone will be willing to speak out against it in a public meeting. I’ve also been in churches that figured the best selection committee was a cross section of the congregation-a housewife, career woman, businessman, senior citizen, and young person. The only qualification for service appeared to be matching the needed demographics.
Selecting leaders is too important to be treated casually. It demands the best people we’ve got. The nominating committee may be the most important committee in our church, because it serves like the headwaters of a river. If there’s pollution upstream, it eventually will defile everything downstream. Frankly, if I could choose just one group in our church to be vested with the wisdom of Solomon, it wouldn’t be our governing board, as much as they need God’s wisdom. It would be our nominating committee.
One person, I believe, should always be involved in the process: the senior pastor. I realize that in some polities the pastor isn’t allowed to take an official role in the nominating process, but even in those situations, a pastor can exercise a great deal of informal influence. By definition, a healthy and effective leadership team demands a good working relationship between the pastor and the board. It seems foolish knowingly to put someone on the board with whom the pastor is at personal or philosophical odds. Like saddling a coach with a general manager or assistant coaches who differ in philosophy, it’s a ready-made recipe for failure.
I’m not suggesting the pastor hand-pick board members. But I am suggesting the pastor be given the opportunity to speak out against the nomination of someone who will cause nothing but conflict. Yet that opportunity will do us no good if we lack the courage to use it.
The situation described at the beginning of this chapter never would have taken place if the senior pastor had spoken his mind. But he figured it wasn’t his role to lead or dominate the committee, so he sat by quietly, hoping and praying that someone else would speak up and nix the nomination.
I’ve talked to many pastors who have served as an ex-officio member of the nominating committee but felt it was inappropriate to offer input. The way I look at it, if I’m not willing to speak up, why be there? And if I’m there and stay silent, I’m not sure I have a right to complain later about the people I have to work with. The nomination committee is like a wedding party: speak now or forever hold my peace.
One more thing I’ve discovered is that if the committee is going to be candid, I’ll have to lead the way. No one wants to be accused of judging, and most folks are terrified that word of their veto might leak out. I remember the first time I vetoed a nomination. A godly man with a totally different philosophy of leadership than the board’s had been put forward by numerous members of the congregation. When our nominating committee came to his name, there was an uncomfortable silence. He had served the church faithfully in the past, yet everyone knew he wouldn’t fit the leadership team. The problems would be philosophical, not spiritual, but problems nonetheless. After what seemed like an eternity, I swallowed hard and spoke up: “I don’t think we should have him run; we’ll end up spending all our meetings going around in circles.”
Once that was on the table, a couple of others were quick to agree. After a brief discussion, we came to a unanimous consensus to nominate someone else. It was obvious that others felt as strongly as I did, but no one had said a word until I broke the ice. Our consensus, a wise one, would have remained unspoken and unacted upon.
Since then, others have begun to speak out. No longer am I the only one, or even the first, because a standard of candor has been set.
Obviously, my decision to get involved in the process holds some risk. As one friend keeps asking, “How can you do that without being killed?” Actually, it has never created a problem. The reason? We keep strict confidentiality. Since our nominating committee is made up of top-quality people, the members don’t have a problem remembering, “What is said here should remain here.” And in case they forget, I remind them before every meeting!
But I’ll admit that choosing to get involved in the selection process can be risky for a pastor. Secrets are hard to keep, and a pastoral veto has the potential for creating hurt. So I’m careful with what I say and how I say it. I hope things I say won’t be repeated, but I make sure I can live with them if they are.
My decision to become an outspoken member of the nominating committee didn’t come easily. It went against the advice of some of my most trusted mentors. But, after prayerful and careful consideration, I figured I had little to lose. I’d witnessed the results of silence too many times.
How One Church Does It
Many of you may be wondering how these principles work in real life. For that reason, I’ll briefly describe our selection process. Your polity and circumstances will dictate which parts of this process fit. The process is offered not as a prescription, but as a description of how one church has taken seriously the need for guarding the gate.
In our case, our elder board serves as the final nominating committee. While there are obviously some potential problems with a standing board functioning as its own nominating committee, these are the best people we’ve got, so we use them.
Each week during the month preceding our nominations, the bulletin contains a nomination form. We ask all regular attenders to fill out one and drop it in the offering plate or mail it into the office. Our newsletter and pulpit announcements reinforce the importance of picking people who are qualified spiritually and philosophically.
At the end of the month, our elder board goes over the congregational nominations, as well as those from each pastor and elder. We go through the combined list and eliminate anyone who obviously doesn’t fit: in our case, nonmembers, people who have been in the church less than a year, and any person with a glaring spiritual or emotional problem. We then go over the remaining names, asking everyone to give a candid response. Character flaws aren’t always obvious; often, only one or two of us will be aware of a shaky marriage, a hot temper, or a lack of discretion. We also ask ourselves how well these people fit our philosophy of ministry and leadership team. (Frankly, few people fail this test. Most of those who would have long since left the church.)
A second part of the process is deciding how many openings we have, which depends on how many current board members plan to continue and whether we need to increase the size of the board. One advantage we have is that our constitution calls only for a minimum of five elders. While that’s too few in our situation, it gives us freedom to increase or decrease the size of the board based on our needs rather than an arbitrary number of slots.
Next, we list our choices in order of priority. We ask the first person on the list if he’d be willing to serve. If not, we go down the list to the next person and on to the end of the list of qualified nominees. If all those on the list would say no (something that hasn’t happened yet), we wouldn’t add anyone that year. Under no circumstances would we knowingly add someone who was unqualified simply because we had an opening to fill.
Finally, we present our nominees to the congregation at our annual meeting. Each nominee is voted on-yes or no-individually. So far, we’ve chosen not to have two people run for the same position. I find the main reason churches run two people against each other is to give the congregation a choice. They don’t want people to feel their leaders are being forced on them. But as long as we give people the opportunity to vote yes or no on each candidate, they don’t seem to mind.
In fact, a commitment to run more than one person for each position can undo a careful selection process. Most churches don’t have enough topnotch people to run two candidates for every opening. As a result, nominating committees put unqualified people on the ballot and pray the congregation won’t elect them. We prefer to put forward our top choices without apology and let the congregation confirm or reject them.
Running two candidates for every office also tends to keep some excellent people off the board. Only those who serve in highly visible positions or who have good name recognition end up being elected, particularly in larger churches in which there is no way for the members to know everyone. Despite all I’ve said, however, I’m not against running two people for an office if there are enough qualified people that it doesn’t matter who wins. But in the real world, that is seldom the case.
Anyway, that’s the process we use. It works for us. While we are committed to the principles, we have no great commitment to the methodology. We’ll change or adapt it any time we find a better way to insure quality control in our selection process.
The bottom line is to do what’s necessary to get our best people on the board. Winning teams need winning players. Even Knute Rockne couldn’t win with the wrong material. Neither can our church board.
Copyright © 1990 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
