The following question comes from an elder in a suburban church with 800 memhers. The inquiry was discussed by Gene Getz, Richard Hunt, Frank Minirth, David Seamands, and Jim Smith participants in the discussion forum of LEADERSHIP’s Fall 1980 issue. This answer is based on their discussion.
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Q:
I’ve been an elder at our church for one year now, and I’m not at all sure I was wise in accepting the responsibility. We just had our annual congregational meeting, and as we left, I felt weak, trapped, and out of ideas. This is unusual for me since I’m the manager of a small corporation that employs fifty people, and I have good administrative skills. I enjoy digging in and applying solutions to problems.
My first feeling of being trapped was our five-hour monthly elders meeting. There’s a lot of business to be transacted in a church. We also spend time in prayer and on shepherding problems. No one wants two meetings per month (elders get all kinds of additional duties in our church) so we go a marathon five hours, and it drives me nuts. Yes, if “staff” prepared everything properly, it would go faster; but staff is one pastor, and he doesn’t have time. There’s not enough money to solve the basic problems as I would do in business. Even/thing’s volunteer, and I feel like I’m assigned to catch sixty snowflakes a minute and pack them into a snowball. Nobody has the time to give focus.
What really shot me down was that after all these five-hour meetings, the elders were sharply criticized at the annual congregational meeting and were told they weren’t looking deeply enough into some of our problems. And if I was shot down, how did the pastor feel? (He told me later that after the meeting he’d considered moving on to another church.) Something snapped inside me after that meeting. All those interminable midnight sessions and hard work still weren’t enough. Should we have twice as many meetings? Longer ones? Work smarter? I’ve heard of church worker burn out; I think T just experienced it.
A:
The first thing to say to encourage you is “You’re not alone. This is happening to elders and deacons everywhere in all kinds of churches.” Although the problem is a difficult one and does not have easy, pat answers, we hope we can give you some ideas that might help.
First, there may not be enough elders in the church to handle the volume of business transacted. Instead of ten, perhaps you need eighteen. Figures will vary from church to church depending on how much elders are expected to do in a particular church; but there’s no reason shortchanging yourself in the personnel figures if there are enough spiritually qualified members.
Second, the session or board might consider delegating some of its work load to task forces created and directed by individual elders. This might appeal to someone who has administrative skills and could latch on to a problem, recruit help from other church members, and thrash out a solution. When the problem is solved, the elder can disband the task force and report back to the session.
Third, the pastor might be able to help if he would consider developing a sensitivity to the capabilities and leadership styles of his elders, and adjust his administrative style to fit them.
The pastor should also evaluate the method used in leading the meetings. “Hidden agendas” can drag out meetings interminably.
Perhaps the most useful thing to do is to change your own perception of the position.
Accept the situation. Recognition of the givens of the job will help you go in with your eyes open and accept it for what it is:
¥ Serving on a church board is highly demanding and so open-ended you can never do all there is to do. It’s the nature of the work.
¥ There will be disagreements, but those disagreements should not call anyone’s spirituality into question. Fellowship is a possible result of work on a session, but the first order of business is the church’s business.
¥ Expect to do a difficult service with
very little outside reward of recognition. Few people in the church will appreciate the job you are doing.
¥ Remember you are a volunteer. Your family and vocation come first, and that may mean the frustration of seeing loose ends you just can’t tie up yourself or delegate to anyone else.
Develop your skills. There could be ways for you to improve your own performance on the board or in board meetings .
¥ Read up on parliamentary procedure so you fully understand the way things should go in a business meeting.
O Evaluate the nature of your comments and contributions to the meetings. This might lead you to do a little homework before meetings with specific agenda items.
Set realistic goals. It’s important to determine what can and can’t be changed and accomplished through a church board. Instead of wasting resources on problems that for one reason or another are unsolvable right now, focus energies on the areas that will be benefited the most.
Be realistic about success. Make sure you base your sense of satisfaction on your own performance in attempting to meet realistic goals, rather than others’ conceptions of what you should be doing.
¥ Focus on your successes, not your failures. Mother Theresa of India, when asked if she didn’t get discouraged with the smallness of her own efforts when compared with the millions in need in New Delhi, replied, “People who think that way think in terms of addition-they add up their successes and become frustrated with the comparative results. I think in terms of subtraction only. That gives every little thing I am able to do positive meaning.”
¥ Focus on the process, not the result. A great deal of positive value comes from working together on problems. The results are in God’s hands.
¥ Don’t fall into the trap of feeling you are responsible for the success or failure of your church. It’s God’s institution-we’re only his laborers.
For additional thoughts on this subject, see in this issue Ben Patterson’s “Why Are Session Meetings So Boring?”
Copyright © 1981 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
