In our conversations with church leaders around the country, one of the recurring requests is for help on how pastors can relate better to their lay leaders. "Can you print articles on how to make elders feel like team members rather than watchdogs?"

Unfortunately, such a complex problem can't be solved in one or even a series of magazine articles. But we've taken some steps to help. We began to ask church leaders how they go about developing good pastor-board relationships. From many valuable suggestions and comments a common theme emerged: "Spending time with one another discussing problems of mutual interest does more to foster teamwork and fellowship than anything else."

We've decided to publish one article in each issue of Leadership designed to deal with the pastor-board tension. Since the problem is one that needs to be solved jointly, we suggest you photocopy this article and distribute it to your group. Let them know what you'd like to do. Saying "I'd like to get to know you better" ...