LESSON 10 – Prioritize Prayer Over Problems

Welcome to Lessons From the Church Boardroom—The Blog, a 40-week journey through the new book, Lessons From the Church Boardroom: 40 Insights for Exceptional Governance, by Dan Busby and John Pearson. Each Wednesday, we'll feature a guest blogger’s favorite snippet from the week's topic. Jeff Lilley is our guest blogger this week for the third of three lessons in "Part 3: Nominees for the Church Board Member Hall of Fame.”

LESSON 10 OF 40 – Prioritize Prayer Over Problems
Create space for prayer—serious supplications for a serious work.

THE BIG IDEA FROM THE BOOK: In Lesson 10, the authors discuss how we spend so much time focusing on the work our church does for God, and how, sometimes, we can minimize God Himself. The concept is that prayer shouldn’t just be a token ritual, or simply an agenda item (somewhere between the “Call to Order” and “Approval of Minutes”).  

Instead, this chapter suggests that how we come before God affects every aspect of the meeting that follows. It’s almost as if we’re acknowledging that God actually cares about what happens in our board meetings.  

MY FAVORITE INSIGHTS from Lesson 10, pages 54-48:
• Dan Bolin’s prayer! It is inspired—and you can get it and use it for free! (Read Lesson 40 here.) 
• “Christ-centered governance has a boardroom distinctive that requires a serious intentionality about prayer.”
• “When you take time to pray…God promises to hear and act.” 
 
MY COLOR COMMENTARY:
The first time I read Dan Bolin’s board prayer in Lesson 40, I instantly wondered if he had somehow secretly been listening in on every board meeting I’ve ever attended. It was as if he wrote the prayer because of events and issues our board has faced.  

It’s clear that Bolin knows well the challenges, temptations, and curve balls that come when you fill a room with influential men and women, and then ask them to come together as one body.

The idea for the story in this chapter (borrowed from Lessons From the Nonprofit Boardroom) is from the years I served as CEO of Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission—when I forgot to bring “A Board Prayer” to our board meeting. I can assure you that it has never been forgotten since! 

THIS WEEK’S QUOTES & COMMENTARY BY JEFF LILLEY:

JEFF LILLEY is Senior Associate Pastor & Elder at EVFree Fullerton in Fullerton, Calif. He previously served as the CEO of Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission and Hume Lake Christian Camps. Jeff has served on multiple other boards, and was as a board coach for the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust’s Board Leadership and Development Program. He also has 19 grandkids, who (he says) are all better looking than yours! His favorite books include The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, Humility by Andrew Murray, and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Jeff can be found on Instagram @JeffL7, or the church’s website here.

TO-DO TODAY: 
• Make photocopies of “A Board Prayer” (Lesson 40), one per board member, and have it ready for the next board meeting!
• Buy copies of your favorite book on prayer and send one to every board member, with a note that you are praying for them. (Which, of course, means you better actually pray for them!)
• Visit the ECFA Knowledge Center and read and share the short chapter, “Lesson 10 – Prioritize Prayer Over Problems” and Lesson 40, “A Board Prayer.”

NEXT WEDNESDAY:
On May 1, 2019, watch for the commentary by Peter Clements on Lesson 11, "Tap! Tap! Tap! Does the Spirit hear a busy signal when nudging your board?”

ORDER THE BOOK TODAY!

BULK ORDERS: Click here.  For more resources and to download the book's Table of Contents, visit the book's webpage.

LESSON 9 – Listen to the Wisdom of Many Counselors

Welcome to Lessons From the Church Boardroom—The Blog, a 40-week journey through the new book, Lessons From the Church Boardroom: 40 Insights for Exceptional Governance, by Dan Busby and John Pearson. Each Wednesday, we'll feature a guest blogger’s favorite snippet from the week's topic. Ron Edmondson is our guest blogger this week for the second of three lessons in "Part 3: Nominees for the Church Board Member Hall of Fame.”

LESSON 9 OF 40 – Listen to the Wisdom of Many Counselors
Don’t ask board members to vote against God!

THE BIG IDEA FROM THE BOOK: In Lesson 9, we are challenged not to pit the governing board against God. If the pastor always has “a word from God,” it will be very difficult for the board to weigh in without seeming to go against what “God said.” In the process, we discount the counsel of wise people of God. 

MY FAVORITE INSIGHTS from Lesson 9, pages 50-53:
• “All morning you used a troubling phrase with our board: ‘God told me we should…’”
• “If you’re absolutely sure God told you to do something, just do it.” 
• “If you believe—like I do—the Scriptures teach that there is wisdom in many counselors, then please change your rhetoric...” 
 
MY COLOR COMMENTARY:
There is such a fine balance—for pastors—between acting upon the sense of what God is calling you to do, and listening to the counsel of others. Today, upon reading this lesson, I was convicted about some of my own language during my years as a pastor. There were certainly times I felt the need to assure our leaders that I was attempting to “listen and hear” from God. Looking back, I can see how there were likely times I used this almost to my advantage. Who wants to say “no” to God? Certainly not the leaders who are governing our churches!

At the same time, God continually encouraged me to surround myself with the wisest, godliest people I could find to serve in church leadership. Why would we bring them to the table if we were not willing to listen to their advice?  
I’m convinced, especially in my new role at Leadership Network, that some of our best answers to problems in the church—and best practices to move the mission of the church forward—are sitting among the collective wisdom of the people God has allowed and prompted us to bring to the table. Let us incorporate their collective wisdom well. 

THIS WEEK’S QUOTES & COMMENTARY BY RON EDMONDSON:

After serving 16 years as a pastor, following over 20 years in the business world, Ron Edmondson is the new CEO of Leadership Network, which helps the church accelerate growth and innovation so we can all make more disciples. 

Ron is also a noted leadership blogger. See his must-read recent blog, “A Meeting No Leader Likes to Have, But Should Always Consider Having.” He is also the author of The Mythical Leader: The Seven Myths of Leadership.

Ron and his wife, Cheryl, have two adult sons, one married and one about to be married, both serving in the local church. They also have one amazing granddaughter and another grandchild on the way. 

TO-DO TODAY: 
• Take an inventory of your language when sharing with your board. Where are your ideas originating? Are you giving room for input?
• Build a culture of inclusion—where every voice at the table is welcomed, including those you have to prod to give their input. Wise leaders ask good questions and listen more than they speak.
• Visit the ECFA Knowledge Center and read and share the short chapter, “Lesson 9: Listen to the Wisdom of Many Counselors.”

NEXT WEDNESDAY:
On April 24, 2019, watch for the commentary by Jeff Lilley on Lesson 10, "Prioritize Prayer Over Problems. Create space for prayer—serious supplications for a serious work.”

ORDER THE BOOK TODAY!

BULK ORDERS: Click here.  For more resources and to download the book's Table of Contents, visit the book's webpage.

LESSON 8 – Thrive With Four Kingdom Values

Welcome to Lessons From the Church Boardroom—The Blog, a 40-week journey through the new book, Lessons From the Church Boardroom: 40 Insights for Exceptional Governance, by Dan Busby and John Pearson. Each Wednesday, we'll feature a guest blogger’s favorite snippet from the week's topic. William Vanderbloemen is our guest blogger this week for the first of three lessons in "Part 3: Nominees for the Church Board Member Hall of Fame.”

LESSON 8 OF 40 – Thrive With Four Kingdom Values
Pastor Carlos said he didn’t have the spiritual gift of board meetings! 

THE BIG IDEA FROM THE BOOK: In Lesson 8, it’s clear that working with a church board can be a frustrating or unproductive experience, but with the right kingdom values, it doesn’t have to be that way.  

MY FAVORITE INSIGHTS from Lesson 8, pages 44-49:
The authors suggest how a church board can function best, based on looking for certain values and characteristics in a board member to maximize spiritual fruit and impact, and minimize dysfunction: 
• The right people are everything: “When the right people—with the right motives and God-honoring character—serve graciously together...board members and pastors will thrive in board meetings as the Holy Spirit deploys their spiritual gifts and their God-designed personalities and strengths.” 
• Once you have the right people, look for things like passion, discernment, deployment, commitment, and enjoyment of serving on a church board. The authors quote Steve Macchia: “Passion is the fuel that keeps the engine of your vision alive.” 
 
MY COLOR COMMENTARY:
When I was reading this chapter, I thought a lot about my own hiring practices (the same practices that I advise clients to embrace—how to do well every day), and the way that I hire internally for my own team. 

Last year, I wrote a book, Culture Wins: The Roadmap to an Irresistible Workplace, and in it, I emphasize that culture trumps competency when it comes to hiring. It doesn’t matter how well someone will do a job, if they aren’t a good culture fit—they’ll ultimately be unhappy in their role. 

I’ve made it my goal to look for potential employees who weren’t just showing up because it was their job, or just for the pay, but because they wanted to be a part of the team. I look for people who want to be doing what we are doing, the way we do it. In return, we’ve built an award-winning culture of people who work great together as a team, consider themselves “framily—friends as family,” work hard, take their work seriously but not themselves, and give their heart to their work because they really want to be doing it, and they are inspired and motivated by the way we do things at Vanderbloemen. 

In some ways, I think this concept can be applied to church boards, too. When you’re selecting members of a church board and looking for specific characteristics, you’re searching for the kind of people who embody the culture of the organization. 

You want board members to work together, inspire each other, motivate, challenge, and push each other to achieve the greater mission of the church. You’ll maximize fruitful kingdom work and minimize frustration, unproductive meeting time, and get work done faster and better when the board is aligned around the same cultural values. 

I like the closing boardroom lesson that sums up this chapter: “Invite people to serve on your church board who have high passion for your mission and ministry—and who discern board service as a holy calling. Inspire board members to leverage their spiritual gifts and strengths—or their experience will be draining and joyless.” 

Culture wins, every time.  

THIS WEEK’S QUOTES & COMMENTARY BY WILLIAM VANDERBLOEMEN:

William Vanderbloemen is an entrepreneur, pastor, speaker, author, and CEO and founder of Vanderbloemen. He is a regular contributor to Forbes and is frequently asked to contribute to many media outlets on staff culture and team building.

As CEO and founder of Vanderbloemen, an executive search firm that helps churches and faith-based organizations find their key staff, William’s passion is helping leaders of faith build, run, and keep great teams. Hiring was William’s number one issue and roadblock as a pastor and is his number one focus as an entrepreneur. 

His third book, Culture Wins: The Roadmap to an Irresistible Workplace, describes how a contagious culture will drive sustainable growth and innovation for any organization. Culture Wins shows forward-thinking leaders how to apply key principles into today’s new job-hopping culture.

The firm serves teams with a greater purpose by aligning their people solutions for growth: hiring, compensation, succession, and culture. Through its retained executive search and consulting services, Vanderbloemen serves churches, schools, nonprofits, family offices, and Christian businesses in all parts of the United States and internationally. 

TO-DO TODAY: 
• Decide and discern what kingdom values are foundational to the church board’s theology and philosophy of governance—in other words—define the culture of your church board.
• Find people that match the culture, not the work you are trying to do. Look for people with calling, passion, the spiritual gifts to serve well in this setting, and those who have true joy for the work of the church board.
• Visit the ECFA Knowledge Center and read and share the short chapter, “Lesson 8 – Thrive With Four Kingdom Values.”

NEXT WEDNESDAY:
On April 17, 2019, watch for the commentary by Ron Edmondson on Lesson 9, "Listen to the Wisdom of Many Counselors. Don’t ask board members to vote against God!”

ORDER THE BOOK TODAY!

BULK ORDERS: Click here.  For more resources and to download the book's Table of Contents, visit the book's webpage.

LESSON 7 – Eliminate Fuzziness Between Board and Staff Roles

Welcome to Lessons From the Church Boardroom—The Blog, a 40-week journey through the new book, Lessons From the Church Boardroom: 40 Insights for Exceptional Governance, by Dan Busby and John Pearson. Each Wednesday, we'll feature a guest blogger’s favorite snippet from the week's topic. Monty Kelso is our guest blogger this week for the third of three lessons in "Part 2: Boardroom Tools and Templates.”

LESSON 7 OF 40 – Eliminate Fuzziness Between Board and Staff Roles
Keep your leaders on track with a one-page Prime Responsibility Chart.

THE BIG IDEA FROM THE BOOK: In Lesson 7, the authors note that creating crystal clarity around the board’s role and function is vital to each individual’s positive contribution and the overall effectiveness of the board. It’s not unusual—without this clarity—for boards to default to unwelcome involvement in staff functions. Though the board’s intentions may be good, the outcome is often felt by staff as meddling and micro-managing—leaving board members frustrated and confused.

No talented staff member welcomes such a hovering relationship. The solution? Adopt a one-page Prime Responsibility Chart—customized to your particular context—to keep everyone focusing on the right things at the right time. Adopting this tool (and actually using it at your board meetings) will not only eliminate frustration as to who’s in charge, it will safeguard you from those dreaded runaway meetings that go on and on and on for countless hours. 

MY FAVORITE INSIGHTS from Lesson 7, pages 36-41:
So how does a board serve the ministry best? Let’s start first with what usually backfires and then consider a solution.

In an effort to keep the board fully informed about the ministry activities of each staff leader, boards will often open up the floor to the staff to present their ministry reports. Though this sounds reasonable, it often becomes a song and dance with underwhelming results. 

In this lesson, we learn of Pastor Bob’s idea to keep the board fully informed: 
   • “Like clockwork (with no alarm), each ministry staff director presented a detailed report. One problem: the proceedings felt more like an episode of Shark Tank—with each ministry leader vying for more budget and more staff members. The passion was electric, but the ministry impact—not so much.”

So, what would be another approach? In this chapter, in response to Pastor Bob’s angst about too many staff members in the boardroom, individual board members were asked to oversee a particular ministry leader. So board members did a deeper dive into the life and ministry of each ministry director and then reported their observations back to the board. Sounds simple right? Well, as you will read on pages 37 and 38, board members reported rather lackluster results. 

The authors provide a brilliant alternative: 
   • “Our recommendation is that most church boards should relate to one employee: the senior pastor. Then the board must be crystal clear about the board’s relationship with all other staff.”
 
MY COLOR COMMENTARY:
As one who serves on my home church board, I have a front row seat to the awkward dance that can happen between a church board and its staff. Who’s leading who? What is the tempo? Do we even agree on “the song?”

In fact, recently our senior pastor, Todd, asked me for advice on improving the rhythm and effectiveness of our “overseer board.” As a growing 20-year-old church, for the first time we are in the process of moving to a permanent facility! We realize our world is about to be rocked. And organizational structures and systems that got us to this point will most assuredly fail us going forward. Now is the time to restructure. Though our governance requires “overseers” (as we call them), we have a blank page as to how best to implement our responsibility. So what is one solution to our foreseeable problem?

I’m confident that by adopting the Prime Responsibility Chart (illustrated on page 40; click here to see the tool), we will be able to streamline our oversight while empowering our capable staff to lead with confidence and authority. I believe the PRC will indeed help us eliminate fuzziness between board and staff roles—resulting in greater ministry outcomes on every level. And even more importantly—staff retention. 

As I encounter the “big C church” in my work leading a church staffing ministry, I am up close and personal to the inner workings of many churches. And the people serving those churches are talented, godly leaders who desperately seek healthy cultures where they can thrive. But sadly, many of them feel undermined in reaching their ministry potential—due to unhealthy executive leaders and structures that breed misalignment in mission, methods and roles. As a result, the culture suffers and people take the brunt. 

Organizational health is vital not only to ministry outcomes,
but even more importantly, to those who lead them. 

As leaders who love and serve God, we have a responsibility to lead and love people well. Resisting the need to adopt organizational and management best practices just because it’s not “my gift” is no excuse. If you are in a leadership role overseeing a team of people, I encourage you to chase after knowledge that will better equip you to foster ministry alignment and momentum—beginning with Lessons From the Church Boardroom: 40 Insights for Exceptional Governance. 

THIS WEEK’S QUOTES & COMMENTARY BY MONTY KELSO:

MONTY KELSO is co-founder and President of Slingshot Group. As a staffing and coaching ministry to churches and “kingdom-minded” not-for-profits, building remarkable teams is their primary mission. After serving nearly 2,000 churches in the past 10 years, Monty and his talented team of practitioners have become trusted partners with ministry leaders serving every dimension of the church in America. 

TO-DO TODAY: 
• Commit to read at least two leadership books every year.
• Adopt the Prime Responsibility Chart at your next board meeting.
• Visit the ECFA Knowledge Center and read and share the short chapter, “Lesson 7 – Eliminate Fuzziness Between Board and Staff Roles.”

NEXT WEDNESDAY:
On April 10, 2019, watch for the commentary by William Vanderbloemen on Lesson 8, "Thrive With Four Kingdom Values. Pastor Carlos said he didn’t have the spiritual gift of church board meetings!”

ORDER THE BOOK TODAY!

BULK ORDERS: Click here.  For more resources and to download the book's Table of Contents, visit the book's webpage.