A great group is clear on its purpose.   A great group is clear on its process and this process is always collective.  The reason we need groups is to enable deeper reflection, questioning, listening and counsel so that we make better decisions than could be made by one person alone.  A great group is clear on its communication. 

“.. great committees set the table for important conversations. Great committees lead, not by getting their way, but by clarifying issues, gathering data, and posing questions that enable the board and the entire community to make its most important choices.”

“Big decisions require great committees, committees brave enough to require others—board, staff, congregation—to reflect more deeply and intelligently before making the decisions that matter in the long run.”  Dan Hotchkiss

http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=10234

This article is reposted from http://thomrainer.com/2013/02/05/10-reflections-on-a-decade-of-church-consulting/

February 5, 2013

By Chuck Lawless

I love the local church. It’s God’s church, despite its flaws. For ten years, I’ve had the privilege of consulting with churches seeking to grow. Here are my reflections of those years – one reflection for each year.

If you’re a pastor in a struggling church, be sure to read to the end.  I think you’ll find hope there.

1. Churches often wait too long to address decline. Some churches don’t do regular checkups, and thus they have no means of knowing they’re sick. Others recognize the symptoms but choose to ignore them. By the time they admit decline, the pattern is so entrenched that reversing the trend is not easy.
2. Statistics really are helpful. I realize that numbers can become an idol—and that we must fight against—but numbers do tell us something. Most often, they tell us to ask more “why” questions. Why has the church declined in attendance for five years? Why did the church reach 50 people last year, but attendance grew by only fifteen? Why has worship attendance in the second service plateaued?
3. Prayer in unhealthy churches is reactive rather than proactive. A problem develops, and then the church members pray. A marriage struggles, and then they pray. A young person wanders, and then the church prays. Prayer in an unhealthy congregation is often a response of desperation rather than a marker of the DNA of the church.
4. Churches often settle for numerical growth rather than life transformation. Churches may want to grow, but they seldom evaluate the source of the growth. If the church increases in number at all—even if the growth comes only by believers transferring membership from another local church—the church is satisfied. Few churches evaluate how many non-believers are converted through their ministry.
5. Churches do not know their community. As part of our consultation we would do a demographic study of a church’s ministry area and then ask the leaders to describe their community prior to their seeing the study. Frankly, I’m amazed by how many church leaders were not aware of the demographics of their ministry field. They often lived among a people they do not know.
6. Most churches aren’t ready for conversion growth if God were to send it. The biblical call to make disciples demands a discipleship strategy (Matt. 28:18-20), but few churches have one. They do not have the “nursery” of discipleship ready for baby Christians. Seemingly, they assume new believers will grow simply by showing up each week.
7. Sometimes the most obvious suggestions seem the most revolutionary. Church leaders struggling to overcome decline are so close to the situation they often miss the most obvious corrections. Preach the Word with power and enthusiasm. Train members to do evangelism. Minister in the community. Pray for neighbors and co-workers.  Develop a mentoring discipleship program. Do worship well. Going back to the basics is often a first step toward renewed church health.
8. The leader in the pulpit matters. Never have I seen a church reverse a decline when led by a pastor uncommitted to the hard work of turning around a congregation. If he has already mentally and emotionally “checked out,” he won’t fool the church for long. On the other hand, a broken pastor who longs and prays for God to move mightily can see a congregation change.
9. In most churches, somebody wants the congregation to make an eternal difference.I’ve never seen a church so unhealthy that nobody was seeking God and His power. The good news here is that just a few people can ignite a renewal fire in a local church. Somebody sees in faith what God might do, and he/she can be a significant support for the pastor.
10. God is still growing His church. I’ve worked with churches that, to be frank, I thought would never grow. Churches so divided that their communities know them as a combat zone seldom give you hope for Great Commission growth. Nevertheless, I’ve seen God work miracles by restoring unity, strengthening and refocusing leaders, and sending members into the community to share the gospel.

Only God can turn around a church. He has in the past, and He may well do so in your church today.

Chuck Lawless currently serves as Professor of Evangelism and Missions and Dean of Graduate Studies at Southeastern Seminary. You can connect with Dr. Lawless on both Twitter and Facebook.

The nature and purpose of pastoral reviews

Reviews of leaders are a natural and normal part of all organisations, the church included.  Healthy leaders will have been doing this personally as an ongoing part of their own development.  From the congregation’s point of view, these reviews should be undertaken with careful thought and planning.

1. The purpose is personal and leadership insight and growth
   Leadership is primarily about relationships.  People connect to and work with a pastoral leader in the context of Christian community for the purposes of seeing God’s kingdom extended.  A pastor needs to be affirmed in what is going well and to gain insight into how this can be further developed.   Things that aren’t going well need to be carefully diagnosed, understood, and a process for addressing them put in place.  A review should not be allowed to gather several years worth of minor issues which have caused discontent but never been addressed and bundle them into a mass capable of significant damage.  Reviews are primarily formative not summative.

2. Reviews should be conducted by a small group with some expertise and experience
   Conducting a thoughtful review requires time, expertise in human relations and some knowledge of the pastor and the church community.  It is important for the church council to appoint members to this group with attention to the skills, maturity and wisdom that will be required to collect and process all the information that makes up the review and to make appropriate and constructive recommendations as a result.  If needed get a facilitator or coach from outside the congregation to work with the review group.
3. The best reviews are part of a long term process
   The most effective reviews arise out of a regular process of consultation with a pastor, the pastor’s spouse and to a lesser degree the congregation or parts of it.  Many churches establish a Review Committee or working group which is a standing committee for the tenure of the pastor.  This group meets every three – six months with the pastor and gathers feedback periodically from the congregation.  They report to the church board every 6 – 12 months.  This process allows the review of a minister to remain formative and positive.  Reviews that only occur every three to five years run a risk of being the gravitational point for all kinds of negatives which have built up over years.
4. The best pastoral reviews also include a review of the congregational and lay leadership
   As noted above, leadership is a relationship.  Pastors are not the only factor in the life and health of the church community.  The church itself as a community of people needs to be reviewed for health, and also the lay leadership or governing group need to be reviewed for how they contribute to the direction and health of the church.   When the pastor is going to be reviewed, it may also be wise to conduct a review of the church as a whole and also the church governing group or council.

This link is to an excellent resource on reviews from a congregational governance and Anabaptist theological perspective.

For the process we recommend as John Mark Ministries in many churches: Pastoral Review Process

By Gil Rendle from Alban Weekly  Sept 2012

Efforts to lead change are often defeated or sabotaged, not by open and honest disagreement, but by inappropriate, unhelpful, or indirect behaviours. Board members who do not say what they think while sitting at the board table but who hold their opinions only to express them freely in the parking lot after the meeting sabotage what can be done to reach agreement. Leaders who understand their role as a responsibility to fight for their own personal preferences or for the preferences of a subgroup in the congregation force discernment of the future into a win/lose proposition. Leaders who openly share their disagreement with board decisions only after the decision has been made undermine any effective leadership toward change.

When working with congregations that have been experiencing such behavioural barriers to effective leadership and decision making, I often recommend the development of a “covenant of leadership” to uphold. It is not a set of rules that, if broken, will result in a hand slap for the offender. Rules make relationships rigid. They constrain. They limit. Covenants, on the other hand, offer us goals that are in keeping with the values and teaching of our faith. They give us a way to talk about the behaviour and practices we adopt in our work together as leaders who wrestle with change and with differences. 

When developing a covenant of leadership with a group of congregational leaders, I often begin with some of the problems the board has been experiencing and with some basic information about healthy conflict. The group then develops positive statements about healthy and appropriate behaviour around which they are willing to covenant with one another. The list of covenant behaviours becomes a formal, written reminder to the people about the behaviours by which they are seeking to live. Below is an example of a covenant of leadership from one governing board. 

A COVENANT OF LEADERSHIP

Our Promises to God

We promise to pray, alone and together, to thank God and to ask for God’s help in our lives and in our work for our church, and we promise to listen to God’s answer to us.

Our Promises to Our Church Family

We promise to demonstrate our leadership and commitment to our church by our example.

We promise to support our church’s pastors and staff, so their efforts can be most productive.

We promise to try to discover what is best for our church as a whole, not what might be best for us or for some small group in the church.

Our Promises to Each Other on [the Governing Board]

We promise to respect and care for each other.

We promise to treat our time on [the board] as an opportunity to make an important gift to our church.

We promise to listen with an open, nonjudgmental mind to the words and ideas of the others in our church and on [the board.]

We promise to discuss, debate, and disagree openly in [board] meetings, expressing ourselves as clearly and honestly as possible, so we are certain the [board] understands our point of view.

We promise to support the final decision of [the board], whether it reflects our view or not.

This group of leaders wrestled with the specific behaviours and attitudes that were causing them problems in working effectively in their congregation. Their covenantal promises came out of understanding themselves and choosing to practice values and behaviours of their faith that could change their life and work together. Other congregations that have developed covenants of leadership have necessarily developed different lists that speak to their own needs. Each leadership group needs to identify and address the issues and behaviours relevant for them. 

The value of such covenants is not in the ability to enforce the behaviours. Like any tool of change, the value is in raising the appropriate issues and behaviours to a level of awareness and offering ways to have helpful and safe (non-blaming) conversations about them. Two ways that a tool such as a covenant of leadership can be used for this purpose are: 

1. Read the covenant in unison at the beginning of a board meeting to remind people of the covenant goals they have accepted for their working life together. 
2. Spend five minutes in small group or full group discussion of the covenant at the end of a board meeting, asking for descriptive responses to questions such as, How are you doing with the covenant? or How do you think we as a board are doing with our covenant? or Which of our covenant promises do you think we are struggling with the most?

Covenantal behaviours can be offered to leaders and members alike, not as constraining prohibitions, but as spiritual disciplines of community. If faith communities such as congregations do not wish to default to cultural standards and practices, they will need to practice discipline. Although such disciplines of faith are a part of all our faith traditions, the people of our communities need, and often seek, clarity about which disciplines to follow and how to put them into practice.

Marshall Ganz at Sojourners