Home Pastors How To Design and Lead a Healthy and Productive Church Board

How To Design and Lead a Healthy and Productive Church Board

church board

My heart aches when I hear a horror story about a church board filled with division, conflict, and competition with the pastor about who leads. But thankfully, more stories are closer to a dream come true than a nightmare.

What makes the difference?

It starts with selecting who’s on your board, but that’s just the beginning. I wrote a brief post a few years back covering an introduction to selecting church elders. I’ll include a couple of abbreviated thoughts from it today, but you can read the full post here.

When it comes to selecting your church board, don’t give in to politics, people-pleasing, or pressure. Always start with biblical standards (I Timothy 3:8-10)

You may be part of a denomination or system where it’s difficult to make a change with those who serve on the board, but as a pastor, you’re a leader with influence, so don’t give up.

Take a stand for what’s right, don’t lower standards, and invite those more interested in their agenda than the mission to surrender their seat on the board voluntarily.

This must be handled redemptively; don’t just go “Spiritual Rambo” on the board. Instead, prayerfully lead the way to a church board that seeks God first, is loyal to the mission, and is supportive of your leadership.

NOTE: This post does not cover technical governance issues or by-laws. Both are highly unique for each church, often denominationally connected, and require wise legal counsel.

We’ll focus on practical functionality, including specific roles.

Hopefully, your board is not a nightmare, but that doesn’t mean that you and the board are highly effective or that the staff and board function together well. My objective is to provide content and direction that helps take your functionality to a higher level.

5 Values Toward a Healthy and Productive Church Board:

1. The Best Church Boards Know and Embrace the Difference in Roles Between the Church Staff and Church Board to Form a Great Partnership.

Clear expectations are essential for a healthy and functioning church board. This help prevents the pitfalls of micromanagement or the other extreme of abdicating responsibility.