Michael Martin: How Church Boards Can Help Their Pastors Be Healthy

“The big news from ECFA is that we did just announce a new accreditation standard for ECFA members. It’s…called a ‘leadership standard.’ And it really focuses on leader care, proactive care for the leader.”

“Leadership is really the trust issue of our day, if not one of the most significant trust issues of our day.”

“The board of a ministry organization, they do have a unique responsibility and an opportunity to be able to come alongside a leader to help offer proactive care and support for the leader.”

“That may sound basic…but there’s a lot of organizations that haven’t actually even taken a step like that to be able to work alongside a leader and say, we’re establishing biblical character expectations for the leader of the organization.”

“Up to this point, we haven’t had any standard that’s really focused squarely on the leader and supporting healthy leadership.”

“One of the things that was just so loud and clear is the unique pressures, the demands that ministry leaders face.”

“The standard needs to be done in a way where it’s really scalable, and so different approaches can be taken. I mean, if you’re one of those smaller ministries and you just have a handful of people on your board, I mean, this could be even as simple as identifying, ‘Hey, who is that board member who serves with you who maybe their spiritual gift is more pastoral?’”

“Board members maybe even have good intentions, they just don’t know where to start. They don’t know how to strike up a conversation like this. And so prayerfully, the ECFA standard will kind of be that impetus.”

“There was just this significant gap between what leaders said was in their reality versus what board members thought they were doing.”