Back in February I facilitated part of the council retreat for Countryside Community Church. I had been asked to talk about how leadership and decision-making work in the United Church of Christ. My presentation began with a brief overview of UCC history and polity before getting into specifics.
Last year the United Church of Christ released the Manual on Local Church–a resource rich with suggestions for local churches on a wide range of policies, procedures, and programs. The Manual includes a description of leadership in the UCC:
All members of a Local Church are called to participate in the Local Church’s mission and ministry. From among the body, some members are called to positions of lay leadership: some as officers; some in roles of spiritual or financial authority such as elders, deacons, or trustees; some as chairs of committees or working groups; some in other positions of responsibility and authority.
And then describes the basic theology of leadership in the UCC:
Because Jesus Christ is the one Head of the Church, all Christian leaders are also followers. As we lead with Christ as our leader, we are called to see the image of God in all people. We lead collaboratively and relationally, recognizing the gifts that each person brings. We heed the call of the Holy Spirit to be part of God’s liberating love that fosters wholeness, justice, and peace.
The Manual then discusses 3 types of decisions that churches make and the different ways in which they should be made:
- Strategic Decisions that guide a Local Church’s calling, mission, and leadership over the long term are set by the congregation as a whole and by the Council.
- Tactical Decisions that provide programmatic direction for those engaged in the Local Church’s ministry are the purview of our Ministries.
- Operational Decisions that Local Church leaders make on a daily basis as they carry out the Local Church’s ministry are covered by Staff and our Teams.
Gil Rendle, in his book Journey in the Wilderness, writes, “The practice of egalitarianism in which all must be treated equally and no one moves ahead until all are on board directs missional resources and attention toward weakness rather than strength.” Even in a congregational church not everyone gets input on every decision. To operate in that way is to weaken the Body of Christ. One implication of this reality is that we need to do a better job of identifying and training effective and faithful leaders and then trusting them to do the work.
For the rest of my presentation to Countryside’s Council, I drew on the book Fishing in a Shallow Sea: Church Strategies in the 21st Century by my former boss Mike Piazza. Mike writes, “Congregational governance must come to mean the congregation sets the agenda for the church, but then empowers teams of experts to implement and execute that agenda.” He then adds, “A church is truly congregational when all its members are mobilized for ministry rather than management.” True congregationalism is about the members all actively carrying out ministry, not all members involved in operational or even tactical decision-making, except in the areas they are involved.
Mike then offers some key ideas to keep in mind for congregational leadership in our era.
- The Congregation sets vision, mission, and strategic goals.
- Members care more about doing mission than exercising management.
- Church leadership is delegated to professionals and people with training, because not just anyone can do it.
- Leadership implements the vision, mission, and goals.
- The Pastor helps to identify, train, and coach leaders.
- Leadership doesn’t “represent” groups of constituencies but should be focused on the external mission of the church. The job of a church Council, for instance, isn’t to represent but is to discern the needs of the wider community and how the Spirit is leading the church to fulfill its mission to meet those needs.
- Invest time and energy in positive change NOT on those who are resistant. This I find is always a difficult one for congregations to grasp, but you don’t waste time and energy pursuing the critics and negative voices. Instead you lean into and empower the strengths and the positive agents.
- Decision-making needs to be more efficient & nimble. There isn’t time anymore for 6 committees to process it. I like how Mike puts it, “Too often, in the time required to ensure that everyone is ready and able to make a fully-informed decision, the target has moved, changed, or no longer matters.”
And here’s a great summary of these ideas, “In a church, the role of leadership must be to call the entire organization to behave in the most strategic way to accomplish the congregation’s stated goal.”