Church Politics

Posted on May 23, 2011 Written by

This is a personal soapbox – this issue troubles me more than anything else in church life because I feel it completely and utterly distracts the church from accomplishing it’s God-given mission of sharing the Good News. This post will not be easy to write nor to read.

Jesus attacked only one group of people during his ministry on earth: Pharisees and Sadducees. Those men were the paid staff and lay leaders of the temple in Jerusalem. It was to them that all Jews looked to for guidance and wisdom. I have long wondered if I, as a paid church staff professional, will feel the same verbal assault on me that Jesus laid on those church staff of 2000 years ago.

Jesus’ withering criticism of them is that they were caught up in the minutae of life. The Pharisees and Sadducees debated for endless hours about trivial matters while they completely ignored the important religious and physical needs of the people. They made up 613 laws which became an unbearable burden to commons Jews so that they hated to go to Temple but they did so out of obligation. Jesus went to Temple only to worship – he didn’t debat the Pharisees and Sadducees in the Temple. They found him out among the people and they took their pettiness to him. How many times do the Gospels refer to Jesus as speaking with authority or speaking in a way at which the people marveled? Jesus focused not on the Temple politics of his day but on the big issues. Jesus instructed his disciples to keep their eyes on the God-things: disciple, baptize and teach (Matthew 28:19-20).

I’ve heard that many (if not most) young pastors prefer to start their own churches instead of stepping into an established church. Why? One answer may be the quantity of church politics. Established churches are hotbeds of politics, procedures, entrenched committee members, “but we’ve never done it that way before” mentality, and tradition. (So much of that is fear-based – fear of losing control, fear of not having enough, plain old fear. This is ironic since as Christians we are supposed to believe that God is in control and that God is generous beyond measure.)

I believe that church politics make people avoid church. They see the petty squabbles and decide that this is not for them – they want a God that is interested in big things such as people. Arguments and struggles over money, position, power, and decisions are so petty as to make God cry, especially when Christians do it.

I’ve been in too many meetings when an absurdly petty topic was raised: should we allow line dancing in the gym, what type of lettering should be on a sign, etc. I ask myself if this topic rises to the level of honoring Jesus and his sacrifice. Almost every time the answer is no, it doesn’t. It is a small matter which should be dealt with by one or two people so that the big group can focus on the big issue: sharing the Good News.

Lead On!
Steve

Filed Under: church administration, leadership Tagged: ,

Church Personnel Committees

Posted on April 26, 2011 Written by

My experience with Personnel Committees is that they don’t know their own job description. Too many times the committee acts more like a “Human Resources Department” than a personnel committee. Let me explain the difference.

A human resources department provides all the forms for new staff and departing staff, ensures those forms are complete, interprets the personnel manual for staff, works with vendors to get the approved benefits at the best possible price, and handles other routine personnel needs. Frankly, those are all functions that in a church should be handled by the staff and not by a committee.

A personnel committee of a church is vastly different. A personnel committee should do the following

  • Develop a personnel manual and review it at least once a year for updates
  • Develop a salary structure and salary range so that all employees are treated according to their “pay grade.” Most churches have no concept of this much less how to go about creating salary ranges. However, it is essential that a church do this to help their staff.
  • Hire the senior pastor and give him an actual, honest job performance evaluation. This may include an annual 360 eval for the pastor; that is a good thing so that he can have a true sense of his leadership and his management.
  • Help the senior pastor with his direct reports. The senior pastor may need counsel on who should report directly to him and who should not. The pastor may need help with the job descriptions of those who report directly to him. Finally, the senior pastor may ask for help in recruiting the people who work most closely with him.
    • For the most part, I disagree with the notion that there should be a search committee for positions in the church below the senior pastor – the leaders should be able to hire those whom he feels will work best with him and not have a committee decide for him (after all, shouldn’t those lay members be doing Kingdom work and not be the HR department?).
    • The senior pastor should have the freedom to select his lieutenants and craft their job descriptions with the advice and counsel of the personnel committee, but not their veto. Those leaders, in turn, should have the freedom to select the second level of leadership without having to jump through hoops of lay people. Some, but not many, lay people are qualified to help in recruitment; it’s just that they could be doing something else for God instead of having meetings.

So, if you’re in a personnel committee, ask the committee chair for a job description of what the committee is responsible for. If that JD needs to be updated because the church has grown and/or changed, then do it! If there is no JD, then help the pastor and committee chair develop an appropriate description of responsibilities for the personnel committee. A good one will save the committee members a lot of time and grief, it will help the pastor and staff know what everyone is charged with doing, and it will ensure that everyone is doing what is expected of them.

Lead On!
Steve

Filed Under: church administration, church staff Tagged: ,

Q-Tips

Posted on March 23, 2011 Written by

I’ve got two packs of Q-Tips (registered trademark, I’m sure) in my office. I got them a dozen years ago and I use them as illustrations to my staff and colleagues several times a year. I pull them out when someone comes into my office with lots of frustration over what is going on (or not happening). I listen and then, as it is warranted, I have the following conversation:

Me: do you know what Q-Tip means? What is stands for?
Friend: no idea (with a completely bewildered look as in, Where the heck is this headed?)
Me: Quit Taking It Personally – QTIP
Friend: oh, cute.
Me: no, really. You, me, we need to separate the personal from the professional. When junk hits the fan, just step back (out of the way) and not let any of it get to you personally. Keep the professional and the personal separate.

About 25 or 30 years ago I read an article in Fortune from which I remember one line: “Attack the problem, not the person.” Too often in work (especially in church work), we merge our professional and personal lives and it often has bad consequences. Too often in work (especially in church work), we try to fix problems by fixing people – also often with bad consequenses.

Church professionals need to separate our personal lives from our professional lives – our spouses will appreciate it! But also realize that when we attack a problem, ensure the person on the other end fully understands this is not about him/her personally.

Buy a pack of Q-Tips. When things get tense in the office, hand out the Q-Tips and remind people that all this professional angst will go away and they don’t need to let it affect their personal lives. It is not an attack on who they are as individuals; it is just a professional issue and should be dealt with professionally.

Oh, one more thing – I’m sure the inventor of Q-Tips never thought of the slogan but I like it nonetheless!

Lead On!
Steve

Filed Under: church administration, church staff, leadership, wisdom Tagged: , , ,

Laughter

Posted on March 12, 2011 Written by

Several years ago one of my former bosses told me during the interview process that he doesn’t get worried when he sees staff members talking in the halls of the church offices. He gets worried when he doesn’t hear them laughing.

There is a LOT of wisdom to that statement. Laughter is medically proven to be good medicine. It helps in all kinds of ways that I don’t understand and don’t need to know except it is is very healthy for the body. And the mind and the soul.

One of the things about laughter is that it means the staff feels comfortable with each other enough to make jokes, share funny stories, and tell self-embarrassing moments. If your staff is engaged in laughing with each other then odds are your staff is not whispering behind your back.

Perhaps the opposite of staff laughter is gossip. Gossip can be serious and vicious and filled with innuendo. Gossip is not good for an organization. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the office grapevine and use it, but that is different than gossip, especially malicious gossip.

Encourage your staff to laugh. Find ways to make them laugh. Get them to tell stories on themselves (but never a story that embarrasses someone else). Listen to the halls of your office. If you don’t hear laughter on a regular (several times a day) basis, you need to worry and find ways to get your staff to laugh – together.

Lead On!
Steve

Filed Under: church administration, church staff Tagged: ,

Church Office Life Stories

Posted on December 11, 2010 Written by

I’ve got a great idea for a sitcom – church office life. Problem is that I could collect all these stories and try to sell them to Hollywood but Hollywood would never believe these actually happened. So I’m going to share with my readers (all two, so far!) some funny and amazing stories of church office life. Here’s the first one – I’ve got a bunch more. And if you’re reading this, please contribute your own church office life stories.

Best story I heard this week:

A church changed its email and its URL. They had to. A church member (who is about 80 years old) owned the URL and would not release it to the church. In fact, when the church administrator went to Mrs. Smith’s house to talk with her about this, Mrs. Smith very proudly showed the administrator her three computers. When one of the computers had a new entry on its screen, Mrs. Smith invited the administrator over. “Look, here’s a new email. Let’s open it.” Mrs. Smith not only had hijacked the church’s URL and the email but she was reading all church email!! The administrator quickly left the house and realized the church had to change its URL and email in order to protect itself from Mrs. Smith!

Lead On!
Steve

Filed Under: church administration Tagged:

Churches as Businesses

Posted on December 1, 2010 Written by

Every so often someone will tell me that “the church is not a business and shouldn’t operate as such.” Just as frequently, I get the comment, “the church really is a business.” So, which one is correct? Well, let me say unequivocally, both are right. Here’s why and why not.

Churches are businesses in that they have the same basic building blocks of a business – every church has:

  • operating budgets
  • staffs
  • “products” (in churches it is “intangible religious benefits” in IRS terms)

Churches are not businesses in that they have a different purpose

  • Their goal is to give to people, not get from people
  • Their goal is empower people to give away more to other people

The foundational structure of every church is business-like. The programming of churches is not necessarily business-like. However, I need to clarify one area there where churches should be more like a company: evaluation.

Churches shy away viscerally from evaluating their programming. They hide behind the phrase “but if it helps just one person, it was worth it.” After 35 years in church work (I worked in a Christian bookstore as a teenager), I feel that churches must evaluate almost everything they do. They can’t hide behind the trite phrase of helping just one person – I do not believe God honors that (or better said, God blesses even more those ministries that are regularly evaluated and improved). The church today must evaluate its staff, buildings, and programming.

Staff: many churches do an acceptable job of evaluating staff but it is frequently a look back and not setting goals for the future. Staff (from the pastor on down) need to be assessed on what they did in the past 6 or 12 months against goals that were established for those staff. Too infrequently bosses fail to set expectations for staff so that there is nothing against which to measure the staff. Then you have the hard part, staff that is not performing need to be encouraged/mentored if they have potential. But if there is no chance that a staff member is going to succeed in your church’s environment, then that person needs to be terminated. Termination is very hard on everyone but in the long run it is beneficial to the rest of the staff and the church. In the words of Spock from Star Trek, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” Pruning is hard, but it leads to greater growth in the next season.

Building: this represents sunk costs. A church has already built and paid for those bricks and mortar. But the evaluation should be, “is what this building was originally built for still a viable option or should we change the building to meet future needs?” Buildings can be retro-fitted (for a price, yes) for needs that the church leadership feels is coming up. Do not be wedded to the past “just because we’ve always done it that way.” Years ago I learned how the new anti-termite pesticides work: the chemical inhibit the termites from shedding their old skin when they outgrow it. Thus, the termites strangle inside their old skins. Don’t let your church do that – change your skin as often and necessary to keep the church from killing itself.

Programming: by far, this is the most politic- and emotion-laden area of church work. People have invested their own blood, sweat, and tears in their pet ministries and feel that any mention of cutting them is a threat to them personally. Evaluation is not acceptable and they play their trump card almost immediately – “God is using this ministry.” My grandparents decided that a car was better than a horse and buggy; my parents decided that telephones are better than letters; my generation decided that computers are better than typewriters; the next generation is totally committed to the internet (which is replacing just about everything!). Change is painful but evaluation is an absolute necessity if a church wants to grow or not lose ground.

Evaluation is a matter of opinion – not everyone will evaluate the same program or person the same way. Church leadership needs to determine how the evaluation will occur and how the results will be implemented. That cannot be explained in a blog – every church has a unique culture and that culture must form part of the decision-making/evaluation process. But please heed this note of warning: to do nothing, to not evaluate things on a regular basis, is to ensure that the church will continue its present track with no heed to the future of the church. If you want a biblical example, read Acts 15 when the church in Jerusalem struggled with whether or not to permit Gentiles to be part of the church. Enough said.

Lead On!
Steve

Filed Under: budget, church administration, church finances, church financial statements, leadership, wisdom Tagged: , , , , ,

Resources, Insources, and Outsources

Posted on November 7, 2010 Written by

Several years ago, Dr. Al Sutton of the 6th Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, spoke to a group of church administrators. D. Sutton used the biblical text of Jesus feeding the 5,000 men (or about 25,000 men, women, and children). It was getting late and the people were hungry. The disciples asked Jesus to send the crowd away. The disciples wanted to outsource the problem but Jesus insisted on “insourcing” the situation. Then the disciples said they didn’t have any money and Jesus replied, “what resources do you have and lets see how we can use that.” Dr. Sutton thanked us administrators for putting up with pastors who want to imitate Jesus by insourcing problems and by telling the finance people to just use whatever you’ve got (without fully knowing what there is to begin with). I’m not doing Dr. Sutton justice with this brief paragraph, but you get the idea.

Every day Christians (and non-Christians) ask God to make personal problems go away. If the issue will only disappear, then there won’t be a problem, right? We even throw Jesus back at God, “If we have faith the size of a mustard seed, God will solve everything.”  God wants us to deal with issues – not run from them. God wants all of God’s disciples to get involved, to get our hands dirty, and to “insource” problems. God doesn’t outsource – God uses you and me. BTW, I’m not talking about medical, ethical, or legal problems – those have tangible consequences and are a matter of much prayer; sometimes God does intervene in human events in miraculous ways to cure diseases and take care of situations far beyond our powers and require divine resources. But what is within our control, God wants us to confront and deal with directly – not push aside.

Next, Jesus asked about the resources available. All too often we tell God that we don’t have enough; that if he’d only provide more we could do more; that the problem is too big for our meager resources. Jesus isn’t about what we have – he’s about what God has. I don’t like it one bit when God tells me to start out on a project when I know that I don’t know the way or have the material goods to finish – I even tell God about the parable of the king who went to war without counting the cost. Invariably God tells me to keep going and trust him. I know it sounds corny and trite, but it is true (about trusting God for daily needs – not daily wants).

So here’s my stewardship lesson for all who read this – all Christians must get involved using every bit we’ve got. Asking God to take the issue away won’t solve anything. Problems are opportunities for God – stop telling God to take some issue away that you don’t want to deal with. Next, use all the resources (time, energy, money) to address the opportunity at hand. As you’re in the middle of the issue, you may be surprised to see God at work and multiplying resources more than you thought possible. Or it may be like the disciples, only after the event is over and some time (hours, days, or months) has passed, will you be able to reflect on that event and see how God was at work. But rest assured of this, God is always at work!

Lead On!
Steve

Filed Under: church administration, church finances, leadership, planning, strategy Tagged: , , , , ,

Legal Software on the Cheap

Posted on November 2, 2010 Written by

I found a neat website the other day (actually, it wasn’t me – my wife told me about it after she went to a class for grantwriters; if you’re interested in her services, contact jenniferklaw@gmail.com).

Techsoup.org provides 501(c)(3) organizations with dirt cheap software. MS Office 2010 for $24 (Excel, Word, Outlook, etc). That’s a lot cheaper than anywhere else I’ve seen. They have a whole host of other software products such as Blackbaud, Adobe, etc. (probably about 30 different titles).

Check them out and see if you can get some current software on the cheap for your organization. They’ll think you’re a hero (and you can thank me later).

Lead On!
Steve

Filed Under: church administration Tagged:
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