Our church has many passionate members and friends who want to do good things. At the same time, we have several committees that are empty and inactive. Our church is not alone in facing this conundrum; many other churches also struggle with it.
When you say the word "committee," people envision meetings and minutes and chairs with multi-year terms and endless demands on their time. Say the word "committee," and people head for the hills.
In addition to our 20 or so standing and operating (I use that word loosely) committees, our church has an something called the "Council of Committees," which is sort of a super-committee comprising the chairs of all the other committees. Committee squared, if you will. The purpose of the Council of Committees is to improve communication and coordinate activities, but that's hard to do when some of the committees are empty.
Our current operating system also assigns each Board of Trustees member to serve as "liaison" to one or more committees. This is supposed to provide a connection between the committees and the Board. Good in theory, but what it actually does is obligate each Board member to attend not only monthly Board meetings, but also to attend meetings of the committees for which they serve as liaison. If the committee for which the Board member serves as liaison is empty, the poor Board member becomes the de facto leader of that committee, or responsible for filling it. Now I ask you, what kind of incentive does this system provide for someone asked to consider serving on the Board?
There has to be a better way to do church.
In preparation for its 2007 Fall retreat, the Board of Trustees read a book called "Breaking Habits," by Thomas Bandy. The book dealt with organizational models of thriving and declining churches. It became apparent to me, while reading the book, that while our congregation is growing and energetic, our operating model had many of the characteristics of a declining church and in fact placed many barriers in the way of passionate people who want to do good things for their church and community.
During the Fall retreat, the Board talked about the book and about how we could make it easier for people to be active in the church without having to make significant time commitments or jumping through endless hoops just to get something simple accomplished.
After the Fall retreat, the Board formed a special working group (I refuse to call it a committee) to look at our church's operating system and to suggest improvements. The work group included several members of the Board as well as the church staff. While I refused to call the work group a committee, the group, in typical UU humor, called itself the "Committee on Committee Redundancy Committee."
The work group's recommendations incorporate some of the concepts found in Bandy's book, and some ideas that the group came up with its own. A diagram of what the new model might look like can be found here. It may be helpful to print it out so you can refer to it as you read further. Go ahead, I'll wait.
The work group suggested that all current committees (the ones that are still functioning) be placed in one of three areas:
- Sunday Services
- Operations
- Programs
Any member or friend (shown as "M" in any of the larger circles) wanting to help with Sunday services could contact the volunteer leaders, staff member, or Board member for the Sunday Services department. They could agree to do something without ever having to attend a single meeting, and they could do it on a one-time or recurring basis. Of course, each department can hold meetings and communicate with members and friends involved in its activities as it sees fit.
The Executive Committee (shown as "EC" in the very center of the center circle), would promote communication and coordination through its monthly Board meetings. The Board would shift from its past role of micro-managing committees to making sure our church's Mission, Vision, and goals are clearly communicated.
To quote from the work group's report, "If some person or group has an idea and clear plan such that they feel moved to act and this idea and plan is in alignment with our mission and vision (and does not require unavailable resources) then so long as there are no conflicts with policies or bylaws, then people should communicate with the appropriate [department] and then be encouraged to follow their vision."
This is quite a change from the way things have been done in the past, and we don't expect it to happen over night. One of the first things we needed to do to start the change was to amend our church bylaws. In their current form, the bylaws
- "Hard-code" some committees as standing committees. One of these (the Committee on Ministry) needed to be removed because it hasn't been active for two years.
- Require the Board to prescribe committee roles and functions.
- Require the existence of the Council of Committees.
Our growing church needs an operating system that will encourage and enable church members to be active, contributing participants, not stand in their way. That system is coming, and you can help build it.
Please feel free to leave a comment on this blog to let us know what you think or if you have ideas that you think might help. You can also contact me or any other Board of Trustee member directly.
Blessings,
Jim Crist
President, Board of Trustees
