Ministry Together

As an Alban Institute consultant, I have worked with congregations that grew rapidly while streamlining their decision-making process, and with others that tried to maintain scores of committees while their membership declined from thousands to hundreds to scant dozens. In time, I started to suspect that outdated, overly complex and inward-focused structures might be one of the causes of decline in congregations. As I began to observe more systematically, I came to believe that often-mentioned trends like the “decline of the Protestant Mainline” might have as much to do with governance as with theology. Growing congregations often turn out to have reformed their structures for governance and ministry whether they are liberal or conservative in their theology. Even more strikingly, declining congregations across the theological spectrum often share specific organizational patterns. I began to think those patterns might be one factor in their decline—a factor, unlike social and cultural trends, that a congregation can control.

Most of my consulting work then was in strategic planning. I worked with boards and planning teams to frame critical questions and engage the congregation and its leaders in a “holy conversation.” Planners gathered data, prayed, and prodded boards and congregations to take a fresh look at persistent issues. At last, the team produced its report. Many such reports were timid or routine, but occasionally a planning document expressed a compelling vision of the future seriously different from the past.

These cases reminded me of a question Lyle Schaller, one of the pioneers of church consulting, likes to ask: “What if it works?”

When planning works, the congregation has to face what I now call the Governance Question: “What is our process for deciding to make a major change, empowering somebody to make it happen, and holding them accountable for the results?” Too few congregations had an adequate answer to this question, and the result, sometimes, was a beautiful planning document that did not make a difference in the congregation’s life.
“Okay,” I then asked. “When was the last time you decided on and implemented a major change, a significant departure from old patterns in your congregation’s life?” Generally, a silence followed, then discussion, with one of the following outcomes:

• No one can remember any major changes.
• The most recent major change happened in 1958, or 1859, or 1598.
• The most recent major change happened because someone worked around the congregation’s system of decision-making, rather than through it. If they had asked permission, the answer would have been no.

It became clear to me that I should ask the Governance Question at the beginning of the planning process, not the end. When I did, I found that planning teams and governing boards often chose to make governance itself a central focus of strategic planning. Soon governance reform became an important part of my consulting practice. Congregations started calling me because they heard I knew something about governance. They asked, “Is there a book we can read?” and I had to say, “Not yet.”