Is Your Process of Decision-Making Slowing Down Your Church?

Today, we are wrapping up a series of articles about common bottlenecks that keep churches from growing. One of the most common bottlenecks is the process of decision-making and governance.

• Many churches end up with a convoluted web of groups empowered to say no but virtually no one empowered to say yes. In a system like this, new ideas are suffocated under the tremendous pressure to maintain the status quo. Laboring under densely bureaucratic systems, even churches with a strong sense of calling can become tired, cautious, and stuck.
• Some churches view slow decision-making as a sign of wisdom, and sometimes it is! But sometimes it is simply a sign that too many people are empowered to delay change and too few people are empowered to move ministry forward. If every proposal has to work its way through a maze of committees and other groups for approvals, the church will struggle to act with courage and clarity.

The good news is that this bottleneck can be relieved. When a church gets clear about who owns which decisions and streamlines the path any proposed change has to travel, momentum will return. Clarity is key.

• Here are some simple ideas to help you get started.

Six ways to relieve the decision-making bottleneck

1. Evaluate the status of decision-making at your church

• What recent decisions have gotten bogged down, delayed, or tabled indefinitely? What caused that outcome?
• Look for common themes to help identify the real source of the bottleneck. Is it a certain type of decision? Is it a certain committee or board? Is there an attitude of fear underneath the surface? Fear of what?

2. Name the situation clearly

• State reality clearly and objectively, focusing on the benefits and the drawbacks of your current approach. Start by asking questions like these:
• How many committees or other groups have to say “yes” before a new idea can be tried? What was lost because of the church’s inability to act? What potential opportunities were left unexplored? What parts of the mission could have been better realized?

3. Clarify Who owns which decisions

• One of the biggest reasons churches get stuck is that nobody knows exactly who is responsible for what. What can a staff member decide? What belongs to the board? What committees need to be involved? What decisions require a congregational vote?
• When those lines are blurry, people freeze up for fear of overstepping. Clear ownership reduces confusion, lowers anxiety, and helps decisions be resolved more quickly at the appropriate level.

4. Keep the board focused on its highest work

• In How to Break Growth Barriers, Carl F. George and Warren Bird write that a critical role of the governing board is setting long-term and high-level vision for the organization.
• By contrast, the authors warn that when boards try to micromanage every ministry detail, the entire system will stall. They write: “At some point the church will have become so big that it is no longer practical for its volunteer board members, who are in effect part-timers, to manage the church’s coordination tasks. Too many details arise that cannot wait until the board convenes each month. No matter how efficient the board tries to be, it can regularly bottleneck the staff’s efforts to build growth momentum.”

5. Recruit for the board wisely

• For the board to function as it should, it should consist of certain types of people. George and Bird note that, in many churches, the board tends to accumulate “conservators,” which means the room is filled with potential blockers.
• A mix of personalities and gifting is best, but the board’s composition should slant toward big-picture thinkers, entrepreneurs, encouragers, and people who value mission over everything else.

6. Empower the staff to the lead day-to-day ministry work

• While the board is in charge of making sure the right things are done, the staff is typically in charge of making sure they are done right.
• As the ones who are “on the ground,” staff members have the best perspective to make nimble changes to the day-to-day execution of ministry strategy. They also have the time to fully implement these changes well.

This discussion may sound technical, but it is actually deeply spiritual because it shapes whether a church will be agile enough to respond to God’s calling faithfully. If you work to achieve clarity in the area of decision-making, you will find that the board will enjoy its role of thinking strategically and governing wisely. The staff will love the freedom they are given to lead operationally and adapt in real time. The entire church will be energized as it moves forward with more trust and less exhaustion.

• Where is decision-making getting bogged down in your church? What is one step you can take to begin relieving this bottleneck this week?