All churches – regardless of denomination and affiliation – are organized around some form of central leadership hierarchy. Most models come out of the business world and consists of numerous committees with a chair and an agenda.
That structure works well when you have lots of people needing places to plug into the life of the church…and those people love meetings. The problem is that one or both of those things are no longer true in most churches.
But even if those two things are still true in your church it could be hurting your effectiveness. Let me give you five reasons all those meetings and committees are hurting your church’s kingdom impact.
#1. Your real work gets pushed to the margins.
Ideally your church structure would help people use their gifts to their fullest potential. Now there may be some people who have the gift “of meeting” but those folks are exceedingly rare. Instead, we tend to take people with passion and commitment and put them in a place where we can slowly drain both of those things from them.
Most churches move to a Simplified Accountable Structure (SAS) single board model because of what it can do. It means: fewer meetings, fewer committees, fewer leadership gaps. The work of the church is not to meet but to transform themselves and their communities.
Most of the work of traditional committees is spent maintaining and asking questions like, “What did we do last year?”
We need meetings that empower leaders to focus on what truly matters—missional clarity, accountability, and spiritual growth. Churches that move to a SAS model discover it helps churches move from maintenance to movement, from managing to leading.
Is your current church structure enabling the real work of the church? If not, you may want to consider a change.
#2. You create a culture of delay.
The traditional church structure is broken into work areas. One committee deals with finances, another with property, another with paid personnel, and yet another with volunteers. What this creates in the decision process is bottle necks. Every idea must go through multiple committees each of which has its own ideas of how to make it better. This often leads to going back to a committee to “approve” the new and improved idea. What you end up with is a culture of delay and a culture of delay is a culture of decay.
Have you noticed how fast things change in our world today? Of course you have. It only makes sense our structure is nimble enough to take advantage of opportunities when they come or respond to the latest “crisis” quickly and effectively.
SAS provides more than structure modification—it provides a steering wheel for ministry direction. It gives churches the framework and freedom to shift from reactive management to proactive leadership. It moves from busy committees to empowered teams, from a culture of delay to one focused on Kingdom impact.
#3. You kill courage.
Sure, committees are famous for creating delays. A part of me dies whenever a committee decides to table something until next month. But another thing committees are really good at is killing courage.
Given the pace of change in our culture and the need for innovation in our churches, we need more courageous decisions. If you sit around a table and try to get consensus on ideas, you tend to get watered down, vanilla, or just plain bad ideas. There is a reason the first question often asked at a meeting is “what did we do last year.” It took us forever to get consensus on that so let us keep our meeting short and just keep doing what we have always done.
Do not get me wrong, ideas can get improved and perfected in a meeting. But that is the exception. When people start thinking “realistically” the great idea more times than not will die the death of a thousand paper cuts. (and all too often real paper is involved)
Consensus kills courage.
The SAS structure reframes leadership roles. For example, if you need ‘approval,’ a much better path is for a visionary or two to pitch an idea (as crazy as it seems) and get the team to approve it or the pastor who oversees the ministry. The difference is that courageous individuals created the idea in its final form, NOT a committee, team, or board. The board, team or pastor merely approves the visionary’s (aka crazy person) initiative. The Leadership Board keeps a balcony view of the ministry to keep those ideas in alignment with the mission and ministry of the church. The Leadership Board does not micro-manage, they lead.
#4. You rarely work ON your mission, only IN it.
Over a decade ago Andy Stanley, Reggie Joiner and Lane Jones taught us the difference between working on it and working in it—whatever your it is. When you only work in your mission, you never advance your mission. In church world, this means most leaders in most meetings are only preparing for what is next and not on the future.
SAS reinforces the importance of balcony time—intentional moments for leaders to step back, gain perspective, and ensure the church is steering toward its mission rather than staring into the rearview mirror. Without that strategic view, even faithful activity can become aimless. I am reminded of the wisdom of Yogi Beara who said, “If you don’t know where you are going you will end up some place else.”
Does your current structure give your leadership enough “balcony time” to look at and plan for the future, to work ON your mission, not just IN it.
#5. You waste WAY MORE time than you need to
The biggest complaint I hear about meetings is that they have no set end time or they routinely push past it.
They rarely start on time because people need to chat and catch up. Social time is important but not at the cost of going over the time allotted for the meeting.
Every traditional meeting has a moment when the finance report and minutes of the last meeting need to be approved. Inevitably someone says, “Just a moment, let me read those.” Maybe something needs to be added, corrected, or taken out but why are we wasting valuable time on something that could have been sent out ahead of time and corrections made before the meeting?
SAS Saves time, energy, and resources
SAS requires a packet of information be sent out so that everyone can look at the materials they will need for that meeting ahead of time. Minutes and Finance Reports are seen a week in advance and any questions and clarifications handled prior to the meeting so that they can be approved as part of the consent calendar each month.
Then there is the time wasted on reporting on the events since the last meeting. How many times do we need to hear the details of the Easter Egg hunt or rummage sale? SAS reduces the time wasted by making reports written and given out ahead of time in the packet I mentioned.
How much time do you currently waste in meetings that could be better used on other topics like the mission and ministry goals of your church?
Well, there you have it. My five reasons your structure maybe holding you back from the kind of impact you could be making for the Kingdom of God. If you would like to explore the SAS Governance Model for your church contact me through the website: www.mylevelupcoaching.com .
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