I coach a lot of church people, and every church has a church council. It’s like a board of directors – that guiding group that every non-profit has.
At one of my client’s churches, the same people cycle on and off of the church council all the time. It’s a three year term, then they’re off for a year and they come back. There’s enough people doing this that there’s never ‘new blood’ on the church council.
This church is facing some big financial problems with their building. They have the same people talking about the same problem without knowing what to do.
Someone new joined the church. She had a background in non-profit fundraising AND she actually was a Parliamentarian. Everyone was like, ‘We need her on the church council! She’ll know what to do.’ They all voted for her, and she got onto the church council.
She started speaking up. This made all of the long time members of the church council so uncomfortable! She said: ‘Here’s how to raise money. Here’s how to get grants. I can help do it.’ And the council was very uncomfortable with it.
She also, because she was a Parliamentarian, started saying ‘We need to vote on this, according to our constitution.’ The council didn’t want to; they had been sort of gray area about a lot of things and not officially voting.
Her position on the church council was Secretary. Not everyone used their full names whenever they talked because they all knew each other for years. Being new to the council, as secretary, she got a few names wrong, and they decided she shouldn’t be on church council anymore, because “she doesn’t take good minutes.”
It was never about the minutes. It’s about how uncomfortable they are with change.
Now, the rest of the church is thinking, “We still have these financial problems,” and now a person who knows what to do is no longer on the church council.
It bothers me so much: the way in which organizations are so resistant to change, that even when a solution comes along, they cannot listen and they cannot act on it.
Don’t be that organization, and don’t be that individual person.