Flipping and Equipping the Church Council for Fun (enjoyable) and Productive Meetings – Transcript
Jim Latimer
Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministry, best practices and quick help – wisdom from the field. This is our collaborative Wisdom from the Field project, featuring short interviews with transitional interim ministers, and others, with practical help and wisdom to offer those engaged in transitional ministry. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of wisdom from the field.
Jim Latimer
My name is Jim Latimer, and I’m your host. Today we have the joy of having with us Reverend Joe Graumann. Joe is a Millennial, and he’s part of the ELCA denomination. He’s a Lutheran. And as I’ve gotten to know him the last several years, I have really been impressed with how his passion for justice and grace that driven by the gospel of Jesus, right? – how he brings that to life in church administration, how meetings are run, and things like that in a beautiful way that’s uncommon. And I wanted him to speak a little bit about that. And he agreed to that, so, thank you, Joe, for speaking about specifically about for example, a church council meeting – how do we bring that into a church council meeting? So, Joe, if you speak to that a little bit, that’d be great.
Joe Graumann
Thanks, Jim. Yes, so I’m a nerd who really loves committees and loves church councils. I think Council culture is really important. And unfortunately, a church council could either be a clergy person’s, like, favorite thing, or the worst hour. And one of the big problems I think, I’ve heard and experienced in church councils is that they can get too bogged down in the procedure of running a meeting, like a Robert’s Rules meeting, without kind of tapping into the flexibility that those rules allow. And so, you might spend 15 minutes talking about the minutes of the last meeting, and then going through the reports for an hour and a half. And by the time it’s time to talk about new business, or old business, which is the part of the meeting that actually deals with, like, what’s going on now, and where how the board needs to act, everyone’s tired, they want to go home. And so, either the meeting goes on forever, or the meeting accomplishes nothing.
Joe Graumann
And so, I think that no innovation, of any kind appears in a vacuum. And I am so thankful for getting this idea from Pastor Karen Brau at Luther Place Memorial Church in DC, who talked about the relational council meeting. The way I like to say it is that we flip the meeting. So essentially, for my Robert’s Rules geeks out there, we’re gonna take new business and old business and move them before the reports.
Jim Latimer
Oh, my gosh, radical! Are we allowed to do that?
Joe Graumann
It depends on your church Constitution. But, here’s the secret to Robert’s Rules. If you have unanimous consent from the board, you can pretty much do anything. You’re talking about people who know each other, with whom you have a relationship. And if they have a big objection to that, then that’s something to talk about, and maybe to debate. But generally, I found most of the time, if you go to your Chair, and you say, Here’s this idea, if they’ve been a council, President, or a board chair long enough, they can intuit but this might be worth a try. Because we’ve all been tired for new business.
Joe Graumann
So, the idea is, I we call it Hot Topics in our council. And we always begin with a prayer. And then I kind of carve out some time – it’s pastor’s teaching time that I call it. And it might be, for example, something I learned during my PINNE Fellowship at Hartford International University, or it might be something that came out from the bishop. Or it might be like, Oh, hey, have you ever heard of anxiety in churches, like Family Systems theory? So, you take 10-20 minutes, and just resource your council members. And then we usually approve the minutes. I always make it clear that under Robert’s Rules, latest addition, you can just ask for consent to adopt the minutes. The Chair so you don’t have to spend 40 minutes on the minutes. It should be a minute, minutes, okay. And then you launch into the Hot Topics.
Joe Graumann
And the best thing is, even if it’s something that might be discussed in the reports later, it’s what people care about and what they’re there to talk about. And I think that as a church council, and this is coming from the Lutheran perspective, and I’m using Lutheran language, it can also be stuff like, Oh, well, did you hear that he’s going through a tough time? Or, Oh, do we have to pass the budget in, in three weeks, in three months, so let’s start planning for our budget now. It can look however it needs to look for the sake of the congregation, and for the sake of the people there.
Joe Graumann
It’s a time for motions, if you need to act. But it also could be a time for slightly less formal conversation. Of course, as in all meetings, that’s up to the Chair. And the Chair would exercise discretion as that goes. And then when the important stuff is done, then we turn to the reports. And I’m about to say something kind of controversial. Believe it or not, the more you ask of the people ahead of the meeting, the easier the meeting will go, and the happier they will be. And it sounds horrible to assign homework. But I have without exception, experience that requiring written reports, or strongly recommending them, is the best way to go. Because, first of all, there’s a record and records are important. I could give a whole lecture on church records and why that’s important. Second, they help you organize your thoughts. So, someone’s not just like freewheeling it for a half an hour while you want to go see the Red Sox game. And third is, you can say, Okay, well, I have nothing more than my report. And it really saves time in meetings. It really does. And if you can have a council meeting, and take it from two hours to one hour, you’ll have happy counselors.
Jim Latimer
Yes. And that’s the key! What you’re describing then, is that much of the meeting, most of it really, is about things that people are really interested in. It’s not chewing cardboard, business stuff. It’s really human. It’s human topics and things that are on people’s hearts and minds. So, probably people might even look forward to a council meeting if it’s run this way…
Joe Graumann
Yes, that’s great. I mean, let’s, you know, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, because there’s still work to be done. Like I said, if that budget meeting is coming up, the hot topic is gonna be paying the bills. But say, there’s a big event, and you might have committees or teams in your church, but sometimes you have a big event that everybody needs to be involved in, and you can’t have those teams siloed. And that’s explicitly the purpose of a council meeting.
Joe Graumann
The second thing that you mentioned that I want to reflect on, and hit home, is that you want people to look forward to council! It should not be painful. And if it is, I think you’re doing it wrong. And there’s a number of reasons why having a positive experience with church governance is crucial. The first one is that you want people to do a good job while they’re there. The second, and if people are happy, they’ll do a better job. The second thing is you want people to want to be on council. There’s nothing worse – I have been in a situation where you like beg, borrow, steal, and you’re like, Oh, you could just join Council, and then you could resign at any time. We just need that butt in the seat. And that’s not good. That’s not good governance. I don’t know about your church, but my church is explicitly a democracy. So many churches are afraid of having competitive council elections, which I can see the wisdom of in certain cultures. But like, how wonderful would it be if people wanted to be leaders in their congregation?
Jim Latimer
So, what you’re saying then, is the experience of when they gather for council meetings, if it’s a positive one for them, then they’re more likely to want to be on it, and then there’ll be happier when they’re there. They’re more likely to prepare for it, and the output of it will be higher quality, right? It’s what’s you’re saying?
Joe Graumann
Yes, absolutely. And this is one of those things, too, that if you are a clergy person, and you’re not the council president, because in some churches they do have that role. I found that as a clergy person, often that you’re more of an advisor. You can’t make this happen. I would argue you shouldn’t unilaterally make this happen. But, to have that little time for you to share something to help develop your board or your vestry – to read a poem, or to set the stage is also a great time to recall the Divine – the divine purpose of the council, to use very Lutheran language. The church is the place where people encounter God in Word and Sacrament, and the church council governs that, and it’s a really holy responsibility that we can do God’s will. And it shouldn’t be taken lightly. And it also shouldn’t be as a slog. The same thing, with if going to church on a Sunday makes you want to jump out a window, then you know, Jesus didn’t die for us to be miserable in a building together. And, yeah, it’s important to like set that tone.
Joe Graumann
The other thing that I would suggest, besides flipping the meeting which I think really does make a big difference. But another thing that does sound like a big groan, if you’re listening to this, like you can let out a groan probably unless you’re on an elevator, I wouldn’t recommend that. But I have asked, and people have been really gracious, to go to a board retreat. And you can make it as long or short as you want. You can go away. You can have it for three hours on a Saturday morning. People kind of like that because they keep the rest of their day free. And what we have done in our previous board meetings was, we go over the mission statements and all that documentation of the church. We have time for sharing and prayer and Bible study, of course. We read the Constitution! And especially like the church council Section of the Constitution – What is your purpose? What are we doing? That’s important. And, also, we plan for the coming year. Not big stuff and not minute stuff, but like, Oh, in the fall, we want to do this, in the winter, we want to do that. And you resource people. I also throw in some stuff, like leadership stuff, like Family Systems theory. So, you resource people so that when they go in and do it early, like if you have elections in January, then do it in February. And then that way people do feel like they belong, and that they’re equipped to make those decisions.
Jim Latimer
Yes. Good, Joe. This has been really rich. Let’s move into wrap-up mode here if we can. Let’s briefly review here the flip. Let’s see if I’ve got it right. First, there was a prayer, of course, you open with a prayer. And then you go into some pastor’s teaching time, where you’re really resourcing. It could be one minute to five minutes, whatever, not long, but it’s specifically time with something that’s rich that would help them grow in their personal life, their faith life, whatever. And then after that, approval of the minutes, which is brief, if everybody gets their reports in ahead of time, you don’t have to go through the whole thing to approve it. Then, number four is Hot Topics – things that the people really care about. It could be a less formal conversation depending on who’s, running the meeting. And then the reports, fifth, And then after that you move into wrap-up of the council meeting, your conclusion in some way. Did I get it right?
Joe Graumann
Yes. And realistically, those all switch. Probably reports will still take long, but they’ll take less long. Does that make sense? And then you get out of there.
Jim Latimer
That’s right. Yes. And you can do it in an hour, typically, if it’s run well. And people enjoy it. Joe, well, thank you so much. This has been really rich. This is really helpful for folks running meetings and being part of them. Thanks, Joe!
Joe Graumann
Thanks, Jim. Bye. Bye.
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