Category: Governance

Posted in Change Management, Church Growth & Vitality, Governance, Leadership Development, Pastoral Care, Team Building, Volunteers Tagged with

11 min 31 s

Rev. Joe Graumann

Are your Church Council meetings a drag? You know – people come because they have to, persevering through a meeting that’s bogged down in procedures and run with a lack of imagination. Boring! Lots of time and energy is wasted. When can I go home?! If so, Rev. Joe Graumann offers some simple changes that can make Council meetings more fun and productive – ones that people will actually looking forward to attending – in this episode titled, “Flipping and Equipping the Church Council for Fun (enjoyable) and Productive Meetings”

Using the Relational Model for Council meetings – put cool stuff up front and

Reports submitted in advance;

Tapping into the flexibility offered by Roberts’ Rules;

Moving New & Old Business before the committee reports;

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Posted in Church Growth & Vitality, Governance, Leadership Development, Self-Care, Staff, Team Building, Volunteers Tagged with

11 min 25s

Rev. Joe Graumann

In smaller churches, pastors often spend lots of time on things that parishioners aren’t even aware they are spending their time on – especially things that others could do as well. This, of course, takes time and energy away from things pastors are specifically trained to do and people are expecting them to do. Consequently, the pastor feels overworked and exhausted, leading to resentment by the pastor and upset by parishioners when the pastor isn’t available to do what is expected of them – what they have been trained to do and is in their job description.

In this episode titled, “How I Enable My Parishioners to Support Me in Using My Time & Energy Wisely As Their Pastor,” Rev. Joe Graumann shares how he manages this challenge in a way that all parties feel respected, the pastor’s time and energies are employed well, and the needs of the church are met too.

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Posted in Church Growth & Vitality, Faith Formation, Governance, Leadership Development, Mission and Vision, Spiritual Formation, Team Building, Volunteers Tagged with

12 min 2s

Rev. thom bower

When thom said that committee work can be an essential means of faith formation, it gave me pause. After all, serving on committees is what many people try to avoid. But what he said made sense: when committees practice intentional reflection on their work, it can be faith forming. Put differently, committee work is faith forming when it builds up the beloved community by probing and affirming shared values, purpose and goals. Rev. Dr. thom bower elaborates on this concept and offers a simple 5-step process to guide committee work in this episode titled, “Transforming the Work of Committees to Faith Formation.”

It’s in committee work that adult faith takes its life;

Need to approach committee work in a way that recognizes that management itself is faith formation;

A 5-step process to make committee work a community building practice;

  1. What? (the event)
  2. What was it? (the debriefing)
  3. What about it? (getting more info)
  4. So what? (with that info, what do we change?
  5. What’s next? (Preparing for the next thing)

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Posted in Church Growth & Vitality, Faith Formation, Governance, Leadership Development, Mission and Vision, Spiritual Formation, Team Building, Volunteers Tagged with

12 min 2s

Rev. Dr. thom bower

The word “community” is used a lot when talking about church life, yet it’s often a vague notion. But if we frame it as a spiritual discipline – that is, creating community as a spiritual disciple – we get much more traction: What does it mean to be a community now? What does it mean to create community as a Jesus follower? What does it mean to be a Jesus follower in this congregation? At this time and in this neighborhood? How do we keep what is essential and yet lean into the future where things are changing for us? Rev. Dr. thom bower speaks to these questions and more in this episode titled, “Learning to Be Community As a Spiritual Discipline.”

“What does it mean for you to be a community?” – essential question for a congregation;

What does it mean to have a spiritual discipline?

What does that look like as a community activity? (Community as a verb)

Community as the content of faith formation, as the process of faith formation and as the outcome of faith formation;

What does it mean to be a community now? In our context?

Four questions –

  1. What are the issues you’re facing?
  2. What do you see are the qualities of community?
  3. What are the main actions of being community in this congregation?
  4. Who facilitates it and what’s their role?

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