Decisions, that's the key. Getting a bunch of people together and making decisions that make church life more interesting, even more fun. What a church offers and what it does is decided somewhere by someone. Who is that elusive someone and when do they meet? I'd like to share a thing or two with them.

Here are some of the ways that churches are run or if you prefer, directed.

1. Family or Personality Run

One family has the power to make things happen, sometimes two families that are inseparable. Sometimes its the head of one family. No matter the mix, it's the strength and forcefulness of the person in question that makes things happen. When someone suggests something, others say, did you run that by so and so. Just ask him first. You really can't do anything in that church without their approval.

You can imagine the pros and cons of such a church. I have seen a couple of churches run this way and I really don't have much good to say about it. I don't think it has a chance of functioning well over a long period.

2. Staff Run Church

This style of church leadership is more common today even though we don't see much of it in my denomination. The pastor basically gets to pick a staff, sometimes paid, often volunteer. If you can manage a team well and can pick good leaders to be on the staff, then this style is proving to work well for many churches. The culture of your church has to be set up for it, understanding how to hold the staff accountable and yet support them in their ministry efforts.

Most of the decisions in this type of church are made in staff meetings and most of them are driven by senior staff. There are numerous good things about this style and some not so good things. All I'll say about that is that if you have a high trust level in your church, then this style might work well. If not, your staff will be hampered by naysayers and foot-dragging, or other manipulations to keep them from doing their best.

A new church plant often starts this way out of necessity. A pastor basically picks his staff because that is where he has to start. As time goes on, the staff style either works as competent leaders are added to the staff or it falls apart because good leaders can't be found to replaces those who leave.

Here is a critique of staff led churches from a missional and more complex perspective. I get some of what the author is suggesting, but I don't see things as complicated as he does. I think some sniffing around the writings of Lyle Schaller and a couple of books by Paul Borden will help.

A general caution to keep in mind is that trying to change from one style to another is almost certain to cause some controversy, since someone inevitably gets turned out of power and others enter into power. There are numerous blogs to be found about this controversy if you want to explore them. The problem is simple really, someone loses their ability to make and influence the decisions in the church and they don't like it. They of course think that their way is the right way and the new group of leaders is the wrong way and so they start a blog or other form of communication to do what they can to slow down the new leadership. I'd give you an example, but I don't think it would be very valuable in the long run. All I'm saying is, that taking on a change in leadership style and structure at your church can be hazardous and painful. Be sure you're up for it and ready for some long term planning on how to get through it all. It's not for the feint of heart.

3. Board Run Church

This is the current favorite if you were to take a poll. If nothing else, it's what we know and traditionally rely on for our churches. It has that as an advantage, at least we know how to relate to a board since that has been our system for so long.

A board run church has several strengths, well thought out decisions usually since they have to be run by a large group. Once the group is on board, things usually proceed well and things get done. But if your idea doesn't fly well at the board, you may have a hard time relating to a board structure. You must make certain accommodations to work well with the church board. Things go at a slower pace, sometimes they are postponed easily or even shelved indefinitely. A lack of patience on your part will not work well for you. But if you learn how to work with a group of leaders and interact with and support their ideas then there is a good chance that you will find some working room in a board run church.

There are a couple things I like to say when I see someone who wants to lead in our church but isn't sure how to go about it. They usually run an idea by me and wait to see how I respond. Sometimes their idea has some merit, sometimes it doesn't. If I shoot it down to quickly, they have a hard time with that usually. So often, not always, but often I let it go through and let it get tossed around at the board. Who knows, I might be totally off base about someones idea for a church activity or leadership direction. The board should have a chance to weigh in. But some things don't make it past me. Recently an inquiry came to me about changing the time of our church service. I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't go anywhere and so I didn't offer to take that to board. Who knows, maybe we could change our time, but then why would we. Someone else would like something else to change as well and should we accommodate every change everyone wants us to make. Not hardly, that would be the surest way to drive yourself crazy in short order.

You have to figure out and educate your leaders as to what is appropriate at church board. After a while, they will know how to discern what needs to come there and what doesn't. And they will bring it to your attention as needed if you chair the board.

So the thing I say a lot is, Let's take it to board, see what they say.

Another thing I say a lot is, Don't fall in love with your idea until it's voted.

All too often, when an idea we have does not gain approval we feel as if that is a defeat or a rejection. And that often leads to inactivity or less risk taking and less engagement. Boards are risk minimizing for a reason. This can be both good and bad. I've left some board meetings feeling like they just needed to stretch a little more and take a risk. Building this into the board takes time. They have to overcome their fears of failure or potential embarrassment. Failure and failing have to be seen as part of the culture of success.

But once again, don't fall in love with your ideas until they are voted. You can like them a lot, but don't get so wrapped up in them that if the board doesn't go for them the way you do, you have to go on and continue to serve. At least that's the goal.

One other thing I like to say to boards is this. Your job is to decide. To make decisions. And to do that, we make motions. Actually for you parliamentarian nuts out there, you don't make a motion, you move it. Whatever. Boards that have few to no decisions in the recent past are not really performing their work. Just saying no to people's ideas is not good performance or decision making. Boards need to be proactive and take ideas from wherever they come from and consider how to make them better if need be and then implement them.

I could say a lot more about Board Run Churches, maybe a later post, but for now, its the style that I am most familiar with and use the most. It works, even when it doesn't work well. It can be improved a lot, I agree, but that is the responsibility of the pastor I think. Not that he or she is going to fix every board and every problem, but someone has to call attention to the non functioning aspects of church boards. If you don't, who will. Once again though, be prepared for some flak over this. Getting high performance out of a church board takes more skill than you have been led to believe. Get some training, take it seriously, read about it. Your church depends heavily on it.

4. Pastor Run Church

Ah, the pastors favorite style of church. Yea right. I walked into one church and the ministerial secretary said to me, "Marty, they'll let you do anything you want here, as long as you do it." At first, that sounds good. After a while though, when you are totally stressed out from trying all those new things they let you do but you are tired and worn out because you did them all by yourself, you will rue the day when you said yea for a Pastor Led Church. I've had one in my life. I love the people and some of them were active to be sure, but it really was not anywhere near what you might think it could be.

I think you really do want your members and key leaders to run your church. You really do want it to be their church and they must lead it. So a pastor run church is a non starter to me. Now, a pastor led church, I could talk more about that and support that to an extent, but even there, you want to share the leadership with many others.

Anyhow, if you've got a pastor run church, I'd like to hear about it. I suspect it's lonely and not very fulfilling. But hey, I've been wrong before.

So there are some takes on how things get done in most churches. It's about decisions and who makes them and how to influence them. Are you good at deciding and helping others to make decisions? Maybe you should be on your church board. Maybe you are already. Learn more about empowerment and how to make decisions through others and you might just be an excellent board member and your church will benefit greatly from it.