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Keys to Teamwork (Part 4): Wise Decision Making

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by | 9 November, 2008 | 0 comments

By Stephen Bond

 

Steve Bond and his wife, Pam, launched Summit Christian Church in March 1998. The church met in the Sparks YMCA for 3½ years before moving to a new permanent facility on a 36-acre site. Summit”s vision is to “Love God, Love People, and Serve Others.”

Over the past 10 years the church has grown to more than 2,000 people in weekend worship attendance. Approximately 1,000 adults are also involved in life groups. One of the keys to this growth has been a high level of teamwork among Summit”s staff and elders.

This is the fourth of four articles by Bond sharing principles of teamwork from his ministry experience.

October 19: Chemistry

October 26: Communication

November 2: Conflict Resolution

  

 

 


 

 

Part 4: Wise Decision Making

It surprises people when I mention we have never taken a vote at Summit. We purchased 36 acres of prime real estate, held two major capital campaigns, and had two major building projects. But we have not held one congregational meeting or voted even once.

I believe the way decisions are made significantly impacts a local church”s ability to grow. Church polity can either enhance or derail a church”s effectiveness.

This is one reason I have thoroughly enjoyed planting a new church. The decision-making processes at Summit have been shaped, to some degree, around my own unique leadership style. This has been incredibly liberating!

By contrast, when I became senior pastor in my previous church it was already a well-established congregation. Unbeknownst to me, this included having well-established ways of making decisions. My ignorance led me periodically to stub my toes because the decision-making pathways were not altogether clear.

At Summit, the most important decision-making guideline for our elder team is that all decisions are made by consensus. If 100 percent of the elders are not onboard, then we wait or we choose another route. God”s leading is not evident in a 5-3 vote. However, his leading becomes quite clear when consensus is present.

Most churches have at least two major tiers for decision making: the elders form one tier, and the pastoral staff forms another. Often turf wars erupt over who is calling the shots. Is it the elders or the staff? We coined a phrase at Summit to help untangle this knot.

Our church is “staff led and elder empowered.” The staff makes the operational decisions for leading ministries, training leaders, and spending budgeted monies. The elders provide big-picture oversight, prayer, and wisdom; they also approve the budget and provide accountability for me as senior pastor. But the elders do not concern themselves with hands-on management of church affairs, unless an unusual problem arises. Thus, Summit offers a staff-led and elder-empowered governance model. By God”s grace, this has created a decision-making matrix resulting in predominantly wise decisions.

 

Don”t Rush Decisions

I believe my strongest spiritual gift is leadership. My wife says I normally live six months ahead of everybody else. It”s a God-given penchant for me to look beyond the horizon to see what the Lord wants to happen at Summit.

This leadership gift coupled with my type-A temperament has gotten me into trouble in past ministries. There were times when I saw hills I thought needed to be taken for the kingdom. But then I rushed people on my teams and pushed too hard to take those hills.

In recent years, I have come to see the wisdom in Steven Sample”s The Contrarian”s Guide to Leadership. Sample is the much-ballyhooed president of the University of Southern California. He is a remarkably successful leader. Sample observes that many believe leaders should be decisive and quick. But he points out that the most effective leaders actually delay making a decision until it becomes necessary. Sample offers a helpful guideline: “Never make a decision today that can reasonably be put off to tomorrow.”1 This gives time for the circumstances to mature, time to accrue additional information, and time for people who might be impacted to process and provide their input.

This has served us well at Summit. Normally an appropriate amount of time is given to allow a decision to become seasoned. This has increased our wisdom-quotient and reduced the number of bone-jarring decisions that create messes requiring time and energy for mop-up operations.

One reason wise decision making is crucial to teamwork is because making unwise decisions drains leadership morale like nothing else. Ministry teams thrive or wither depending on its leadership”s decision-making wisdom.

 

I Don”t Always Get My Way

I am passionate about Summit. I love what God is doing in our congregation. Sometimes I have good ideas about how to improve things. But, since I”m human, sometimes I also have ideas that aren”t helpful. Being the senior pastor doesn”t mean I have a direct pipeline to God. I have learned to listen to those around me.

What we want at Summit is for God”s will to be done””not my will. As a result, I have learned it”s OK when one of my ideas is shot down. I don”t always have to have my way.

This is one reason I enjoy my close relationship with our executive pastor, Roger Yount. Roger is wired very differently than me. He thinks more ponderously than I do. He evaluates more closely than I do. And he considers the down sides of every decision more honestly than I do.

I like to “run and gun.” Show me the next hill and I want to begin the charge now! But Roger keeps my feet planted on solid ground.

I need Roger. He makes me a better leader. He helps me make wiser decisions than I would make alone. Roger is an excellent decision-making barometer. When Roger finally says go, I am confident we”re heading in the right direction.

I trust Roger. I know he loves me and wants God”s best for me and for Summit. I listen carefully to him, and the entire Summit staff team knows it. They know I am only one part of the team. It”s not “my show.” We”re in it together. I need them just like they need me.

It”s a very foolish leader, indeed, who surrounds himself with people who tell him only what he wants to hear. Proverbs 15:22 says, “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” I know my weaknesses. I”ve gained much by listening to wise counsel. Most of all, I”ve learned I shouldn”t always get my way.

 

What Works Today May Not Work Tomorrow

The way decisions are made at Summit has changed dramatically as the church has grown. For example, our entire staff used to meet weekly at a local pastry shop. As a result of that meeting, everyone on staff knew pretty much everything and everyone was involved in pretty much every decision. This changed dramatically as the church and staff grew. It simply became too cumbersome to discuss every issue.

Eventually, we discontinued the weekly staff business meeting (although we continue to have a weekly prayer meeting). Now we hold a monthly staff meeting to review one another”s accountability reports and receive leadership training from Roger, the executive pastor.

This much I have learned: what works today regarding decision making may not work tomorrow. The one constant has been change. As Larry Osborne has written, “Growing churches don”t just become bigger versions of the past self. They change into something entirely different.”2 

 

Receive Adequate Input

I mentioned earlier that we have never had a vote at Summit. Actually, this is only partially true. In reality, people vote in church every week. They vote two ways: with their feet and with their pocketbooks. If a congregation votes against a church”s leadership, often its attendance and giving decline. If a congregation votes for a church”s leadership, its attendance and giving often, but not always, will increase. This means it behooves church leaders to pay close attention to what their congregation is saying with their feet and with their pocketbooks!

At Summit this has meant our leaders listen to input and ideas, stay accessible to the congregation, promptly return phone calls, and overcommunicate with the church before implementing major changes. Max De Pree writes, “Good communication is not simply sending and receiving. Nor is good communication simply a mechanical exchange of data. No matter how good the communication, if no one listens all is lost. The best communication forces you to listen.”3

Among Summit”s ministry staff and elders I believe we have created a team culture that prizes the art of listening. All this leads to receiving adequate input for wise, consensus-based decision making. This is yet another facet in the teamwork diamond.

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1Steven B. Sample, The Contrarian”s Guide to Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass), 72.

2Larry W. Osborne. The Unity Factor (Vista: Owl”s Nest, 2006), 118.

3Max De Pree, Leadership Is an Art (New York: Dell, 1990), 102.

 

 

 

Steve Bond serves as senior pastor with Summit Christian Church, Sparks, Nevada. This is the fourth of four articles he”s written about keys to building teamwork.

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