3. True leaders aren’t leading.
In every church, there are people who hold the position of leadership and then there are people who are truly leaders (who may not hold any position in your church).
Release people who hold titles but aren’t advancing the mission, and hand the job over to real leaders. Look for people who have a track record of handling responsibility in other areas of life and give them the job of leading the church into the future with you.
If you actually have leaders leading, it will make a huge difference.
4. Volunteers are unempowered.
Sure, small churches may not have the budget to hire other staff, but you have people. Once you have identified true leaders, and once you’re clear on your mission, vision and strategy, you need to release people to accomplish them.
Try to do it all yourself and you will burn out, leave or simply be ineffective.
Empower volunteers around an aligned strategy and you will likely begin to see progress.
5. The governance team micromanages.
If you need permission every time you need to buy paper towels or repaint an office, you have a governance issue.
Most boards who micromanage do so because that’s where most people simply default. You need a board that guards the mission and vision and empowers the team to accomplish it and then gets out of the way.
This post on governance from Jeff Brodie is gold.
6. Too many meetings.
I led a church with a grand total of 50 people in attendance. We had 16 elders. Overall, the church was in evening meetings two to three times a week.
Why on earth would a church that small need to meet that often?
I eventually repurposed most of those meetings to become meetings about vision and reorganization. We also cut the number of elders down. Now, although we have a much bigger church, I’m only out one or two nights a week (and then, mostly for small group).
If you’re going to meet, meet on purpose for the future. Free up your time so you and your team can accomplish something significant.
