Not everyone is qualified to serve on a church board, and choosing the wrong people condemns the board to unhealthiness and frustration for years to come.
It is easy to put someone on a board and hard to remove them.
So, who should not serve on a church board?
Those who have a personal agenda for the church.
Jesus designed church leadership as a plurality of leaders, not an individual leader. That, by necessity, means that we intend to seek God’s face together regarding the direction of the church.
Rather than an individual agenda, we are committed to a corporate agenda based on our seeking God’s will. Those with individual agendas will sabotage that corporate pursuit of God’s will.
Those who cannot submit to group decisions.
The humility to seek God’s will as a group and then submit to that direction is a natural extension of the comments above.
People who need to have their own way are not qualified to serve in church leadership, regardless of their reasoning. Divided boards ultimately create divided congregations.
Those who are black and white and inflexible.
Group leadership requires flexibility to the opinions of others and the ultimate decisions of a group. Those who draw fine lines on issues and cannot be flexible will find it difficult, if not impossible, to serve well in a group setting.
This includes legalists who draw fine distinctions in lifestyle and fine points of theology where there is legitimate room for disagreement.
