Now you have a handy-dandy summary of how the Board is enacting policy-based governance in our congregation. (You DID receive our very awesome brochure in the mail, right?) You’ve also received an invitation to one of three opportunities to hear a brief presentation about governance: Tuesday night, October 26 at 7 pm, or after either of the Sunday services on October 31. Childcare will be provided for the presentations on Sunday.
Here’s a quote from Dan Hotchkiss (p 80 of Governance and Ministry):
There is no one right way to organize a congregation; each community of faith must choose a structure right for its own values and beliefs, and in harmony with the practice of its historic tradition and its larger family of congregations….. Among those practices are board-centered and committee-centered modes of governance that emerged early in the 1900s. In their place, congregations are experimenting with alternatives. The most successful of these efforts focus strongly on the congregation’s mission—rather than on organizational life for its own sake. They also have in common clarity about which buck stops where and how leaders will be held accountable. Equipped with a clear structure, such congregations can identify their mission clearly, choose a strategy, get out from under their own feet, and move ahead.
So in designing our new governance system, we have started with the UUCA mission. With much input from the congregation, we adopted this mission statement: “We nurture individual search for meaning as we work in community for freedom, justice and love.” And it is from this mission statement as well as strategic planning results from a year and a half ago, that our Ends, statements of who we want to be in the world, were created.
Linda~
ReplyDeleteWhen Policy-based Governance was first explained to me, my immediate reaction was “To expect the same person to act as Minister and CEO is not realistic.“ To me, that expectation may be appealing in concept but does not take into account that the two roles require entirely different skills and interests. It is a miserable situation to try and fill a role that does not fit your skills/interests. I believe combining the Minister and CEO roles likely creates that situation.
I’ve looked through the Governance documents on our website and haven’t found anything that addresses my concern. It seems to be assumed that a Minister can just morph into a CEO.
If my concern about the personality mismatch of the combined roles is valid, then Policy-based Governance is fundamentally flawed. Since our congregation is trying it, I’d like to be able to support it. I would appreciate any insight you can offer on the viability of a combined Minister/CEO role.
~Cynthia Barrager
Note: I first accessed your blog by clicking the Governance link in the weekly UUCA e-newsletter. After giving it some thought I decided to post this comment. I went to our website, but was unable to find the Governance info. I ended up going back to the e-newsletter link.
Hi Cynthia,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your note. The concern you voice is a valid one, It was my first reaction, too. Here's my thinking on this so far. 1) Other congregations have done this and are doing this--so at least it's possible. 2) Although we may always name the Lead Minister as the Executive, we are planning to add a full-time assistant minister to reduce the ministry workload some and are planning to grow the Church Administrator role to Business Administrator, a job with more responsibility and expectations--and pay--than the current Church Administrator job. That oughta help. Some congregations use two- or three-person "Executive Teams" but we haven't been able to figure out how that helps with accountability.
As far as finding future Lead Ministers who are willing and able to both be a "Minister" and the leader of the church's ministry, I know that there are people willing and excited to do this, especially once we fill out our staffing to appropriate-for-our-size levels.
And, for you and others, the Governance webpage can be accessed by clicking on the butterfly of the Vision-Clarity-Accountability box on the home page.