Church Management – Using Councils to Help Guide the Church

In Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great, he talks about using councils to help guide the organization.  Councils should be made up of a group of the right people to discuss, debate, and make decisions about the administration and management of the church.  People selected to serve on councils should be those with knowledge, experience and a passion for the topic.  These knowledge experts should be steered by the board and used to facilitate a decision-making process that benefits the church.

Councils should have a clear charter, and someone should be assigned to facilitate the process.  This facilitator should help the council identify a team, create a team charter, ground rules and team goals.  By going through this process, the team has some accountability and a set direction.  Councils should meet regularly and report to the church board.

Examples of Church Councils:

Budget Review

The budget review council should be assigned to review monthly budget numbers, analyze budget variances and approve non-budget expenditures.  This group is also responsible for meeting with church managers and creating the annual church budget.  The budgeting process forecasts annual revenues, fixed and flexible spending, and anticipates and budgets for large capital expenses.  This group is the financial think-tank and has an identified representative that reports to the board-of-directors.

Human Resource

The human resource council helps to ensure that policies, procedures and processes are in place to support church personnel and volunteers and that the ministry complies with and operates within state and federal laws.  An HR council might also have responsibility to review job applications and approve applicants for the first round of interviews.

The HR Council should also help to establish employee pay grades, make decisions on employee benefits, employee policies, training, tuition reimbursement, leadership development, job classifications, employee assistance programs, vacation approval process, reward and recognition, and performance management.

Facility Review

The facility review council should meet on a regular basis and discuss strategy for facility management, identifying facility update needs, and plan for future expansions or remodels.

This group also facilitates the process of ensuring that staff work areas meet employee job requirements and gives direction on standard furniture, décor colors, campus way-finding, and mechanical equipment needs.  This council meets with the budget review committee to ensure large capital expenditures are budgeted and resources are available when needed.

Information Technology

The information technology council is responsible for making sure the church has the necessary technology to run its operations.  This may include recommending purchases such as audio visual equipment for church services, computer software to operate children’s ministry or assessing whether employees have the right computer equipment and software to perform their job duties.

This council also researches new technologies and ensures the church is using all available technologies that would facilitate streamlined work processes.  For example, investing in electronic scanning systems for children’s ministry and adult classes can eliminate the need to manually input attendance information into the church database.

This council is also responsible for establishing ministry guidelines for replacing computers, setting guidelines for Internet usage, training employees in proper email etiquette, communicating policies on employee personal use of church equipment, and establishing any other information technology parameters.

Safety

A safety council is responsible for ensuring the church provides a safe environment for visitors and employees.  This is done by reviewing safety procedures for potentially dangerous activities by employees and volunteers.  This group should make routine campus rounds and proactively look for hazards that need to be corrected. This could be anything within buildings or outside grounds.  Things like electrical systems, walking surfaces, air quality, fire extinguishers, clutter in hallways, etc.  Making a point of looking for things that could pose a threat of harm to employees or visitors can help to avoid an unnecessary incident of injury.

Customer Experience

A customer experience council is responsible for seeking feedback from all customer groups—congregant, volunteers and employees—and identifying ways to improve the experience.  This council may be responsible for facilitating a formal feedback process, reviewing feedback data, and developing improvement plans based on that data.  For example, this group may find that volunteers are asking for a more structured training process because they don’t feel adequately trained to perform their job duties.

Managing churches can be challenging with limited resources and the reliance on volunteer labor.  Identifying the right councils, with the right people to help make recommendations and decisions for the operational side of the church helps a church stay focused on key priorities and acts as an accountability tool for church leaders.

photo by:  niasembly