Sometimes I throw some things out here that I am still testing and learning. Over the last few years, I have noticed a tremendous amount of (positive) change in the culture of CCF. It has been an amazing journey to see the transitions in an established congregation.
Here are a few things that I have read about and been told about, but seeing it happen before my eyes has been more powerful (in a good way). Again, I am still testing some of this, but I am beginning to think that:
The more open and communicative leaders are (even about bad stuff), the less suspicious people are of them. This is one of the reasons I blog! People just want to know what's up.
The bigger a church gets, the smaller the business meetings get! One Lead Pastor recently told me that when they were 50 people, 50 people came to the Business meetings. Now that they are 1,200, 20 people come to the business meeting. And this is a very healthy church, trust me!
The more a church grows and produces fruit, the less people feel the need to be involved in every decision. When trust increases, need for control decreases.
Basically, here is my developing theory: If a church is healthy, the more it grows, the less people feel the need to be involved in vision decisions, ministry decisions, business meetings, etc. The larger you get, the more people want to just be discipled, make relationships and help make the vision happen!! They trust the leaders more and let them lead (unlike many small churches where people think that they need to do the leading and make all the decisions themselves). Let me know if you find a healthy church of over 500 with a congregational rule where the people make all the decisions. The larger you get, the fewer people are at the table to make the decisions, but the right people must be there!
Disclaimer: this post is not intended to advocate for dictatorial leadership, which is not Biblical, rather it is advocating for healthy leadership where the right people are at the table at the right times. Additionally, good leaders are always listening!!
2 comments:
Noah, I had never heard of this principle before until I read your post. Then consequently I read The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team, and heard the same principle taught there. The larger an organization gets the smaller the executive staff should get to keep decision making manageable.
--Ben
Cool Ben! Yeah, I only heard this once. Never read it. But I have watched it happen before my eyes at CCF over the last few years.
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