Ten months into the discovery journey of a large urban church, two members of the elder team decided to take matters into their own hands. They started circulating emails about their process – and some accusations - with people in the congregation. Wildfire took hold of and wrecked the church.
Stage 2 in the process of your church’s own discovery journey around LGBTQ questions is about engaging the church board. If you don’t do this well, you could lose people you don’t need to, create confusion, or end up looking like a bully. There are three practical considerations in stage 2.
First, Decide When and How to Bring in Your Board
All kinds of wisdom needs to be employed when taking that faithful step to share with your board that you are wondering about going on a discovery journey around LGBTQ issues.
Sometimes there’s a trusted person on the board to talk to first. Sometimes a former pastor holds the key to discerning the way forward. And usually there needs to be some reflection on where the board is theologically and how open they might be.
There are plenty of practical matters as well. For example, Jenni* was starting to shift in her position around LGBTQ issues and she felt like there would be openness on her board to the conversation. Afterall, board members’ own kids had told the youth group that they’d leave the church if it didn’t make more space for LGBTQ people. But Jenni had an issue – she wasn’t ordained yet. So she waited 6 months to bring it up to the board so she could pass through the ordination gauntlet (which was reputed to be almost vindictive when it came to this particular issue).
Sometimes it’s a capital campaign or staff hiring that has to be concluded before burdening the board with this conversation. Other times it’s a personal situation, like the pastor I talked to today who said that he and his wife had to finish their stint in marriage therapy before he could handle the intensity of this conversation with his board, even though he knew it was past time to have it.
Second, Start with Decisional Clarity
On the front end of the conversation with the board there has to be absolute clarity about:
- What is being discussed?
- What specifically needs to be decided (if anything)?
- Who has the authority to make the decision/s?
At Small Church Big Table (and in my own church), we use what’s called the Decision Funnel, which specifies 4 different types of decisions and how they will be made. Often we’ll see healthy church boards start at what we call L4, which is simply a conversation with no decision (these L4s are crucial to making strong consensus decisions later).
What that can look like is this: One pastor we coached had this rubric in his pocket at the beginning of their orientation dinner for new deacons and elders. One of the newbies asked out of the blue, “What does the board think about gay marriage?” This pastor kicked off a robust, earnest discussion with his clear and non-anxious response: “What a great question. Let’s create a little space right here for that conversation where there are no pronouncements or decisions, but rather let’s explore different people’s experiences and theological perspectives.”
He had clarity in the moment to know how to set the stage for better conversations later on.
That same pastor, however, knew that eventually it was his board of elders who would actually make that decision. He had clarity in the moment to know how to set the stage for better conversations later on. In other churches, it’s a team of pastors or a sub-team of a board (e.g., an executive team) who would make a recommendation to the board or the congregation for a vote. Knowing your governance is crucial, and we strongly recommend reviewing church and denominational bylaws.
Third, Establish How to Handle Conflict
The boards that enter into these conversations in the healthiest way are the ones who have an agreed upon practice for conflict resolution.
The boards that enter into these conversations in the healthiest way are the ones who have an agreed upon practice for conflict resolution. There are multiple ways to do this, but it’s non-negotiable because there will be conflict.
One of the wise guides who led our church’s LGBTQ Study Team process spent part of our very first meeting explaining what felt like a very clunky way to have conflict. We’d have to raise our ‘conflict card’ during a meeting. And then at the end of every meeting we’d spend 10 minutes reviewing any conflicts that were still brewing. Yep, it was clunky. But wow, was it powerful. Our team had widely divergent theologies, and we all hung in there together through a few real storms (including the time I started yelling – more on that in a different blog!).
It's not enough to simply have an agreement about handling conflict. There also has to be a practice.
It's not enough to simply have an agreement about handling conflict. There also has to be a practice. And whoever is leading the team needs to lean into that practice at every. single. meeting. It’s tiring, but it’s crucial for holding your board together.
For simple tools like our Conflict Card and our Decision Funnel join us for a coaching cohort. But more importantly, see if you can enlist a board member or two to join you to cast vision for how the conversation could unfold in healthy ways.
-Bill
Read the next post in this series: Stage 3 (Discernment Team)