from Tom Bandy

This and the following step may seem twin processes. The first is, build the stability triangle. If the congregation is heavily invested in spiritual gift discernment as a methodology to nominate or appoint leaders, look for the following people. All of them must not only be gifted, but genuinely be able to say that they feel called to the team from their own prayer and spiritual discernment disciplines.
a) For the Human Resources Team, you are looking for people gifted in shepherding, counseling, or leadership.
b) For the Training Team, you are looking for people gifted in teaching, helps, or service.
c) For the Administration team you are looking for people gifted in administration.

I suppose it sounds odd to say it that intentionally, but the truth is that most people nominated and elected to office in traditional organizations are acting out of a sense of duty, not out of a sense of personalfulfillment.

If you do not have heavy investment in spiritual gifts discernment, then go to the congregation itself. Draw an ideal profile of the kind of person you are looking for in each team, and ask people to anonymously identify 3 or 4 people who come to their minds. That is your short list. Interview each one. You are looking for credible, widely respected, spiritually disciplined people with a flare for growing, training, or deploying missionaries. I need to stress that these people need to be hand-picked by the steering committee, heavily influenced by the pastor and congregational input as stated above. Some church polities will require nominations and elections. However, you need to stress that the "slate" is developed with integrity - and that people should be elected by their gifts and calling. Competency is actually
secondary, since you will provide training for these teams later. Representational responsibility for various sub-groups of generation, gender, or whatever is much less relevant.

At the same time, start looking for a new breed of board member. Again, polity will partly shape how you go about this. You are looking for people with spiritual gifts in vision, organization, or leadership. These are people who can live in the future, be comfortable with chaos, dream
impossibilities, synthesize opposites. These are NOT experts in "management" - after all the board will not deal with budgets, reports, or day to day management of the church. Can they talk to strangers? Can they interpret demographic statistics? Can they connect and converse with community leaders and faith leaders - locally and even globally?

Still in "dry dock", the steering committee can now spend time with the teams of the stability triangle and the core of the new board. Together they need to hammer out their own "proscriptive" job descriptions. These do not need to be "laid on", but rather developed from within the teams themselves. Unlike the old model, you are not nominating people to implement a "To Do" list that has already been drawn out. You are gathering the right people to help them develop their own "Don't Do" list. They themselves can craft their job descriptions â€| pastor and steering committee can be involved.

I have tried to provide some basic "categories" of proscriptions that might be included in their job descriptions, but each team will develop the
details themselves. If you wish, you can even test them periodically with the existing board or the congregation for feedback and fine tuning.

Meanwhile (still in "dry dock") the new board can begin shaping the kind of broad policies that will become additional boundaries for the creativity of the church. Some of these may carry some denominational roots. For example, Lutherans might say that "every human being can directly access the fullness of the Holy without an intermediary, and every Christian is called to ministry" which is the historic "priesthood of all believers" doctrine. Such a policy will mean that the church cannot rely exclusively on clergy to celebrate sacraments or do ministries, and open the door for radical volunteerism. The "new" Board can begin to identify long term opportunities and obstacles, consider what measurable changes in social and personal change will become their guides for success, and ponder what degree of sacrifice they will personally model to the congregation to achieve mission. Note again, they do not need training in budget development, fund raising, program management, or even conflict resolution â€| the staples of the old "prescriptively thinking" board.

Once the teams of the Stability Triangle have more clarity about job descriptions, they will also have greater clarity about their continuing education needs. Whatever it takes, train the teams. One of the most helpful tactics will be to bring people in from outside the church (from secular, non-profit, corporate, or health care sectors) to train the teams in their work.

Presumably the spiritual growth emphasis of step 1 has been utilizing small group multiplication as a key methodology. Now begin training those team leaders to develop similar proscriptive job descriptions for each team. Who does it? The Training Team itself from the Stability Triangle. This task will not only help re-shape the various cells, but it will be "learning-on-the-go" for the Training Team itself.

The Human Resources Team can begin refining both the gifts discernment process in the congregation, and also develop a grievance process
similar to the one I have generally described in my book. They can also begin targeting the development of continuing education budgets for both volunteers and staff. Dialogue with the emerging "new" board may help them anticipate key areas for new learning.

Throughout all of this work, staff (and the pastor in particular) will begin to understand how their emerging new roles will impact their weekly
agenda. They will need some mentoring (in cooperation with the steering committee), and can begin to re-write their job descriptions "proscriptively". How these job descriptions will look cannot be predicted by me from afar. It is the very essence of the organization that job descriptions are not "generic" or "importable" from one place to another, but developed uniquely and contextually in each place. They will reflect the unique genetic code of each congregation.

When all is in place, an entire package needs to be set before the congregation. IN UMC circles, I presume that will require a "charge
conference". The membership of the new board and stability triangle, the newly revised proscriptive job descriptions, along with the genetic
code, all need to be shared. There may well be more than one gathering to try to educate the congregation on the new model. IN the end, the congregation will likely need to make a decision. You need to choose a date, smash the champagne bottle on the construction that has been till now in "dry dock", and launch the ship. From that moment, the old organizational model is gone.

The next year will indeed be a "shake down cruise", but clarity and consensus around the genetic code will make it a smoother ride. No doubt there will be refinements and changes in job descriptions, team membership, etc.. Eventually, however, a new organizational model will become the "habit" of the congregation â€| and it will release more energies for mission.

From Bill Easum

Tom has given us  nuts and bolts approach to the Stability Triangle and accountability. It is a good one and worthy to be followed.

Those who follow both of us know that at some points Tom and I diverge some, but that is the essence of the world we are moving toward - no one has any one good answer to most things. Where Tom and I might differ a bit is on the job descriptions, but even then, not much. I dont believe in job descriptions much anymore. But if you have to have them to satisfy the old timers and Boomers, then limit them serverly to simply proscriptive items and then not too many.

Say I am hiring someone to be the worship leader and the mission of the church is to "transform seekers into people filled with the Spirit" then
about all I want that person to know about their job is that they are to use their passion and gift for music as a vehicle to achieve that mission
within the vision and values of the church. I think the values set all the boundaries a church needs - thus, no need for job descriptions. For
example. say one of the values is Teams. then the worship leader knows that she/he must enhance the mission of the church through teams, not on his/her own.

Now, I am fully convinced it is a momunemtal mistake for job descriptions to include things like how much vacation a person gets, or how many hours a day they should work, or what day or days a week they get off, or how many sick days they get. If I have to police the people with whom I work, something is wrong. I dont have to be policed and neither should they. The only place this does not apply is with secretaries, Business Managers, and custodians. they need set hours and the Business Manager needs to be on premise on Sunday

mornings to keep the rest of the staff from having to field
administrative
issues which always seem to happen on Sunday.

I want paid and unpaid staff to join me on the journey of making the mission happen, not to fulfill a pre-determined job. So the last few years of
my ministry, our job descriptions were almost nil. About all they said was that their role was to enhance the mission statement and to identify, recruit, train, and deploy 35 new leaders each year. That was it. period.

So, let me encourage everyone to move toward either the elimination or very brief proscriptive job descriptions which do not police and only direct the person toward the fulfillment of the DNA of the particular church.