Churches set up for failure

This afternoon I was contacted by a pastor who had a rough weekend. This bivocational pastor made a decision in a small church that has turned into a firestorm. The decision doesn't matter, but it was a minor decision that would have had no negative impact on the church until some people went on the attack. They insisted the pastor had no right to make a decision; the church had to vote on every decision that was made in their church.

I've been a member of Baptist churches most of my life, and that is the way we are structured. Every member has the right to vote on every issue that may come before the church. Somehow we have determined that Scripture teaches that churches should operate under a democratic form of government. More and more I am realizing that this structure has set us up for failure.

God calls individuals to serve His churches as leaders, but many of these individuals are never allowed to lead. Someone has said that God has called us to save the world, but we can't spend $10.00 without a church vote. Does anyone else see how ridiculous this is? Our churches call persons who have been gifted by God and trained to lead in ministry to be their pastor and then refuses to allow them to use their gifts and training. Pastors are called to lead and grow their churches but refused the authority to do so. Then when the church doesn't grow a group within the church determines it's the pastor's fault and he or she must leave so the church can get a pastor who will grow the church.

A person recently wrote that if he wanted to drive a person insane he would make that person responsible for the success of the organization but not allow him to have any authority. I can't think of a better description of many of our pastors. I also believe this is one of the primary reasons so many of our churches remain so small.

You won't find any of the mega-churches holding business meetings every month to vote on the color of new carpet. Larger churches trust their leaders to make the decisions that will benefit the church and lead to a more effective ministry. Even many mid-size churches will only have an annual business meeting to approve the upcoming budget and the new slate of officers. A Board of Trustees often provide oversight for the financial and legal responsibilities of the church, but the remainder of administrative responsibilities fall to the pastor and staff. This allows the church to respond quickly to the needs of its community. While many of our smaller churches are announcing special-called business meetings in at least three services prior to the meeting so they can form a committee to consider responding to a ministry opportunity, the larger church has already taken steps to meet that opportunity. Then the members of the smaller churches sit back and complain that their church just can't compete with the larger churches in the community. Of course not! Those churches are structured for success while many of our smaller churches are structured for maintaining the status quo.

If you are serving in a smaller church that has overcome this type of controlling structure I would like to hear from you. Please respond to this post so we can discuss the type of structure your church now has and how you were able to lead that change.