Elephant in the Boardroom:  What Drives a Church?

Orginally published on Tuesday, March 08, 2005 at 6:00 AM
by Todd Rhoades

In the past few week’s we’ve been looking at excerpts of Carolyn Weese and J. Russell Crabtree’s new book "The Elephant in the Boardroom:  Speaking the unspoken about Pastoral Transitions".  There is a fascinating chapter in the book about the four variations of churches.  I encourage you to get a copy of the book to read the whole chapter for yourself (It, by itself is worth the cost of the book in my opinion!).  This week, we’ll take a quick look at the four different types of churches, and next Tuesday we’ll finish up our discussion of the book by giving some detailed examples of each.  Carolyn and Russ write…

Let's consider what it is that drives a church.  At the human level, a driver is the propellant that gives energy to a church.  Broadly speaking, churches are driven by either knowledge or personality.  Of course, both knowledge and personality are important to a church.  But generally a church chooses one as the primary driver of its corporate life and relegates the other to an auxiliary function.  Some churches are personality driven; others are knowledge-driven.

In the personality-driven church, the pastor uses his or her personality as the primary resource for accomplishing the mission.  There is an emphasis on the relationship with the pastor and the benefits of that relationship through pastoral care; influence, political function; or the unique gifts of the pastor related to presentation, communication, or charismatic function.

In the knowledge-driven church, the pastor uses specialized knowledge as the primary resource for accomplishing the mission.  There is an emphasis on the knowledge that the pastor holds regarding history, tradition, and liturgy or to the knowldge that the pastor is skilled at transmitting through teaching, training, coaching, or mentoring.  The critical knowledge can be Biblical, theological (a particular theological perspective), or practical (how to work for justice). 

Of course, pastors serve in both these roles.  Generally, they prefer to function in one role more than another, and the members expect this to be so.  The member expectation becomes part of the social contract that glues them to the Body.

In addition to drivers connected to the pastor, there are generally two sets of criteria that members use to judge the success of the church.  Broadly speaking, members judge that the church is successful either through style criteria or effectiveness criteria.

In an effectiveness-based church, the members evaluate its success according to how successful the church is in accomplishing its mission.  There is an emphasis on evaluation, benchmarking, and best practices.  Many mainline denominations chaff at the concept of "success" as a criterion for their churches.  However, even a church as committed to social justice as the Presbyterian Church indicates in its governing documents that the church must be open to changing its institutional forms so that they are faithful and useful.

In a style-based church, the members evaluate the success of the church by how well the leadership preserves a certain style or tradition regardless of effectiveness.  There is an emphasis on history, tribe, and ritual.

If we combine the two pastoral drivers with the two criteria for success, we can develop a chart with four quadrants that represent church cultures (see the top of this posting)

Members in these four church types have differing implicit social contracts that glue them together.  In addition, the four church types represent four cultures.  Though all have allegiance to Jesus Christ, they have four distinct sets of ideas governing them, often their own vocabulary, and identifiable set of values, their own set of rewards and punishments.  As differing cultures, each church type has its own feel and distinct role for the pastor.

DISCUSSION:  Take a look at the chart above.  Is your church blatently in one culture camp?  Take a moment to share with us what kind of church yours is.  How does understanding this culture help you in your leadership and the way you approach your ministry position?

Have a great day!

Todd

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