The Unity Factor

One of the goals of the "PBG church" blog is to share resources that help church boards grow in effectiveness. Today, while searching my bookshelves, I re-discovered this gem: The Unity Factor by Pastor Larry W. Osborne. It really is a "must-read" for every church board.

Pastor Osborne offers a wealth of insights and practical suggestions on a wide range of subjects pertinent to boards, including:

• Nominating, electing & training new board members
• Helping board members work together effectively
• Evaluating the pastor's performance & determining salaries
• Leading change in the congregation
• Structuring board meetings to ensure time given to pray & long-range planning.

For those still exploring PBG, the closing paragraphs of chapter nine may be especially helpful:

"As a church grows, it loses much of its close-knit family feel. There is no way a group of 500 can experience the same community that a church of 150 enjoys. A larger church will also have less tolerance for shoddy programs and performance. In a church of 800, Aunt Martha's renditions aren't quaint; they're painful. It's not that people suddenly have become less loving. It's that the majority don't know her personally. So instead of appreciating her sincerity and effort, they're embarrassed by her mistakes.

Church government also goes through significant changes each time a church reaches a new plateau. In smaller churches a highly participatory form of congregational government usually works fine, but in a larger church it quickly becomes unwieldy. In most cases, the larger the church, the harder it is to get a quorum for a special business meeting. And contrary to what many people think, the problem is not apathy; it's changing sociological expectations. The larger the group, the more people look to their designated leaders for direction and decision making, and the less interest they have in the nuts and bolts of running the church."