to a podcast with Dan Hotchkiss
The seminar is scheduled to begin on February 3rd with lunch at noon and end after lunch on February 5th.
Have you had it with board meetings?
While most board members of congregations hope to contribute to their community’s long-term success, the reality of board service is that too often it frustrates and exhausts both board members and the staff who work with them.
This seminar is designed to help congregations to move beyond frustrating and ineffective ways of managing the work of boards, clergy, and staff. It draws on innovations in the larger world of nonprofit boards by thinkers such as Richard Chait, John Carver, and Frances Hesselbein. Dan Hotchkiss often encourages congregation boards to quit most of their current work and focus on work only a board can do: discerning the congregation’s mission, choosing strategies, delegating operational authority, and holding paid and volunteer staff accountable for achieving results.
Dan Hotchkiss’ approach is based on the conviction that the art of governance in congregations is about creating a balance between ministers, staff, and the governing board or vestry. It is about the partnership tools needed for ministry together. A healthy governing body in a congregation
- starts with clearly defined roles and authority
- succeeds when lay and professional leaders lead do ministry together, collaboratively, as partners.
You will learn specific practices and principles that will help your governing board streamline its decision-making, maintain clear limits, and keep the congregation's mission at the center of its ministry. By discovering how to set clear policies and behavioral covenants, you will find that you can trust others to make their own decisions, give up micromanaging, and make space for holy conversations.
When congregations seek guidance for discernment and dialogue around issues of planning, visioning, and governance, Dan Hotchkiss is a valued partner for his creative approaches and sensitive understanding of the human and institutional dynamics within
congregations. He is the
author of Ministry and Money: A Guide for Clergy and Their Friends (Alban, 2002); h
is next Alban book is Governance and Ministry: Rethinking Board Leadership.
About Dan Hotchkiss
When congregations seek guidance for discernment and dialogue around issues of planning, visioning, and governance, Dan Hotchkiss is a valued partner for his creative approaches and sensitive understanding of the human and institutional dynamics within congregations. His next book is tentatively titled Ministry Together: The Art of Governance in Congregations.
Photo Credit: FMC Gallery