Bullseye: A Different Medicine

In the previous chapter of this series we observed that, within the Adventist context at least, structure isn’t the problem. This chapter will further explore the Adventist governance structure and how it compares to both the Baptist structure Paul Borden describes and his concept of the ideal church structure.

“And, even American Baptists agree that their denominational structure does not work” (p.29).

We aren’t Baptists, and we don’t claim to be experts on Baptist structure or opinions, but for the sake of argument we are going to assume that this statement is accurate. (The following description of Baptist polity is based exclusively on descriptions provided by Paul Borden. We apologize for any inaccuracy.) Under the Baptist structure, each congregation is an independent entity. It may voluntarily cooperate with other congregations or the higher structure, but it is under no obligation to do so if it is not so inclined. Also, the higher structure has no power or control over the congregation. Baptist congregations hire their pastors and all other paid staff directly. These paid personnel are described as being overseen by numerous boards and/or committees who take no active part in the ministry tasks they monitor, but who act as monetary gatekeepers and strategy assessors. There is, therefore, a separation between the authority to initiate ministry activities and the responsibility for carrying them out. Since the paid personnel are hired and fired by the congregation they must keep in mind the politics and preferences of the congregation in their actions. Borden mentions that as part of his interaction with congregations as a regional leader, “Often I have gone to board meetings and asked the pastor ahead of time what I needed to say that, if the pastor said it, might lead the board to consider dismissing the pastor” (p.109).

So how does Borden’s ideal structure function?

“We turned right side up the biblical model of congregational ministry. This meant that leaders were not hired to do the ministry. Instead they were employed to lead the congregation and equip the saints to do the work of ministry” (p.95).

“The board needed to give up control of leading the congregation to the pastor and the pastor’s staff members. The pastors and the staff members had to give up the control of the ministry to the laity of the congregation. This meant that the congregation needed to be led by staff members who saw their jobs as developing lay people to be disciples and leaders of ministries. Staff members were to equip people for the work of ministry rather than conducting the ministry themselves. The pastor and staff members were to be leaders who developed leaders, who in turn developed more leaders” (p.91).

“This new structure also meant a new way of looking at church boards. Their responsibility was to govern, not manage or lead. They were to focus on the ends of ministry, goals set by the pastor and the pastor’s staff members, not the means of ministry. The day-to-day conduct of ministry became the responsibility of staff members. Board members were taught that their job in relation to the pastor and pastor’s staff members were to be their protectors and cheerleaders. The board also held the pastor accountable each year for the missional goals that had been set by the pastor with the board’s approval. However, the board was not to become involved in the management of the ministry. In fact we encouraged congregations to dissolve all committees and task forces. We encouraged a tradeoff between the effective accomplishment of a mission versus a bureaucracy that gave everyone a say regardless of whether ministry was accomplished effectively or not. In larger congregations we urged the pastor to hire an administrator who would oversee a team of people (both paid and volunteer) to handle many administrative responsibilities. However, this administrator reported to the pastor, not the board” (pp.95, 96).

“Usually after a congregational consultation we encouraged congregations to have smaller boards of no more than three to seven people” (p.118).

To summarize, three to seven people sit on a board that has only two tasks: praise and protect the pastor and see that the pastor follows through on what he says he will do. (Presumably if the pastor does not do what he says he will they have the power to fire him.) The pastor, in turn, is responsible for coming up with big ideas about what the church will accomplish, choosing staff members to whom he can delegate the work, and then making sure they do it. These staff members choose members of the congregation to whom they can pass along this delegation of work and teach these volunteers how to do the work and train others. While called “staff members,” the individuals who answer to the pastor are not necessarily paid personnel.

“This new structure required that congregations of fifty, seventy, or 100 should be staff led. Most staff members were not paid, and if they were not retired they had full-time employment at other jobs during the week. These people were required to set behavioral, specific, and measurable goals for their respective areas of ministry. However, they were also given the complete authority, including the spending of their departmental budget allotments without special permission, to carry out their responsibilities. We trained them to recruit a team of individuals, they would develop as disciples and leaders to work with them. However, we made it quite clear that each staff member would be held accountable for the goals that had been established, not the team. It was, and continues to be, amazing how lay volunteers act when they are treated respectfully as staff members who are given the freedom to direct their ministries in relation to goals. They recruit whomever they want to be on their team and are responsible to see that these individuals get the training they need to be effective in ministry. These staff members no longer see themselves as volunteers, but as people ministering alongside the pastor to accomplish the mission and vision of the congregation. By the way, it is possible to fire such staff members if they fail to meet their goals” (p.96).

It is important to note at this point that creation and administration of the budget is done exclusively by the pastor. If the board of three to seven people believe he is being unreasonable in this regard they may take him to task after the fact, but there are no preventive checks and balances to protect against misuse or even absconding with funds. Such measures would hamper his “freedom to lead.”

“We believed in strong leadership, which meant that once the mission was adopted and once the vision was cast the leader needed to be given the freedom to lead. This meant the leader could not be second-guessed all the time for what she or he was doing to bring a change that would implement the mission and achieve the vision. It meant the leader could not be encumbered with bureaucratic restrictions that either inhibited what needed to be accomplished or slowed it down as it was going through channels. The leader did need to be held accountable, but that accountability needed to be one that related to the accomplishment of goals and results, not the process by which these goals and results were achieved” (p.135).

So how does the Adventist structure vary from either the Baptist system or Borden’s ideal system? The Adventist system is incredibly similar to Borden’s ideal system. There are no passive committees or boards. Everyone elected to the church board is there because they are tasked with the active leadership of a particular ministry. Functionally an Adventist church board meeting is designed to be a staff meeting in which individuals with specific active ministry responsibilities make and coordinate plans and keep each other accountable. (See our earlier post, The Right Way, for a more detailed description of how an Adventist church board functions.) When the size of the ministry warrants it, these ministry leaders have their own “staff” who are elected to assist with the ministry. These subordinates make up the “committee” or “council” for that particular ministry. These committees or councils meet formally or informally, regularly or irregularly, as the ministry leader sees a need in order to accomplish the ministry with which they are tasked. Ministry leaders have considerable discretion over their departmental budgets. Most congregations have safeguards that if a single expenditure is going to exceed a predetermined dollar amount it must be approved by the board, treasurer, or finance committee, but such approval is nearly automatic so long as the expenditure truly pertains to ministry. Unless this dollar amount limitation is tripped, the ministry leader needs no advance authorization to spend their budget.

Unlike Borden’s ideal system, in the Adventist system congregations don’t hire, pay, or fire their pastors. Pastors are hired, paid, and fired by the conference. (The conference also owns all local church property and requires remittance of all tithe funds.) The separation between paycheck source and ministry focus allows pastors to give the sort of unpleasant-but-necessary exhortations Borden admits a Baptist pastor could be dismissed for uttering, among other advantages, but it also has a significant impact on the accountability dynamic he prescribes. In order for a board or other entity to hold an individual accountable they must have some sort of power over that individual. In a perfect world if the board said to the individual, “You need to be working harder on this,” or “We aren’t satisfied with your performance on that,” the individual would immediately work to fix the problem. Realistically, unless the accountability body has some sort of hold over the individual they may not pay much heed to the accountability body. Borden’s ideal system assumes the continuation of the Baptist practice of the pastor being employed directly by the congregation. In this scenario an accountability board does have a hold over the pastor—namely the ability to terminate their employment. Since Adventist congregations do not employ their pastors directly this aspect of Borden’s system doesn’t work in an Adventist context.

“Three key concepts relating to structure must always be kept together in the structure and cannot be separated. Those concepts are authority, responsibility, and accountability. Any individual who is given a specific responsibility must be given adequate authority to accomplish the task. That individual must then be held accountable to ascertain that the responsibility has been fulfilled. Separating authority from responsibility creates frustration, and if accountability is absent, often creates ineffectiveness. Giving someone both authority and responsibility without demanding accountability is both dangerous and foolishness” (p.127).

The Adventist system achieves accountability through the peer pressure of making ministry leaders answer to each other (and the congregation through the electoral process) and by requiring the pastor to get approval for his decisions from the church board. The power to approve or disapprove of his plans is the only hold an Adventist congregation has over its pastor. To adopt in an Adventist congregation the Borden model of giving the pastor complete freedom to do ministry as he sees fit and then have a separate board which inquires about his accomplishments effectively creates the very problem Borden warns against—having authority and responsibility without accountability. This is because under the Adventist system of pastoral hiring an accountability body that looks at performance after the fact is impotent. Even more significant, giving a pastor that degree of freedom is not sanctioned by either biblical precedent or the Spirit of Prophesy.

“Notwithstanding the fact that Paul was personally taught by God, he had no strained ideas of individual responsibility. While looking to God for direct guidance, he was ever ready to recognize the authority vested in the body of believers united in church fellowship. He felt the need of counsel, and when matters of importance arose, he was glad to lay these before the church and to unite with his brethren in seeking God for wisdom to make right decisions. Even ‘the spirits of the prophets,’ he declared, ‘are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.’ 1 Corinthians 14:32, 33. With Peter, he taught that all united in church capacity should be ‘subject one to another.’ 1 Peter 5:5” (Acts of the Apostles, p.200).

“When this power which God has placed in the church is accredited to one man, and he is invested with the authority to be judgment for other minds, then the true Bible order is changed. Satan's efforts upon such a man's mind will be most subtle and sometimes overpowering, because through this mind he thinks he can affect many others. Your position on leadership is correct, if you give to the highest organized authority in the church what you have given to one man. God never designed that His work should bear the stamp of one man's mind and one man's judgment” (Testimonies to the Church, Vol. 3, p.493).

The bottom line is that while Borden’s ideal structure may benefit Baptists it is not useful for Adventists to attempt to apply its configurations of authority and accountability exactly as he prescribes them. To use a medical metaphor, giving the blood-thinning medicine prescribed for a heart attack patient to someone suffering from ulcers would not heal the ulcers; it would make them worse. Borden’s prescriptions might be just what the doctor ordered for Baptist congregations, but they only exacerbate Adventist problems.

“Congregations are scared to death to put authority and responsibility together because most believe it will create organizational monsters with dictatorial leaders. This fear is well founded, if there is not clear and powerful accountability” (p.142).