Church Business Meetings … Ughh?

iYou hear the stories. You may have sat through a few that got … spirited. You may have been the one that got … spirited. Maybe you see it on the church calendar and decide to take that weekend off from church. What is it that makes people dread these church meetings of business and reports?

We had our quarterly meeting this past Sunday night. It was pretty much uneventful if one was looking for fireworks. But it was necessary. Being every church is autonomous, being that pastors don’t need to be making all the decisions, and being that churches (at least at this size of membership) need to encourage membership involvement and ownership – an occasional such gathering is healthy. Or should be.

Okay, I blew one of Robert’s rules this time. Age? Expediency? Ignorance? I claim all three. But the correction came privately and after the meeting … I like that and appreciate that.

My father, veteran pastor of 4 decades, one said church business meetings should be conducted as if they were held in the local mall with spectators watching … and they should see love, excitement, and respect between members.

What a great way to have business meetings. Here are some reasons Thom Rainer gave for business meeting being eliminated in many churches: they attract negative attitudes and negative members who often push out positive members, it leads to micromanaging, Millennials abhor contention, and it can give too much attention to naysayers (even if they are only a small fraction of membership).

So why do we have them?

• We are to run churches without confusion. Business meetings help inform and should smoothly expedite ministries of the church.
• We are to be a church that encourages involvement. Business meetings should allow engagement and promote an ownership to ministries.
• We are to be a family that values everyone.
• They can be great way to show respect and unity, even in, or especially in, scenarios of disagreements.
• It can be a great way to share visions and passions of leadership. Sunday mornings (or whenever your worship times are) are great for this too, but business meetings can go deeper and broader – and cast the vision in a different setting.

I realize they can be overdone, over emphasized, and under-planned. But a well planned, and Spirited meeting (note the S not a s) is something to look forward to.

So, let’s call this meeting to order.

About our meeting this past Sunday. We reported God blessing in members’ stewardship, building debt coming down, many members getting involved (Nominating report), new members, and more. We even voted to begin an ongoing support of Gabe King in his new ministry role with Life Action … sweet.

See … God is good, all the time … even in business meetings.