Comments on: mDNA - Governance and leadership structures

By: Lionfish

Lionfish — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 08:46:53 +0000

Call me simple, but I do not know about ‘carver’ but once any membership based organisation grows to a certain size, why cannot the members/congregation elect the board of those who govern their organisation.

Management will therefore be accountable to the board that represents the interests of Members, and therfore management must sell its worth to both the board and ultimately the elected members (congregation) it represents.

This will help eliminate autocracy and cronyism.

By: phil

phil — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 08:33:30 +0000

I would actually see that as the strength of a governance model such as Carver. Policies written by a governance board, in a missional church, should not be detailed to the point that those in mission cannot make decisions. Infact, the reverse is true, a good policy allows authority to be moved to the edge and decisions to be made on the run and the midst of missional action.

I think this is a considerable advantage over the traditional board/elder model of management where often most of the decisions needed to be resolved at a meeting.

In any organisation that grows beyond a small size, some people must be set aside to guard the dna and health of the organisation. This and good accountability processes is very different to what you say about “People on ‘boards’, while having interest, often don’t have to ‘wear the choices’ that they make and operate under the policies that they produce.”

Alan, do you have some other structure in mind for larger organisations? How would you apply appropriate accountabiity processes that doesn’t involve a split between governance and management functions?

By: alan hirsch

alan hirsch — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 08:19:30 +0000

Whilst I fully accept the need for some form of accountability, I think that the standard governance model (cava) leaves much to be desired from a missional point of view. The problem can become that those who have the highest stake in the sucess of the enterprise are at the mercy of those who have the lowest stake/interest in the project. People on ‘boards’, while having interest, often don’t have to ‘wear the choices’ that they make and operate under the policies that they produce. This can be problematic don’t you think? I would rather reverse it all. Those with great stake get greater say in policy and direction because they have to live with the choices.

By: Lionfish

Lionfish — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 10:33:19 +0000

That is a great post. Interestingly, Protest Churches advocate “teh Priesthood for all believers” but then institute and ‘elite clergy class’ of people.
Ironic.

By: Subversive Influence » Leadership Structures in Missional Churches… Can we Stop “Swinging Past”?

Sat, 30 Jul 2005 22:44:24 +0000

[…] ch Missional — Brother Maynard @ 5:43 pm

Phil over at Signposts has some […]