Richard van Houten

At Church of the Servant, where I am a member, we adopted this three-part council around 1991. The Admin committee met weekly for one hour, and ran rather smoothly. However, as the church grew, the number of pastoral elders and working deacons grew with it to meet growing demands, and the council grew to an unwieldy 40+ members. So a couple of years ago, we reverted to a two-part council, reduced its size, delegated some pastoral duties to appointed volunteers, and added a staff person to handle the administrative matters.

So, I wonder if the three-part system works better in mid-size churches (300-600 members). I also work for Second Byron CRC, with about 400 members, and we are  just recommending a shift to a three-part system. We want to assign a few elders and deacons, with a pastor, to an Administrative Committee, which would replace our current Executive Committee, and handle all the routine supervision--facilities, finances, and staff. We would reduce the number of council meetings to six from its current 11 or 12. We hope that this will allow council to focus on its main leadership roles in encouraging ministry, and reduce the micro-management that plagues so many church councils, including this one. 

As we start on this road, I would really like to hear from others who had positive or negative experience with such organizational patterns. I don't see this change as a panacea for all our problems, but so far I think it will be a positive step, if we can accompany it with a new focus on vision and relationship, rather than being stuck in a management mode.

There is something to be debated about whether tithing should be on one's gross income or net income. I suspect that tithing by the people of Israel also went for some administrative purposes, possible even the maintenance of the King and his palaces. But I would love to be informed by someone who knows better. So even then, the tithe was something like a tax. Some portion of current taxes are for doing good, but most go to support the core functions of the state -- defense and administration of justice (in my ideal world, at least.) As for the taxes that come directly out of my pocket, namely the property, sales, and gas taxes, I have a little bit of control over those, buy controlling what and how much I buy, while admitting that I am relatively powerless to set the tax rates on those.

Clearly, in the New Testament, Christ wants us to give generously, and a tithe is a good starting place. But I would calculate my tithe on the money that shows up in my bank accounts (or similar pockets). That is the part I have some control over, the part that I see as given to me by God to administer on his behalf.

We had a similar discussion a few months ago. Take a look at the resources on http://network.crcna.org/forums/web/permission-photo-use-church-web-site

This a complicated issue because it deals both with raising money and with pastoral care. When we look at the upper tier of donors, we have the issue of how to thank them, and how to acknowledge them. While persons who give large gifts may not want a lot of public recognition, they can and perhaps should expect that the pastor and few other key leaders know of the contributions they have made. Moreover, if you have a group of relatively wealthy persons, they usually know each other, and they often look for some assurance that everyone is pulling their weight.  This becomes complicated, however, if in your church, as we have in mine, you have made an issue of complete confidentiality about pledging and giving. I am hoping we can retreat a bit from that policy, because we need good relationships with these crucial financial supporters.

On the lower end of the scale, however, it is a matter of pastoral care. For those who give zero, the reasons could hardly be financial alone -- and even that would be a matter for diaconal concern. Almost always this is a matter of faith. Such people have more serious issues with their church and themselves and their relationship to God. Should the elders know this? Or the pastor? Perhaps so, but it does no good to bring up the poor giving as an entry point for discussion. As I read somewhere, but can't place it right now, you can't ask $10 from someone with a $5 faith.

Then there are those whose gifts are small. I had a conversation recently with a man who did not like to receive reports on his giving from the treasurer. He did not say directly, but I concluded that he felt some shame that his gifts were so small. I assured him that no one except the one person who recorded the gift knew what he gave. No one else saw his report. He relaxed. That man wears his faith on his sleeve. No one can doubt he is a follower of Jesus. I doubt that it would help any elder to know his record of giving.

So, I am leaning towards a policy where a small circle of people have some access to the giving records, a circle that would include the pastor. The pastor, who also knows the elders and deacons, might occasionally alert an elder or deacon privately about a particular case, but would not share this knowledge generally.

Thanks for the input. I did plan on open-ended questions in my "list of questions," and these are very helpful suggestions for phrasing and approach.

You are probably well underway, but Dan Hotchkiss, Governance and Ministry: Rethinking Board Leadership, provides a sample outline of materials that could or should be included in a policy manual. See. p. 218 for his outline. I strongly recommend the book for other uses, including getting one's church council to focus on policy making as a primary task.

Jim, we got the designation through an unscientific survey, a web-based poll. So Grand Rapidians (including me) voted themselves in as Beer City. But all is not lost. Besides Christian publishing, we gain a certain fame--and notoriety--from Art Prize, but the Christian world also sees us, though the work of Calvin Institute for Christian Worship, as a major stimulant and resource center for worship renewal. Through industrious work, we have also managed to become a metropolitan region of more than one million people -- by census counting. Still, your main point is right, that our prominence as a theological center has declined significantly.

Thanks for the many comments. We are now studying the photos we were thinking of using and identifying those whose faces show clearly, and will seek permission. I am not sure of local law on the use of photos, but I think we can take some reasonable precautions so that we will not mistreat any of our members or visitors.

I look forward to the next five, Amy. One comment on location: David Snapper, in his research done some years ago, using that venerable resource, the CRCNA Yearbook, concluded that growth is likely when you are not too far from other CRC churches. He found that churches that had thriving neighbor congregations were more likely to grow. So "not near" has to be qualified. Do you mean within five miles, two city blocks, or something else? For CRC churches whose neighboring classis members were far off, he suggested pastors create classis-like relations with nearby congregations.

As for new buildings, they work when more space is created. Congregations hit a natural ceiling when they fill 80% of the seats in their pews. New education space, etc., adds some vitality and programming, but new members come when they feel this church needs them, and if there are few seats, they are less likely to return.

Wendy, your post awakens memories of long discussions about mutuality in global relationships. Because money plays such a large role in our lives, it distorts so much of what should be learning from one another. I wanted to add one or two ideas to what we can learn from African churches, namely, suffering and poverty. While each of these are mainly negative ideas, each contains a source for learning about life and our mission before God. I used to wonder at Christ's prediction that we will suffer for his sake, when I live a life that is mainly free of such suffering. We all  have troubles, but these, of course, pale in comparison to  our brothers and sisters in Africa, for the most part. When we enter into relationship across international boundaries, we get to share -- or be in solidarity with -- the suffering of others, to some degree. And we can, at times, see how God helps some rise in spirit above poverty, how they can experience joy in the Lord in times of need. Of course, I do not condone either suffering or poverty, but in a mutual relationship, each brings his or her own experience to the table, and those experiences form a whole greater than anyone person at the table.

Thanks, Melissa. By highlighting that last sentence in Matthew 6:21, you drew my attention to the logic of it. The location of our treasure is not an indicator of where our heart is, as if it is one of the stats by which we measure our spirituality. Instead, the text suggests it is more like a cause. What we place our treasure in will take our heart there. I admit my own feeling of well-being has gone up in the last few weeks because our retirement savings have grown with the stock market. I am not closing those accounts, but it feels a little shameful that I am marked by the location of that treasure.

These  are good ideas.  I think stories, pictures and navigation are some key elements. I would add to navigation that getting some statistics on how the site is used can help in navigation. Be sure to get direct links on the home page for the places people most want to see, or put them right out there (e.g. sermon links).

It is a puzzle what to put on the front page, because we want visitors to see what they need there, and to go deeper if they find an easy way to get where they want to go. Some home pages use a minimalist approach -- a welcome note, a friendly picture, and 5-6 choices for navigating to a more detailed page. Others treat the home page a short-hand site map. Get the five main areas out there in front of everyone, and give them some detail sub-links as well. 

Then there is the attempt to get a lot of visitors, so we include Bible Gateway links, a Bible verse for the day, the local weather, and links to local government or entertainment. These are attempts to make a the church's site a portal site. It is labor intensive and maybe works in small communities, but I doubt it works well beyond those places.

Our choices are in part determined by who we think our audience is. If it is newcomers and visitors, we want it to be simple and attractive, and get out a few key ideas and images that say who we are.  If it is our own members, then we want easy-to-find elements of our ministry -- information that members may need. And maybe one can do both, if members understand they have to go deeper into the site to get what they need.