By Warren Bird, Ph.D.
In your church, does the senior pastor also serve as chair
of the church board?
Whatever your situation, what is the best practice when it
comes to the leader of your board?
We’re in the middle of a survey of church boards, and that’s
one of the issues we are exploring. Among the 800+ survey participants, the
pastor and board chair are separate people 53% of the time. Here are the
responses so far:
Ways It Doesn’t Seem
to Matter
Just because most pastors don’t serve as board chair, does
that mean that is the better practice?
To my surprise, certain variables remain the same in either
case:
• The age of church
• The age of the
senior pastor
• The amount of churches that are growing
• The personal fulfillment
level of board participants
• The level of reported board
effectiveness
• Even the level of board’s micromanagement
Two Big Differences
In other ways, the differences in whether the pastor is the
board chair or a separate person from the board chair were noticeable. The
following are two areas of large difference. We don’t know if one causes the other; that’s up for
speculation. What we do know is that the differences matter. Here are two of
the top comparisons so far:
1. Size of the church.
The larger the church’s weekly worship attendance, the more likely it is that
someone other than the pastor is the board chair. Stated another way, the
median attendance when the pastor is the board chair is 350, and the median
attendance when someone else is the board chair is 927.
2. Size of the board.
Likewise, when ECFA’s survey looked at the total numbers of members in a church
board, we found that the larger the board, the more likely someone other than
the pastor is chair. Current results show that when the senior pastor is the
board chair, only 18% of the boards have 11 or more members. When someone other
than the senior pastor is chair, 36% of the boards have 11 or more members.
While these are the patterns, they don’t tell us which is
right or wrong. There are rationales and exceptions for both ways. One argument
for someone other than the pastor being the board chair is found in the book Lessons from the Church Boardroom by Dan Busby and John
Pearson. In a section on removing dysfunctional board members, they observe, “These
situations demonstrate another reason why the board chair should be someone
other than the senior pastor. If the
senior pastor must personally handle these matters, his or her effectiveness in
other roles will likely be diminished” (p. 114).
When was the last time your church had a discussion about
whether it’s more effective for the pastor or someone else to serve as board
chair? Please let us know your thoughts at research@ecfa.org.
