Problems From Readers
January 1, 1981
The following question comes from an elder in a suburban church with 800 memhers. The inquiry was discussed by Gene Getz, Richard Hunt, Frank Minirth, David Seamands, and Jim Smith participants in the discussion forum of LEADERSHIP's Fall 1980 issue. This answer is based on their discussion.
If you have a question you'd like discussed, send it to Leadership Problems, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60187. All inquiries will he kept confidential.
Q:
I've been an elder at our church for one year now, and I'm not at all sure I was wise in accepting the responsibility. We just had our annual congregational meeting, and as we left, I felt weak, trapped, and out of ideas. This is unusual for me since I'm the manager of a small corporation that employs fifty people, and I have good administrative skills. I enjoy digging in and applying solutions to problems.
My first feeling of being trapped was our five-hour monthly elders meeting. There's a lot of business to be transacted in a church. We also spend time in prayer and on shepherding problems. No one wants two meetings per month (elders get all kinds of additional duties in our church) so we go a marathon five hours, and it drives me nuts. Yes, if "staff" prepared everything properly, it would go faster; but staff is one pastor, and he doesn't have time. There's not enough money to solve the basic problems as I would do in business. Even/thing's volunteer, and I feel like I'm assigned to catch sixty snowflakes a minute and pack them into a snowball. Nobody has the time to give focus.
What really shot me down was that after all these five-hour meetings, the elders were sharply criticized at the annual congregational meeting and were told they weren't looking deeply enough ...
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