Month: March 2019

Lifelong learning is critical, especially for church leaders and board members who steward God’s work, according to Dan Busby and John Pearson in their book Lessons from the Church Boardroom: 40 Insights for Exceptional Governance. Highly engaged board chairs and board members know that when they say yes to board service they must continually increase their knowledge and competencies to fulfil this sacred calling.

Rather than offering a systematic overview of the various aspects of church governance, the book provides 40 pithy lessons on topics such as:

• Guarding your pastor’s soul
• Preparing now for the possibility of future accusations and investigations
• Eliminating fuzziness between board and staff roles
• Ways of finding consensus on challenging issues
• The importance of advance preparation in fully addressing complex issues
• Ways to avoid a financial train wreck
• Investing the majority of board effort in future ministry opportunities, rather than rehashing the past

If you’re the sort of church board member who already knew all that was required of a board member before you were elected to the position, this book probably isn’t for you. On the other hand, if you’re the sort of board member who is continually searching for ways in which your church can be more effective in fulfilling its mission, then this book has a lot of valuable lessons for your to consider.

Can a church capital campaign ever be something to look forward to, rather than something to dread? According to Greg Gibbs in his book Capital Campaign Playbook, a discipleship-based capital campaign can be a massive greenhouse for growing people’s commitment to Christ and their understanding of a life that is “true life”. The challenge is to aim for a best-case scenario: that faith in God and commitment to the church grow in a special and intense way.

The book answers all the questions you might want to ask about church capital campaigns, including:

• What preparation should occur before launching a campaign?
• How clear and compelling does the vision have to be?
• How much is the campaign likely to raise, relative to the church operating budget?
• What types of campaigns attract the highest levels of giving?
• What proportion of church attenders can be expected to participate?
• How can major donors be identified, and should they be treated differently?
• How can a capital campaign be an opportunity for people to go to a new level in their discipleship?
• What are the major threats to success?
• How should a communication strategy be formulated?
• What role should the senior pastor play?
• What might a person’s giving journey look like?

Before buying this book, I had never heard of the author, although he has the same surname as me. I was amazed at how clearly and thoroughly the author was able to break down each of the aspects of a capital campaign, to help turn what might be a fairly awkward and uncomfortable experience into something which can be very positive both for the church and for the givers. The likely readership is probably fairly small, but the quality of the writing and content is outstanding.