After thirty five years of pastoral ministry, in sometimes difficult churches, with sometimes difficult board members,  I still love the monthly board meeting.

If you’d like to have a better relationship with your board, try the following:

1. Pray, ‘Lord, help me to see into their hearts, to discern and affirm what you are doing.’ The auditorium is a great place, early in the morning, to pray over the pew they sit in.

2. Spend time with them. Pastors of a different era would visit members of their congregations in their homes, at their work places and in the hospital. In the process they get to know them. If you’re going to influence your board you’ve got to find ways to get to know them. Invite them out to coffee or over to your house to share a meal. Before you leave, ask them how you can pray for them.

3. Appreciate the good stuff. Are we still talking about sharing a meal? Wherever you are, don’t let any critical, fault finding word come out of your mouth.

Instead, cultivate a climate of appreciation in your own life, on the board and in the church as a whole by being diligent to talk about the good stuff.

4. Ask God to help you understand the bad. Everybody has a bad day every now and then. Some people more than others.

Sometimes it’s as simple as asking them about it. ‘You seemed to be having a hard time the other day. Do you mind if I ask, ‘What was going on there?`

One board member I knew had a reputation for being difficult. As I got to know them I discovered they spent many nights up with a sick family member, then worked all day and more often than not came to church totally exhausted. No wonder they were testy occasionally.

Being afraid to talk to someone about their bad behaviour is an indication that we need to go back to steps one and two.

5. Deal with It. Sometimes its as simple as saying, ‘I don’t think we’re handling this as well as we might’ then leading out in prayer or in a group asking someone who prays well to lead out.

6. Be Real. A relationship of mutual trust and support on a board is a wonderful thing but it doesn’t just happen. James said, ‘Confess your faults to one another and pray for one another’. Someone has to take the lead in this.

A statement like ‘Folks, before we start tonight I need to confess that I’ve been having trouble in …. Would you mind praying for me?’ can have a powerful effect.

7. Be Careful. Recognize that if you give anyone a burden that’s more than they can carry they are going to drop the ball in one way or another. Only share the really heavy stuff with folks you know can handle it.

8. Guard Your Heart. As important as a healthy relationship with one’s board is, a pastor who’s closer to his board than to his God, his spouse or his family is an accident looking for a place to happen. Never let your church take the place of your kids, your wife or your God. Have regular dates aimed at gettting to know each better. Do it for the board. 🙂

9. Prepare Well. The people who attend your board meeting are the most influential people in the church. They pay your salary. They set the tone. They will determine, in large part, how long you stay and how effective your ministry is while you are there. Spend as much time preparing for your board meeting as you do any other of the month.

10. Have Fun

I had a friend who used to say, ‘God did not create me to fail. God created me to glorify him.’ Some of us need to be reminded that God didn’t create us to be miserable.

Build some things into the meetings that you know they’ll like: a quarterly meal by the best cook in the church, home made apple pie or even great coffee go a long way toward making the board meeting a great place to be.

Start by talking about something great that happened this month. End by praying for someone who has a significant challenge coming up.

It won’t happen over night but with attention to detail, you can make the board meeting a time every member of the board looks forward to consistently.