This Week in Mission – November 23, 2008

 

I spent the last few days in Detroit leading seminars for UMC’s … a day with teams from large churches, and a day with pastors and staff from both conferences. It was refreshing to experience such earnest engagement with the principles of servant empowering leadership and transformation. Perhaps these hard economic times are again opening the door for innovation.

 

One issue proved to be a real sticking point: the ability of church leaders to fire leaders. This is true wherever I go, in whatever denominational or independent church I work. Churches are reluctant to follow even the best HR practices of other non-profits, and refuse to fire staff or dismiss volunteers. They think it is somehow unkind and worldly … forgetting that Peter and Paul did the same thing many times for the sake of love for the stranger and mission effectiveness. The real accommodation to culture is not that the church won’t fire leaders, but that the church believes its priority is to protect privileges.

 

Anyway, there are several principles to be followed if a church is to be able to fairly, reasonably, and effectively fire paid and unpaid workers.

 

1)       You can’t fire anybody if there is no culture of trust.  

2)       You can’t fire anybody if you have not previously identified anticipated measurable results. 

3)       You can’t fire those whom you have not trained and consistently evaluated. 

4)       You can’t fire individuals unless there is a universal expectation of accountability. 

5)       You can’t fire anybody without giving them a reasonable chance to change. 

6)       You can’t fire anybody without defining reasonable deadlines. 

7)       You can’t fire someone without concrete, visible awareness that you, too, can be fired.

 

Personally, I think these principles are so obvious that they hardly require explanation. Yet I discover again and again, even in large and otherwise effective churches, that these principles are ignored or forgotten regularly. If any of these are unclear, just ask. I would be glad to expand the explanation.

Leave a Reply