The purpose of a beehive isn’t to produce honey.
Honey is the by-product of a healthy hive.
-Seth Godin
When you joined your church board, you may have been told – with all sincerity – that your job is to produce honey. Well, not the sticky sweet essence that makes everything from tea to peanut butter taste better. But the honey of good things for your church’s ministry. Programs. Staffing. Good worship. Formation for all ages. Pastoral care. Mission and outreach and advocacy.
We want to suggest that this is not your job. Your job, along with your pastor and every other person on your board, is to be a healthy board.
What does it look like and feel like to be a healthy board?
- You trust one other. And moreover, you trust God. Boards can do this because Jesus did this with his disciples. Jesus gave them “authority over unclean spirits” and sent them out into the world – without him – to proclaim the good news, to heal, and to rely on the hospitality of others. In deep trust, Jesus relied on them to carry on his mission. (Mark 6, Matthew 10, Luke 9 and 10). And on the last night of his life, Jesus went even further. Jesus didn’t just delegate some tasks, he entrusted the whole of his ministry identity to these followers as he faced crucifixion. “I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father” (John 15:15). Presumably, all those hours and days and weeks walking with Jesus gave them trust in God, in Jesus, and crucially, in one another. You are called not just to “fill a board seat” but to build a community of deep trust with one another. Without that, your board can do nothing. With that, “the honey” will flow.
- Health also comes from openness and growth. As board members, we feel a natural responsibility to come to the table with answers (after all, why else would we, of all people, have been invited to the table? Surely someone thought we have answers… so we better bring them!). But the greater gift of a board member is to ask good questions, grounded in genuine curiosity and humility. Here we can turn again to the ever fruitful and mercifully succinct Seth Godin, who plots the options on an inquiry grid and asks, where do you sit? “For most of us, most of the time, we have the chance to be curious,” Godin notes. “We don’t have a lot of domain knowledge, but we’re able to ask intelligent questions and to listen carefully to the answers. The hallmark of a curious person with goodwill is that they’re eager to change their minds.” The hallmark of a healthy church board is the same.
- Finally, healthy boards have a Spirit-led ability to keep the main thing the main thing. What is the main thing? You can add to the list, but let’s start where Jesus did:
God is love.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Take no thought for tomorrow – today is enough.
Do not be afraid.
There is so much honey that flows from the main thing, but the honey can never become the main thing. When roles get reversed … when programs or outreach or advocacy become the purpose of the church … when the honey becomes the purpose of the hive … things fall apart.
But when church boards trust the power of the gospel more than they trust their own hard work to produce “church things,” spiritual honey will overflow.
Looking at Seth Godin’s inquiry grid, where do you sit as a church board member?
When in your board service have you felt that your board was at its healthiest? What was happening that made you feel that way?
When have you felt that your church board struggled to be healthy? What was happening that made you feel that way?
What are some signs to you that the board is producing what it should? What should it be producing? What is its “main thing,” in other words?
What scriptures most deeply capture that main thing for you?
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