Empowering Lay Leadership at Union: Survey Results and Presentation at WNL May 9

Come to Wednesday Nite Live on May 9 to hear findings and recommendations from the Needs Assessment Committee about Lay Leadership at Union Church. This information has been presented to the Long-Term Planning Group. Our hope is for an opportunity to gain feedback and start some conversation about potential ways we can move forward together to empower lay leadership. Presentation starts after supper.

The Needs Assessment Committee concerning Lay Leadership started the exploration seeking to answer two questions:

“What would bring us to the place where members of Union Church know their gifts and feel empowered about engaging their gifts in the work of the congregation and community?”
How do we develop and maintain robust leadership in the midst changing leaders?

Findings from the three forms of data collection techniques were as follows

Congregational Survey (77 members completed)
- A commitment to be a member of a four person board is too much commitment for some (too much rests on 1 person)
- There is a gap in how effectively volunteers feel their time is being used and how important this is to them
Board Survey (10 completed- representing 6 of 10 boards)
- Some boards indicated they have more work than they can accomplish well with a four member group (Ex: Properties, Community Life and Growth)
Review of literature regarding church structure and connecting members to meaningful work
- “Governance and Ministry: Rethinking Board Leadership” by John Hotchkiss
- “New Life Through Shared Ministry: Moving from Volunteering to Mission” by Judith A. Urban

Recommendations include:

Structural Change
- Moving forward only have boards to support governance, develop ministry teams to focus on specific ministries. This will require dissolving boards focused on ministry and allowing their work to be divided into a multitude of teams focused on specific tasks (Ex: The work of Community Life and Growth maybe multiple teams including a Wednesday Night Live Team, New Member Support Team, Fellowship Activities Team, etc)
Shared Ministry Model
- Devote staff time and resources to developing member led ministries. This will require creating a structure for shared ministry that is focused on planning, discovering gifts, designing, recruiting, interviewing, matching, training, supervising, supporting, evaluating, managing data and managing risk.

Please see the full report for a detailed explanation of recommendations, including logic for these changes and the advantages of these changes (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TZT4uIELeUa9hbs5Puov1wIP6ZN5z4JJ/view?usp=sharing)

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