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God's given you a vision to plant a church. You're gifted and maybe have the team ready to go. However, there are thousands of details and hundreds of questions that you have. In this podcast we will answer some of the common questions and answer listener submitted questions to help you fulfill the call the Lord's given you.
Welcome back everyone to 101 questions that church planters ask. I'm one of your hosts, Danny Parmalee. And I'm Chris Ifill. And today, we're gonna be answering the question, what sort of leadership structure should I have during the prelaunch phase? So we're gonna be kind of, you know, we we have some thoughts, on at least the way that it has worked well for us in the church, in our specific church plants and church planters that we work with.
Danny Parmelee:And we kinda wanna separate out the legal structure versus kind of your, leadership structure that you're using with your volunteers with your launch team. And so for us, the legal structure is what we call a triad, and that includes the church planter and then, two other, pastors that are not a part of the church. So you basically have this outside governing board. And the reason that you have this is that this allows you, as the church planter, to have a lot of decision making power that you can do, pretty, pretty quickly. And we know that in culture, everything's about team and, you know, everyone gets a say and that type of thing, and we do understand that.
Danny Parmelee:But for the most part, in a church plant, you do want to retain a lot of that, speed and agility in making decisions and all of the decisions and to make the decisions quickly, still with a a slight layer of accountability by having those outside, pastors. And so we call that the triad ed board that gets reflected in your in your bylaws and in your articles of incorporation, which if that, you know, is complicated to you, we've got other podcasts. You can listen to that. But then as far as the actual leadership structure of those that start to join your team, we would just say as a general statement, as a principle to keep that as loose and as fluid as possible. And so what we mean by that is that, you don't have alright.
Danny Parmelee:This is you know, I've got this outside governance board, but, you know, here it's me and and, you know, two of my buddies, and we're the ones that make all the decisions. And we meet once a month, and, you know, we go through the finances and and and those types of things. Chris, chime in a little bit on that.
Chris Highfill:Yeah. You wanna make sure you're not related to those two people. Yeah. I think that's really important. Right?
Chris Highfill:That, there is some layer of accountability there. Because even as we say it, some of you were like, you feel a little icky about that. I can just tell, even just even though I haven't met you in person. But I'm telling you, you want to be able to make quick decisions, not dumb decisions. That's why your triad is there as a board to help guide and navigate you from doing something dumb.
Chris Highfill:But man, in those first three years, especially first two to three years, there are two things that will slow down, the growth of a new church. And one of them is an unclear maturity pathway, and then also the second one is slow decision making. And you will have slow decision making if you establish an elder board or whatever it is that you're gonna have in one day you'll have that in your church. Some kind of a board of overseers or whatever you decide to call it that are actually functioning inside of your church. We're saying this is a temporary situation.
Chris Highfill:And really it's so you can make quick decisions very early on and that's gonna help accelerate, the life of your church for the long run. That's not the way it's gonna be forever, but in these initial days, it's it's super critical.
Danny Parmelee:Yeah. And, Chris, you make an excellent point there that eventually you will have an internal board or elder board, board of overseers, whatever you call it. But in those beginning days that you just have, you know, those out the outside board, the outside pastors that really do create accountability. You are submitting financial statements to them. If you're making decisions over a certain amount of, you know, money or just a a big thing, you want to lean on them.
Danny Parmelee:You want to use that. That's also important because you will have launch team members or new people who come to the church, and they will ask the question because there has been so much leadership abuse and power abuse. Well, who do you report to? You're able to say, hey. This is the board, that I speak to.
Danny Parmelee:At the same time, we're not saying don't get input and don't do, you know, decisions, you know, in a vacuum. Your launch team is just a a great wealth. Use it though, as input, not for voting. So the most dangerous thing that you can do is where you start to take votes on things, and I did this. Like, okay.
Danny Parmelee:Hey. You know, when are we gonna meet? What you know, who's gonna be on this committee or who's gonna be on this team, and let's all vote for this. And then you start having people vote, and they're like, oh, yeah. I really like this thing.
Danny Parmelee:I need to be I need to cast my vote Yeah. For just about everything. But instead, what you're
Chris Highfill:saying not a this is not a democracy.
Danny Parmelee:This is not a democracy. So Yeah. I had one of my early church plant coach coaches. He used the word, benevolent dictator ship. And, you know, maybe you don't wanna tell that to people, but in your own mind, it was at least helpful for me as I kind of moved away from trying to get votes and to try to get consensus or majority vote on everything.
Danny Parmelee:But instead, find ways that you ask for input. So let's say, for example, hey Yeah. Are we gonna meet at this old church building on a a Sunday night, or are we gonna, you know, meet, you know, in this storefront on a Saturday? You know, whatever. I'm just making some stuff up here.
Danny Parmelee:Don't take a vote on it. Yeah. But instead, ask people, hey. What do you think about this? And you can tell them, hey.
Danny Parmelee:I wanna get as much input as I can, but I'm gonna take this back, you know, to my board. I'm gonna take some time to pray on it, and I'm gonna be the one making the decision on that. I think just helps with the clarity instead of saying, oh, there's gonna be this team of launch team members that then will, make make the the decision on this. So
Chris Highfill:Yeah. The only time they voted on the in the bible, it went bad. Yeah. That's a really important thing. Every time they voted in the bible, it always went bad.
Chris Highfill:You can do the research yourself.
Danny Parmelee:Yeah.
Chris Highfill:It never went well, when they voted on things. And I I would also say it's it's like a great way to get input is the personal ask, like what Danny just mentioned. Hey. I'm thinking about this. My board and I are gonna make a decision about it.
Chris Highfill:What do you think? And also surveying people. You know, just finding out like, hey, does this time work for you? Like going back to the when's the best time to meet? Like survey people and get that data, get that information.
Chris Highfill:You can do a survey and that's a lot less entitlement than, hey. Will you vote for this?
Danny Parmelee:Right.
Chris Highfill:It's it's not worth it when it comes to voting.
Danny Parmelee:And you mentioned kind of this, this time period, you know, two to three years, four years. I think for you guys, at Grace River, it was four years. For us, it was four years as well too before we had an, you know, a board that was made up of members of the actual church. Use that time. It's not like you do nothing, and then all of a sudden you're at that four year mark.
Danny Parmelee:And it's like, okay. We need some board members who wants to do that. You're You're using this entire time as kind of a testing ground, which is a biblical principle for the deacons and the elders that they would be tested first. So what you want to do is even as you're doing this, having these individual conversations, conversations, giving responsibility, see how people respond when their idea isn't, you know, taken because then you can find those people who will be excellent board members, you know, two, three, four years, kind of, down the road. So, know, two, three, four years, kind of, down the road.
Danny Parmelee:So all of that to stay, for your you know, you know, especially in the prelaunch phase, keep things as fluid and flexible. Be careful of creating kind of these sub executive committee that's making all the decisions even if that is somewhat the case. Make sure in other words, like, if there's, like, three or four people that you're always leaning on, just make sure that every once in a while, you're meeting with different groups of people or different individuals to get that input so it just doesn't get solidified too early.
Chris Highfill:I called mine short term short term advisory teams is what I called mine. And so they were always these short term teams, where we could get advice from people, and then we'd always throw a hand grenade in it when it was over with. And then that way Yep. Hey. We got a new decision to make.
Chris Highfill:I'm gonna develop a new short term advisory team. Yep. And that helped a ton.
Danny Parmelee:And and and to make advisory teams even on specific things, that's an excellent point, Chris. So you can have an advisory team on, hey. We're searching for facilities. We need a facilities advisory team. Oh, man.
Danny Parmelee:Beautiful. That group is specifically responsible for gathering information, giving input on it. But at the end of the day, you know, again, you as the planter, you know, in conjunction with your real outside board, they're making that decision. Yes. We're gonna rent here.
Danny Parmelee:We're gonna buy this, you know, whatever. You know, buy this storefront.
Chris Highfill:And test these people out. I mean, it's a it's a great chance. I mean, I I remember learning from my first church planting coach. He told me don't set up all the chairs before a meeting. And I'm like, why?
Chris Highfill:Because he it's like it proves who's willing to be a servant and set the chairs up. Right? Like you don't have to always be the one doing everything. And the people that show up to set up, check, like we don't have enough chairs set up. What do you think we should do?
Chris Highfill:We'll set up some more chairs, right? Like it's good, to test those people out and see how they play in the sandbox with other people. Like Danny said, when you don't use their idea, how do they react? Right? Like, these are really important little little things that you can do in these short term advisory teams to see how it is, they work with other people.
Chris Highfill:And you'll be surprised, somebody that you meet that you thought maybe was bored or elder material, you'll find out that man, that person's kind of a jerk to other people, right? Or they're not teachable, they're not coachable, and they don't pass the test. And so like Yeah. It's just a test that you no one knows about the test but you. Yeah.
Chris Highfill:Because one day those people will be your boss. Yeah. So like you gotta think to yourself, like, am I okay, putting my career on the line with these people? Yeah. And So it's really critical and if you put the danger, and we'll wrap up with this, right, but the danger is like if you decide to do an elder or a board, an elder team or a board right out of the gate, we think that's a gigantic mistake and we have seen that sink so many church plants right out of the gate because you think you have agenda harmony, and you think you have theological harmony, and you think you have all this, and you did youth ministry together, or you were on this worship team together, I'm telling you, it's a different monster, it's a different animal, and, it's And, it it's it's unwise to come right out of the gate.
Danny Parmelee:Yeah. We have multiple stories of planters who, with their buddies, even friends, they created the original board. The lead planter goes on vacation, comes back a week later, and the board decided to oust the lead planter. It's like, ouch. You know?
Danny Parmelee:So no longer Yeah. Friendships, there. The other quick little tidbit before we close, we would say is that if anybody comes and they're volunteering because they were an elder at their last church and they can serve in this role right away, that's usually a bit of a red flag to just walk very, very slowly, with that person. Usually, the person that's volunteering and offering up to be an elder, because of their past experience as an elder, bit of a red flag. So thank you so much, for listening and watching this episode.
Danny Parmelee:And if you have questions, you can head over to our website, church planters ask. You can type your questions in there. We'd love to to be able to use them, maybe even have a conversation with you, have you on on, on the podcast as well. And until next time, keep asking those questions.