church structure Archives - Passion for Planting

501c3 Status

Sean Cronin — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 14:42:27 +0000

Does your church need to apply for 501c3 status before it can receive tax deductible donations? Nope! So why would a church apply for this?

According to IRS Publication 557, as well as IRS Code 508: “Churches (including integrated auxiliaries and conventions or associations of churches) that meet the requirements of section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code are automatically considered tax exempt and are not required to apply for and obtain recognition of exempt status from the IRS.”

So breathe a sigh of relief, church planter. You can tell your financial partners that their gifts are tax deductible whether you have a 501(c)(3) determination letter or not.

Why then would a church go through all the hassle of applying for its own 501(c)(3) Determination Letter? Are the benefits worth the work involved? How would a church go about putting together an application? We want to help you answer those questions. Contact us at planting@church-planting.net or read these helpful blog posts by Patrick Bradley:

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PODCAST 050: Biblical Function of a Digital-Only Church, Part 1

Sean Cronin — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 18:19:00 +0000

by Jeff Reed: Can a digital-only expression of church hold up to the Biblical standard of a church? This is the question that we, here at The Church Digital and Stadia Church Planting, are wrestling with. Can you create community online? Sure! Can you worship? Of course! Can you pray digitally? We do all the time… can you operate as a church exclusively in digital space?

Therein lies the topic of the podcast, as we’re bringing in a panel of guests from around the country to ask the rather complicated question: Can a digital-only expression of church hold to the Biblical standard of church? What challenges would it face?

Jump on the podcast as Jeff Reed, Rey De Armas, Jason Morris, Ian Kirk and Joe Santos wrestle (practically) with the ecclesiology of a Digital Church.

If you’re enjoying this episode, subscribe for free using your favorite podcast app below:

ON THE SHOW

Source: PODCAST 050: Biblical Function of a Digital-Only Church, Part 1

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3 Structure Issues That Get Church Staff Teams Stuck

Patrick Bradley — Sat, 10 Nov 2018 10:00:37 +0000

Today’s post is written by Tony Morgan, Founder of The UnStuck Group.

Here’s a church growth lid I don’t hear people talking about very often—your org chart.

Yep, the way your church is structured can actually cap your growth. It very commonly does.

A bad structure negatively impacts the health and effectiveness of the team, which ultimately impacts the health of the church.

And you may not even realize it’s the culprit.

I often hear something like this from pastors my team at The Unstuck Group and I are serving:

“I knew we needed to assess our ministry’s health. I knew we needed to clarify our vision for the future. But I didn’t realize just how mismatched our staff structure was for our mission and ministry strategy.”

They’re referring to a key moment in their experience of walking through the Unstuck Process—which is my team’s way of helping a church assess ministry health, build a plan and strategy, align the staff structure to that strategy, and build systems for execution and follow-through.

What they learn in the Structure phase of the process seems to illuminate the rest and make it all come together. You can learn more about how the Unstuck Process works here.

…

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Source: 3 Structure Issues That Get Church Staff Teams Stuck

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5 Essentials Every Church Constitution Needs To Thrive In The Future

Patrick Bradley — Thu, 24 May 2018 09:00:00 +0000

Today’s post comes from Jeff Brodie. Jeff is the Lead Pastor at Connexus Church, where I’m Founding Pastor. Jeff’s my successor as Lead Pastor. He’s doing a phenomenal job leading our church community, and he’s also a loving husband, father and friend. This post is originally appeared on Jeff’s blog (where it’s no longer available) and is one of the most requested articles I’ve ever linked to.

So…here it is.

I think you’re really going to by surprised by and appreciate his powerful insights on the changes you need to make to your church’s constitution to be ready for the future.

By Jeff Brodie

Ever feel like your church struggles to keep the mission moving forward? Does it seem like decisions get bogged down? It’s a common issue in many organizations, and it’s hurting many churches.

I think the challenges many churches face in the areas of decision making and forward progress often have to do with two things:

leadership
church governance

Improving leadership is the attractive challenge that everyone likes to talk about, but I think church constitutions and governance can be just as critical when it comes to building the future of your church.

Your leadership can have incredible vision and strategy, but an outdated constitution and governance system can slow you to a snail’s pace. This is true for denominational churches, congregational churches and almost any church that has a constitution and governance system based on a tradition more than a decade old. Antiquated governance systems are plaguing much of the Church today.

Many church leaders are working with constitutions that were written in entirely different times; decades or even centuries earlier.

Most leaders don’t want to push the board or members to overhaul and update the constitution because it is messy, difficult, and painful. Changing the system seems more painful than reaching fewer people. Over time the church increasingly, even exponentially, loses its effectiveness.

BUT here’s what’s at stake

By refusing to improve your constitution and governance system, you are handcuffing the next generation of leaders in your church.

By refusing to improve your constitution and governance system, you are handcuffing the next…Click To Tweet

You are feeding the cycle that got you here in the first place, and the next generation of leaders will suffer. In fact, this is the type of thing that pushes young leaders to start their own churches, rather than lead existing churches. They realize that old systems get in the way of the ministry Christ calls us to today. Time is being wasted and the Church’s mission is critical.

When we launched Connexus 10 years ago, the leadership team asked themselves “How do we create a constitution and governance that fuels our mission and helps push it forward?” This team worked extremely hard to create a constitution with a governance system and bylaws that fuelled our organization’s mission and vision. It was a lot of hard work, and to be honest, keeping it updated isn’t exciting, but it’s important.

When working on constitutions, bylaws, and governance systems remember 2 things:

There are legal regulations that governments have in place for churches. Hire a lawyer when you are uncertain.
The scriptures have some clear guidelines around leadership/governance that you should pay attention to.

With those things in mind, here are some characteristics of a healthy constitution and governance system that will take you into the future.

1. Keep Accountability Clean and Clear

Checks and balances are based on quality of people, not quantity of people.

There’s a misguided school of thought out there that says, “the more people you are accountable to, the more accountable you are.” The reality is that if you are accountable to 100 people, you aren’t really accountable to anyone. Keep the organizational accountability group (board or team) small and focus on making sure the circle includes high-quality leaders who get your vision and mission at their very core.

In our case, currently, 4 elders are responsible to keep the lead pastor and the church accountable. The elder selection process is intensive and includes a thorough interview. The lead pastor is accountable to the elders, and the staff and new hires are ultimately the responsibility of the lead pastor. It’s very clean and very clear.

Your board’s accountability depends on the quality of people, not the quantity of people.Click To Tweet

2. Give Invested People Input

The most invested people should have the most input.

Leaders need valuable input from their community. Unfortunately, many churches are structured so that anyone who holds a member’s card and a pulse can influence the whole church. When setting up venues to get input from your community, things should be structured so that people who are most invested in the church’s mission with their time and finances have the most input.

For example, our staff meets with a group of Ministry Team Representatives (20-30 people) every quarter to get their input on where we are headed and bounce some ideas off of them to see what they think. These people are highly invested in our mission. They aren’t a decision-making body, but their input is incredibly valuable to our staff and elders. At that meeting, they also get up to the minute updates on things like finances and attendance trends.

The most invested people in your church should have the most input in your church. @jeffbrodieClick To Tweet

3. Keep Decision-Making Nimble

If you can’t take advantage of opportunities within 24hrs, you are too slow.

Slow decision-making means missed opportunities. Be sure that if the key leaders in your church see an opportunity that can move your mission forward, they can make the decision quickly. If your circle of elders can’t make a major financial decision in less than 24hrs, you need to rethink your decision-making model. I’ve seen incredible opportunities missed by churches because of this one structural flaw alone.

If you can’t take advantage of opportunities within 24hrs, you are too slow. @jeffbrodieClick To Tweet

4. Have Minimal Congregational Involvement

Involving everyone in leadership decisions is irresponsible.

Large-scale decisions (building purchases, major hires, etc.) can be emotional rollercoasters. People change their minds, finances fall through, and a “sure thing” can become a “mirage” very quickly. Always be transparent with finances and inquiries from people, but to take your entire congregation on every twist and turn along the way is irresponsible. You want to keep your congregation informed, but keep it to a minimum until plans are firm. Don’t take them on the rollercoaster along the way. If your structure demands that you have to over-inform your people, change it.

Involving everyone in leadership decisions is irresponsible. @jeffbrodieClick To Tweet

5. Vision and mission must be crystal clear and laser focused

It’s obvious, but must be stated, a great constitution and governance system only work if your vision and mission are crystal clear. Clear enough that people can tell quickly whether they are onboard with you or not.

Tip: If everyone who comes to your church gets onboard, your vision isn’t defined enough.

If everyone who comes to your church gets onboard, your vision isn’t defined enough. @jeffbrodieClick To Tweet

There’s so much more I could cover, but this is a start. What principles have you found that have been helpful in your constitution or governance model?

Scroll down and leave a comment.

The post 5 Essentials Every Church Constitution Needs To Thrive In The Future appeared first on CareyNieuwhof.com.

Source: 5 Essentials Every Church Constitution Needs To Thrive In The Future

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The Distinctions of Networked, Family, and Multisite Churches

Patrick Bradley — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 09:00:41 +0000

By Drew Hyun: One of the common questions I’m asked is how we’re structured as a family of churches, so I thought it’d be helpful to clarify the differences between a networked church, a family of churches, and a multisite church in terms of structure.

Ultimately, the structure all relates to (1) authority and (2) assets.

If there’s a continuum of how a church functions related to authority and assets, it usually looks something like this:

Centralized ————————————————————————— Decentralized

Multisite Family of Churches Networked Church

A Multi-Site Church

As seen from the table above, multisite churches centralize authority and assets, while also sharing everything from name, branding, central services, culture, and so forth. In other words, whatever the number of campuses or churches, there is one central leadership team that is ultimately making the decisions for each local campus. Now, this central team might empower local leaders to make decisions, but it’s still clear that the central team is in charge. This centralized manner lends itself toward higher quality control and alignment across all churches and locations.

A Networked Church

A networked church is autonomous, often carrying a different name while being in a completely different context than the other churches. As a result of sheer distance, accountability and alignment are far less present, and each church makes largely autonomous decisions when it comes to how to function as a church community. Authority and assets, then, clearly lie with the local congregation, and the network exists to support. There is, however, a shared theological, cultural, and/or missional vision for operating in a larger network.

A Family of Churches

A family of churches, or our family of churches, I should say, is somewhere in the middle. Now, it’s virtually impossible to be exactly in the middle, because the key question of authority and assets always makes or breaks a church organization with multiple churches/campuses. The tension of centralized vs. decentralized will exist anywhere in the continuum, because local congregations will continue to want more autonomy, while a central leadership team will often want more control.

At Hope, we have decentralized our authority and assets so that each church functions as a local congregation with local leaders and elders who have full authority and control of their own assets. It took awhile to get to this clarity, but once we achieved it, it’s helped us clarify some big potential roadblocks.

With this said, we’re actually closer to multisite than a typical networked church because we do quite a bit of relationship and sharing together. Our pastors are constantly in communication with one another, sharing resources, encouraging one another, and helping serve the other churches and pastors when needed. We have multiple events that multiple churches voluntarily choose to partner together.

Our pastors meet once a month for six hours and attend a monthly two-hour lunch hosted by a network in which we’re a part. We go on trips together, we have a retreat together once a year, and we’re all dreaming about how to build our family together.

Each church contributes to a central fund in our family, and each church signs off on that central fund as we hope to start and empower healthy, urban churches together.

How to Choose the Best Model for You

I really don’t think one model is better than the other. There are positives and negatives in each model. Ultimately, I think it really depends on the charism (unique grace) of the leader(s). Of course, context matters a lot too, but I think the charism is harder to discern due to various factors.

It takes prayerful consideration then, for each leader and leadership team, to discern what is their church’s unique charism. Once this charism is found, I think the leader(s) of the church should lead with humility and boldness, because there is criticism on either side. Some will tell the leader(s) that they must be more controlling. Some will tell the leaders that they must be less so. Ultimately, I think it depends on the charism.

For instance, when I see a large church movement like Hillsong, there is a lot of alignment that’s leveraged for their kingdom impact in global cities. This is beautiful to see. I see other movements that are less aligned but more connected by relationship and heart. This is where we lie on the spectrum and I’m clearly a fan. Otherwise, I’d be doing something different.

What’s most helpful in the end is clarity about authority and assets, and ironically, this clarity must also account for flexibility due to the many organizational tensions that come with trying to do mission together.

Source: The Distinctions of Networked, Family, and Multisite Churches

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