Training a New Vestry

In the story of David and Bathsheba, Samuel describes “the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle” (2 Sam. 11:1). Now, in Episcopal and Anglican churches, we would say, “In January, the time when churches elect new vestry members.” Yes, it’s the time of year to provide new vestry orientation to those newly elected vestry members.

Every person responsible for leading a vestry — whether rector, vicar, priest in charge, deacon in charge, or lay leader in charge of a congregation — ought to ask three questions that should give you a sense of urgency:

1. Who formed these vestry members? Chances are, someone besides you will have formed them. It may have been a church that was larger than yours whose organizational structure and financial resources were vastly different from yours. These new vestry members need to be formed to understand the current context for ministry.
2. What do they know about church and vestry leadership? Sometimes people bring knowledge from their business or nonprofit experience that simply don’t apply to this church. Some people think they know things like the diocesan canons, but they may misapprehend how those canons apply in your context. Sometimes they served on a vestry in another diocese, which had different canons. Do they know how to read a balance sheet, or do they know how many restricted funds the church has?
3. What am I going to do about it? You as the rector have the responsibility for forming and informing your vestry members, whether they are experienced or complete neophytes.

This essay will describe a programmatic approach to forming vestry members that will enable newly elected vestry members, as well as experienced vestry members, to serve thoughtfully, ably, and knowledgably.

First, we will discuss the differences between vestry orientation and vestry retreats, why each is important and what should be the desired results of each. Next, we will consider three shifts that need to occur in the thinking of new and not-so-new vestry members. Finally, we will look at some important things that church leaders ought to know about church leadership if they want to be effective.

Here we go.

Three programmatic components of formation for vestry members: orientation, retreats, and regular meetings.

Vestry Orientation. First, every new vestry member, whether experienced or novice, should be provided an orientation session before the vestry holds its first meeting. Having all vestry members attend ensures that everyone has the same information on expectations about how the vestry functions. Continuing members are able to share their knowledge about different aspects of how the vestry actually operates.

Here are the basic areas to be covered in this orientation session:

• What do diocesan and denominational church canons say about the vestry? Often vestry members never see those canons until there is a conflict in the congregation. People hear second- and third-hand what the canons purportedly say; often this information is simply not true.
• What are the offices of the vestry, who holds those offices, and what are their job descriptions? Senior warden, junior warden, clerk, treasurer, and chancellor are the most common offices, but your church may have others.
• Who is authorized to represent the church in business affairs? It is not the rector or vicar.
• Financial fiduciary responsibility of the vestry. This includes such topics as financial safeguards that the vestry has adopted, the necessity of conducting a financial audit, what insurance coverage the church has, and the rector’s ministry fund and policy regarding its use (it is a “ministry fund” and not a “discretionary fund” or the priest’s “slush fund”).
• How to read a balance sheet. Many new vestry members’ eyes glaze over when looking at a balance sheet.
• How to read a monthly treasurer’s report.
• What are the church’s designated fund accounts, stock accounts, trust funds, and who authorizes spending.
• Is the church incorporated, and does it have bylaws that govern business affairs?

Annual Vestry Retreat

Later in the year, vestry members should go on retreat together. It is tempting for the vestry to want to conduct business at this retreat. Resist this temptation. Spiritual formation of the vestry and forming a vision are top priorities. Also, much of the real work of this retreat is accomplished by the relationship-building that occurs between sessions and during meals.

Some attention might be paid to topics, such as What is the vision of our parish, and how do we fulfill it? — which might lead to some brainstorming.

Ideally, this should be led by an outside person. Smaller churches might arrange for their rectors to trade off leading each other’s retreat.

Vestry Meetings

Intentional vestry formation should take place at every– — or almost every– — vestry meeting. The vestry should see itself as a learning community or a community of disciples in which formation is just as important as conducting business. See my book Beyond Business as Usual for ideas on how to organize and conduct a productive vestry meeting.

Three shifts in thinking

Often people are elected to serve on a vestry without understanding that some of the ways they currently think need to change. Here are three.

1. Shift from a micro to a macro perspective.

This means thinking less about what one likes about the church to a concern for its health and well-being.

For example, giving in the church is steady for five years, but average Sunday attendance decreases by 20 percent in that same five-year period. The church has three Sunday services, and the decline in attendance is spread across the three services. Because the remaining congregants continue to increase each year, the congregation doesn’t recognize that the church is actually in decline.

2. Shift in developing a new skill set: perceiving the church as a more complex organization than the average church member sees.

The average church member is aware only of personal preferences, rather than seeing a collection of factors that affect the health and vitality of the church.

Imagine a church with a robust youth group of 15 teenagers. The vestry is proud of this youth group. Lurking out of sight are two pre-teenagers. The prescient vestry member will raise an alarm that, without some effective evangelism, in three to four years this successful youth ministry will be limping along.

3. Shift in consequences for your words and actions.

Most involved parishioners have pretty strong and deeply held opinions about how the church ought to run. Many of these parishioners have circles of relationships around them with people who share their views and help elect them to the vestry. These people with their opinions see themselves as representing the people — their “interest group” — who helped get them elected. In reality, these new vestry members now represent the church as a whole; they do not represent the choir, or young moms, or the youth group. They were elected to the vestry by the whole church and represent the concerns of the whole church.

Leadership thinking

A third component of forming effective vestry members is helping them think like leaders. A person who serves on a vestry needs to think about things in the church that most parishioners don’t need to think about. think differently. Here are seven areas of leadership thinking that every church leader should take to heart.

1. Leaders are not the people with the loudest voices.

I was asked to lead a vestry retreat once and asked the rector if he had any leaders on his vestry. “Leaders?” he replied. “None, but I have a bunch of loud voices.”

Many people want to get on the vestry because the want to “fix the church.” The church may need fixing, but many people with that mindset simply want people to hear their opinions, rather than being a servant leader.

2. Leaders show up.

Woody Allen said that “90 percent of life is showing up.” Vestry leadership represents the lowest level of commitment in the parish. People notice whether vestry members attend major parish events. When leaders don’t show up at major parish events, such as Shrove Tuesday Pancake Suppers, Good Friday services, and parish clean-up days, their absence sends a very clear message that this parish event is not very important. At each vestry meeting, the rector should review future events, discussing which events require all vestry members to attend.

3. Mission is where the action is.

The Great Commission should make it clear that the church should be about mission. People are more excited about mission than maintenance. Leaders do need to get the maintenance done, but that’s only the beginning of being an effective parish.

One of the worst stewardship campaigns I led was for the first church I served. I chose the theme of “Moving from Maintenance to Mission.”

What was so wrong with this theme? First, it was insulting to the hard work that many people were engaged in to keep this little parish afloat. Second, and most important for me to learn, these church leaders were afraid the bishop was going to close their church. To keep the doors of the church open — maintenance — was considered to be a success.

There are better ways to phrase this noble ideal. A church can focus on outreach even without money. The church’s most precious gift is its people. Often, churches may not give much money to missions and outreach, but below the surface that church will have parishioners who volunteer in many community service organizations. Have a series of interviews at Sunday services, highlighting the volunteer ministry that flows from your small church.

4. Leaders are aware of intangibles.

The church does not sell goods and services. We don’t sell widgets, baptisms, weddings, or funerals. If the church sells anything, it sells things that can’t be seen: peace, joy, love, hope, assurance. Here are ten intangibles that vestry members should have on their minds regularly.

Pay attention to the intuitive members of the vestry. Intuitive people often sense things that others don’t. Be careful, however. Intuitive people can be very right, but they can also be very wrong.

5. Leaders reflect and evaluate regularly.

Years ago, a fellow priest drew a contrast between small churches and large churches. He said small churches plan to try and large churches plan to succeed.

In other words, large churches build success into their planning. He said large churches plan for the follow-up to the event rather than just the event. They plan for what will happen next and regularly reflect on what went well and what needed improving.

Most church programs cannot be used out of the box. They need to be adapted to the local situation or the theological emphasis of a church. But don’t change things just because you can. Chances are that your change may not work. If you want to use a program, find a church in your denominational tribe and ask what went well and what didn’t and whether the church would use this program again.

6. The way a vestry functions changes with the size of the church.

If your church has only one priest on staff, the vestry usually functions as the unpaid staff of the parish. As the church grows, the vestry needs to relinquish some of the administrative control it exercised when the church was smaller.

Similarly, if you have vestry members who served on vestries at other churches, they need to avoid seeing your church through presuppositions they hold from their prior church experience.

7. Four essential components of leadership thinking

Peter Drucker, who has consulted with hundreds of nonprofits, gives four essential components of leadership thinking. This is extremely important for any vestry wanting to plan for the future.

Define the current reality.

Max DePree has said that the first task of leadership is to define reality. You need to ask yourself and others, What is our current reality? Your ability to articulate the reality of the current situation will affect not only the solutions you form, but people’s willingness to follow you as well. If you paint a picture of current reality that doesn’t make sense, they will follow you no further. Thus, it is important that you define current reality in a way that makes sense to your followers.

Try this exercise with your new vestry when you first meet. In fact, do this exercise every year at the new vestry’s first meeting.

larger buy, sell, or hold? Collect the cards, read aloud the different answers, and ask vestry members to discuss their choices.

Account for what is happening.

How did we get here? “The past is the key to our future,” said anthropologist Louis Leakey. It is important to know the background of an organization, ministry, or program. Knowing the seminal stories of the church and telling those stories will help people to understand how they got to a place, as well as their place in the future of the congregation. Placing members within the context of the salvation history of the church gives their individual role dignity, meaning, and significance.

Know where the organization is heading.

Look at the number of members, baptisms, average Sunday attendance, and giving for the previous seven years, omitting 2020 and 2021 for COVID. What will our church look like if this trend continues for 10 years?

Make plans — and hold people accountable.

Finally, make plans based on the first three components. Many people are very good at identifying the problem. Many people can make plans, but not all can execute those plans. I’ve seen numerous carefully developed strategic plans that ended up on the shelf, with the church doing business as it was before the strategic planning. The day will be won by the leaders who can hold themselves and those they lead accountable. The leader keeps people on task by holding them accountable. Finally, bless the people and celebrate their successes.

There are two aspects of accountability:

• The first is what we normally think about accountability: holding people’s feet to the fire. And there’s more to supervision than holding people’s feet to the fire. That is by continually telling people that what they do matters. That is where the kingdom of God comes in.
• The second is to affirm what people are doing. Notice accomplishments and successes. When we affirm people, we also are telling them that what they do matters. Max DePree said, “The first task of the leader is to define reality, and last is to say thank you … and often.”