Governance boards are critical to any group. A board could be the leadership of a church, directors of a huge corporation, a school teacher, a soccer coach, parents in a family, and many more. They count because they influence everyone else. They especially influence innovation, which lives and dies on how they lead.
In contemporary culture, the common posture of a board is to hold people to account. They conduct reviews on performance, they write reports, and they watch and correct and make judgments. This could be your parents asking why your grades aren’t better (they have a bad report card in their hand) or your pastor pointing out all the problems in last week’s worship service. There is a place for accountability and feedback, but if this is the only thing a board does then it crushes innovation. When this is all a church leadership does, it can crush much more.
The other way to operate is to have a posture of giving courage. Here, a board calls people into roles by giving courage. Before someone does their role, the board comes alongside them and declares, you are the person for this, I know you and I know you can do it. They give courage. Not false hope, but they walk beside people and cheer them on. Think of a parent helping you to understand your homework, praying with you, giving you confidence as you go to the exam. This posture gives courage to innovation because innovators know going into the journey that there are people walking with you, cheering you on- even when it all goes wrong, as it sometimes does.
Last week I got to spend time with the governance board of both Project Nexus and the leadership of Edwardstown Baptist Church. My one takeaway; they gave courage to Richard and I. They talked about their excitement to cheer us on, to walk with us into what we will do, and all that God will do in the future. Yes, they mentioned accountability measures, but they balanced that with giving us courage for the new. This changes everything for us, and it is such a blessing to serve under a board and in partnership with a Church leadership that values a posture of giving courage.
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