Numerous separate boards and committees in a church, Rev. Dr. Blake Bradford says, is an idea whose time has come and gone.
“I was looking around and serving churches and noticing that the systems of governance that we inherited, for many, many congregations, it was no longer functioning as intended,” Bradford said from his office as senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Fort Smith, Ark. “The intention was for a lot of these systems of governance that we received really post-World War II. A lot of the models were about folks wanting a vote in the governance system, wanting to spread around responsibility in a really wide way, and people's time was used differently, and their engagement in churches and communities.
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Rev. Dr. Blake Bradford’s presentation will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 23, at Topeka First UMC.
“It was during a period where churches were operating a certain way, culture was operating in a certain way,” he added. “And we did not have some of the complexity we're living with today.”
With Rev. Kay Kotan, Bradford wrote “Mission: Possible – A Simplified Structure for Missional Effectiveness.”
The advocate of what many are calling the “one-board model” will be in the Great Plains Conference on Aug. 23 for training about the simplified accountable structure model that is detailed in his and Kotan’s book, which has printed its third edition.
The training is presented by the East Central Kansas District but is open to all of the conference.
“It is one of the strategies of the East Central Kansas District to have Blake come and teach about the simplified board structure, and having it available to the whole district,” said Rev. Nicole Conard, interim director of congregational excellence. “He could provide some outside support for churches in that district and anyone who would want to travel as well.”
A former district superintendent in the Arkansas Conference, Bradford said he saw churches complicating their mission by getting bogged down in the bureaucracy of multiple boards and committees.
“Some of the things had been roadblocks to get stuff done in some churches,” he said. “By having a different kind of governance, we were able to clear some of those roadblocks away, and people felt more engaged in their leadership.”
The pandemic played a role in the movement toward a one-board model, Bradford said.
“We noticed that during COVID, churches had to be incredibly nimble. And oftentimes, what we saw was if they did not have a simplified structure, if they had the traditional legacy with multiple committees, either it was incredibly difficult to make some of the quick, nimble decisions that you had to make with the changing health recommendations and all this stuff,” he said. “So sometimes we've seen several churches just get stuck.
“Sometimes we saw them switch into, sort of, de facto-like dictatorships. You might have the pastor and one leader making all the decisions for the church, and that wasn't terribly healthy. It created some unsafe systems, decision-making systems, because two people were left. That's a lot of responsibility, without much accountability. The simplified structure churches were able to make good, reasoned-out decisions,” Bradford added. “The representatives of the church was a small enough group to be nimble, but it still had the appropriate kind of accountability and, so, it was a sweet spot. The churches that were able to do that were able to maneuver through some of the health and worship and discipleship-making challenges of the whole era.”
Some United Methodist churches used the one-board model before they chose to disaffiliate, he said, to “reduce the number of votes to disaffiliate or to move into that process.”
“That’s a misuse of our system,” Bradford said. “Our system is really designed to have a lot of accountability built in.”
In this photo from the 2024 Leadership Institute at Resurrection, a United Methodist Church, Rev. Dr. Blake Bradford talks about the simplified accountability structure. File photo
The simplified structure, he said, works well for larger churches as it does for smaller ones. A new, separate edition for smaller churches — which Bradford defines not by attendance but rather if the church has a less-than-fulltime clergyperson.
“For mid-sized churches with maybe, one full-time clergy, this model is incredibly helpful because it changes our focus from more and more meetings to deeper ministry and meetings that make a difference,” he said.
“What we found is the smaller churches were often doing a simplified structure by de facto. They didn't have enough people to fill all the different jobs. You add up all the different jobs, and golly, you needed almost 50 people just to cover all the slots on the nominations form. So they were finding themselves doing it, but with a handful of people wearing multiple hats, and sometimes voting on the same thing multiple times,” Bradford continued. “So, the smaller churches are going, wow, this could really make our lives easier, because we're almost doing it.”
The “we’ve always done it this way” line is a reason some churches haven’t decided to make the change, he said.
“The trustee's saying, ‘Well, I've been the trustee chair for 30 years, and I've followed someone who was trustee chair for 40 years,’” he said. “Some it is just comfort with living in that kind of system. Yet, I think a lot of folks are already noticing. I think about the motivations. You know, this leadership system isn't working the way it used to. People are not saying yes to a job to be on the so-and-so committee. Folks are finding that they come, and they say, ‘Hey, I want to explore this,’ and they have this set of reasons. I want less meetings Well, there you go. It's hard to change structures with that kind of inheritance.”
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