Hotchkiss, Governance and Ministry

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Dan Hotchkiss, Governance and Ministry: Rethinking Board Leadership. Alban Institute, 2009.

Referenced in: Policy Governance Models for Church Leadership

LifeandLeadership.com Summary

Hotchkiss’ Governance and Ministry is for mainline denominations what Aubrey Malphurs’ Leading Leaders is for evangelicals, a church-related application of the growing literature on the Policy Governance Model of John and Miriam Carver. 

From the Publisher

In Governance and Ministry, Alban Institute senior consultant Dan Hotchkiss offers congregational leaders a roadmap and tools for changing the way boards and clergy work together to lead congregations. Hotchkiss demonstrates that the right governance model is the one that best enables a congregation to fulfill its mission—to achieve both the outward results and the inward quality of life to which it is called.

Resources on governance for the nonprofit sector have burgeoned over the past decade, and this book translates some of what is most helpful from that world for clergy and lay leaders. It also recognizes that in some ways congregations are unique and need governance structures and processes different from those that work in other organizations. Leaders must continually balance the conserving function of an institution with the expectation of disruptive, change-inducing creativity that comes when individuals peek past the temple veil and catch fresh visions of the Holy.

Governance in congregations is not the science of achieving optimal results through organizational re-engineering. Governance is an expressive art, like preaching. The forms of our congregations must reflect the values and perceptions of the sacred at their heart. Congregations need skills and methods for negotiating “our way” of governance and for passing the torch effectively to new leaders.

About the Author

Dan Hotchkiss, author of Ministry and Money: A Guide for Clergy and Their Friends (Alban, 2002), is a Unitarian Universalist minister and a senior consultant for the Alban Institute. He speaks, writes, and consults widely on strategic and financial planning, congregational governance, clergy leadership, and social justice ministries.


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