Share, prayer and care: how to support your church trustees

Good churches need good trustees. And good trustees need church leaders who support, resource and encourage them to be excellent in their roles.

We see trustees as a crucial part of the oversight in church life, since they have legal responsibilities to make the church charity the best it can be. That was the message of a blog we wrote in January (A great church needs great trustees). Although these responsibilities include ‘legal stuff’, they go much wider into finance, people, risk and reputation. All these are the various aspects of good governance and are what makes the organisation work and stay ‘well’.

The early church found that poor ‘admin’ could spoil deeply spiritual work (see Acts 6). It is the same today. The first deacons were appointed for that very reason. Sadly, we have seen many good churches in the last few years suffer massively because of issues of governance and so we want to give some pointers to how church leaders can help trustee teams play their roles extremely well.

Acts 6 talks about the appointment of men ‘full of faith and of the Holy Spirit’. It then goes on to say they ‘…prayed and laid their hands on them’ and the consequence was that ‘the number of disciples ...increased rapidly...’

We see trustees as playing a genuinely important spiritual role in the church. They need to be full of faith and the Holy Spirit, just as much now as then. 

So what can church leaders do to see that this spiritual role is fulfilled well?

Share

Often the role of trustee (as with some other admin type roles) is hidden from church view. We hear leaders talk about it as if we just need people ‘to make up the numbers’. It isn’t seen as ‘front line’ or often even as ‘spiritual’ at all.

This misses what is involved and the part the role plays in the body of Christ. The difference between ‘can do’ and ‘can’t do’ attitudes is massive. We suggest the role can be spoken about, explained to the church how it fits alongside other ministry roles in the church, what is involved and why it is crucial that the role requires ‘faith and the Holy Spirit’. 

Good trustees become intentionally selected for the same sort of reasons as preachers, worship leaders and youth leaders. The right sort of person is needed, with the right experience and even a ‘calling’. It’s a role with purpose and value.

Prayer

Ask church leaders how often they pray for their trustee team, and it’s interesting to see their facial expressions! 

A good church prays for all their ministries. It isn’t a slot machine, but which important ministry of the church don’t need prayer? Trustee governance is just the same – and the lack of it is (we believe) why so many publicised church problems come from weakness in this. 

Good church leaders pray for their trustee team, but also encourage the wider church to do the same. Remember Acts 6!

Care

Another area we see opportunities to care for trustees better is through training and support. 

Throughout our work at Stewardship, we often see trustees being thrown in at the deep end without any training or pointers about how to do the job well.

Being thrown in with no ‘swimming lessons’ means they flounder! Expect to give time to invest in their ‘equipping’. Secondly, provide support. It is a technical role with personal responsibility. Make sure they know where to go when they are unsure of what is needed (see more below on the Stewardship ‘Consultancy Helpline’). 

Thirdly, be intentional in thinking about how long they should act in that capacity. Look to spread the load, rather than finding the smallest group you can get away with.

Further reading

Resources for treasurers and trustees can be found here:  Treasurers and trustees

For information on our Consultancy Helpline, please visit: Consultancy Helpline