Guide to churches on spiritual leaders and trustees

This paper aims to describe the differing leadership structures found in UK churches, and the roles of spiritual leaders and charity trustees within a local church organisation. It provides guidance on how a church's strong leadership ethos can be incorporated into its legal governing documents.

Topics covered:

• Spiritual leaders and trustees: are they the same?
• Leadership: setting the sense of direction
• Trustees: do they have an important role in ‘church’?
• The spiritual leaders as the trustees
• The trustees as a separate group
• Strategy: trustees and spiritual leaders
• Friction points
• Handling differences and relationships
• The things to remember once difficulties do arise
• Selection of trustees
• What options are there?

Updated January 2025