In Chicago, a nonprofit drama of sorts has been playing out over the past week or so. Well, the drama has actually been going-on for some four years but with a Chicago Tribune news story last week, the drama moved up to the forefront of church members' conversations and resulted in a public meeting on the topic.
The "topic" was the sexual-related allegations against the head pastor of a Mega-Church, Willow Creek. Now, the Church has a nonprofit where the primary source of what reignited this turmoil appears to have risen with members of the association stating they did not believe the church elders (the "leadership") had adequately done their job. Then the Chicago Tribune story and the need by elders to provide the church community an explanation if not defense of their actions and the continued presence of the lead pastor. All of the details are much better provided in the Chicago Tribune article. Suffice it to say, many folks will be satisfied and others will not and the conversation will likely not be fully put to rest until after the lead pastor's planned retirement in October. Admittedly though, matters like this tend to leave long impressions.
But while we await for the dust to more or less settle, it is in my opinion worth considering the comparative difference between faith-structure (for this article, church) governance and nonprofit governance while acknowledging that churches are obviously nonprofits but with some different or should I say, a lot less accountability than nonprofits. To begin, many churches do construct an oversight body above, perhaps in partnership with, the spiritual leader. Most often this oversight "lay" body (elders in the case of Willow Creek) serves as a kitchen cabinet of sorts to the spiritual leader but more importantly adds value from a fiscal and physical plant management framework. In some cases, depending on the spiritual leader, the lay body has authority over matters that are very much akin to those of a board.
At Willow Creek, the model appears very similar to what I have described with an added duty by the elder of ensuring that the best interests of the congregation are addressed. Hence, if something about the lead pastor is awry, the elders will investigate and report out. And, of course, except for whatever may be akin to by-laws, elders may or may not have authority to fire. I don't know in the case of Willow Creek. But, it does appear that if the congregation is not totally satisfied with the work of the elders, some type of action can be taken.
So, great governance? In the Willow Creek situation, the elders presumably conducted an investigation and actually hired a lawyer, one who is philosophically in-sync with values, to investigation. The conclusion, no problem. Now let's tell the congregation because now of course, the congregation is asking because, well, they read about the situation in the paper. Hm...from my perspective, I'm not thinking the check-and-balance system, one of the biggest benefits of nonprofit governance, is working. Were I the congregation, revisiting this elder structure should be the next activity on my list of to-dos.