In Defence of Meetings

There is a growing trend in organizational leadership circles to poo poo meetings.  People say things like "if you are meeting your not working" and there is a concerted push to get rid of as many meetings as possible.  

This may be valid in the business world (I wouldn't know) but I want to push back on that idea when it comes to local church ministry.  I want to defend meetings. Yes some meetings are unnecessary.  Yes some meetings are pointless and poorly run. And certainly many meetings are allowed to run too long. There is a craft to leading great meetings and all leaders should be working to develop those skills.  This is not a defence of mediocre meetings but it is an attempt to show why I think that meetings are absolutely pivotal to local church leadership.

Leadership In Community
I'm going to assume you are up to speed on the importance of community in the local church.  I believe that the theological imperative toward community extends to leadership as well. Leadership in community is not leadership by committee. In fact you can do leadership in community without ever having a vote and with one person ultimately making all the decisions. What leadership in community does call for is a group of spiritually mature, missionally engaged people who are in relationship with each other speaking into and discerning the direction of the church together. Leadership in community requires a group of people to get together to do that work. People getting together to work is a meeting.

Mushy Bottom Lines
In church world our mission is crystal clear but bottom line is mushy.  It doesn't show up on a profit and loss sheet and even those things that can be counted (conversions, baptisms, volunteerism, small group involvement, etc) need to be qualified and evaluated pastorally.  Our mission is Spirit empowered life transformation but what that looks like in each instance is as unique as the stories of the individuals God has allowed us to impact. Stories are best told face to face and in church world our best chance of getting a person's story clear is in a group as we each share what we have observed in that persons life. Cold statistics and utilitarian tracking programs can augment but never replace the pastoral telling of stories as a way to track how we are really doing as a church.  Those stories are best told in meetings.

Ministry Is People
For local church leaders it's closer to the truth to say "if you're not meeting you're not working." Of course there needs to be private time for sermon prep, program planning, prayer, and such but a significant amount of a church leaders time should be spent with other people wether it's in large meetings like weekend services, smaller meetings with specific ministry teams and classes, or one-on-one spiritual guidance, mentoring,  or pastoral care. Ministry is people. Yes Jesus often retreated to a quiet place to pray but an overwhelming majority of Jesus' time recorded in the gospels is spent in what could very fairly be defined as meetings. If you are going to minister to and with people you are going to need to be physically present in the same room with them much of the time. That's a meeting.

Leadership Is Lonely
Or at least it really can be. Here I'm talking specifically about meeting with the senior leaders (staff or elders) in your church. In a healthy church culture there is something life giving about getting into room with people who are (at least close to) as invested in the ministry you lead together as you are: something that reminds you that you are not alone,  that there are a bunch of people who get it, that there are some folks who have your back, and that while you may carry this ministry the most you certainly don't carry it alone.  Emails, texts, tweets, and even phone calls are ultimately just a bandaid. The true antidote to loneliness is being together.  Intentionally being together is a meeting.

My hope is that rather then jump on the 'meetings are bad' bandwagon church leaders will instead embrace the art of leading engaging, purposeful, productive meetings and see those meetings not as a precursor to or distraction from ministry but as a key part of ministry itself.