Group Decision Making
Last Sunday we had to make a decision at church about whether to add to our renovation budget enough money to cover additional unanticipated expenses of the sound system. The discussion was difficult, not because the current sound system is good (it has some serious issues), or because the presenters did not adequately describe the reasons why they believed it would be good to move on this now. The process was difficult because of the variety of ways there are to look at decision making in a church.
There were some there who did not argue with the materials presented, but did question whether our church could responsibly commit to providing the additional funds. They would have liked for the decision to be made less by voting and more by seeing whether the need could be completely covered by pledges. If God would provide the money, then they would be glad to go ahead with the project.
Others felt that we should discern what God wanted, vote for that, and then trust God to provide the funds as they are needed.
I can see both sides. But I can't really tell you which side I feel most comfortable on.
Then there was a whole other aspect to the discussion that no one really talked about. There were some people who had been made aware of the need for a sound system even before it came to the church as a whole. Some of these people had already made large donations toward the sound system.
This can be seen two ways as well.
It can certainly be seen as great generosity in helping to provide something that might otherwise not been affordable.
It can also be seen as having the vote swayed by those who are most affluent in the congregation. This is because everyone can see that money is there, but it is for this specific project. The money is no longer there if this project doesn't happen.
To their credit, I do not think the donors intend to throw their monetary weight around. I think they intend to give hope to those of us who might see the project as insurmountable.
But still, I wonder if there is a better way to do this.
It is a problem that within days a price increase was scheduled. There was no way to avoid that. It was not a high pressure sales tactic, but rather unfortunate timing of when the information became available and how long it takes to schedule and carry out a church meeting. So to take advantage of the lower prices, we did not have the time to take a week to decide what we could pledge.
If there had been no pledges made in advance would we have had an accurate sense of how difficult it might be to raise the money? Do we have an accurate sense even now?
I wonder how other churches make these kinds of decisions.
For me there are some priorities:
---We find some way to work together to discern God's will.
---We treat each other with humility and respect in the process.
There were some there who did not argue with the materials presented, but did question whether our church could responsibly commit to providing the additional funds. They would have liked for the decision to be made less by voting and more by seeing whether the need could be completely covered by pledges. If God would provide the money, then they would be glad to go ahead with the project.
Others felt that we should discern what God wanted, vote for that, and then trust God to provide the funds as they are needed.
I can see both sides. But I can't really tell you which side I feel most comfortable on.
Then there was a whole other aspect to the discussion that no one really talked about. There were some people who had been made aware of the need for a sound system even before it came to the church as a whole. Some of these people had already made large donations toward the sound system.
This can be seen two ways as well.
It can certainly be seen as great generosity in helping to provide something that might otherwise not been affordable.
It can also be seen as having the vote swayed by those who are most affluent in the congregation. This is because everyone can see that money is there, but it is for this specific project. The money is no longer there if this project doesn't happen.
To their credit, I do not think the donors intend to throw their monetary weight around. I think they intend to give hope to those of us who might see the project as insurmountable.
But still, I wonder if there is a better way to do this.
It is a problem that within days a price increase was scheduled. There was no way to avoid that. It was not a high pressure sales tactic, but rather unfortunate timing of when the information became available and how long it takes to schedule and carry out a church meeting. So to take advantage of the lower prices, we did not have the time to take a week to decide what we could pledge.
If there had been no pledges made in advance would we have had an accurate sense of how difficult it might be to raise the money? Do we have an accurate sense even now?
I wonder how other churches make these kinds of decisions.
For me there are some priorities:
---We find some way to work together to discern God's will.
---We treat each other with humility and respect in the process.
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