The Resilient Pastor 70 | Leading with Your Board of Elders
Feb 26, 2026
Conversations about building trust and clarity between pastors and elder boards. Practical approaches to alignment, role clarity, and governance models. Stories on accountability, spiritual rhythms like prayer and devotionals, and board education and retreats. Real-world lessons from conflict and ways elders can offer concrete support to pastoral leaders.
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Why We Waited Years To Form An Elder Board
- Wait to form an elder board in a church plant until relationships and timing make sense.
- Sharon waited about six years (advised to wait five) and says forming elders too quickly would have left them ill-prepared for crises like 2020.
Learn Board Governance From Business Sources
- Invest in educating yourself and your elders about governance best practices.
- Glenn read Harvard Business Review onboarding articles and learned from Biola's board structure to implement subcommittees, dashboards, and board education sessions.
Decide If Your Church Is Pastor Led Or Board Led
- Define whether your church is board-led or pastor-led and design governance around that distinction.
- Glenn settled on pastor-led and board-overseen and uses the business phrase 'noses in, fingers out' to keep elders informed but not operationally intrusive.
