Congregational budget-makers frequently divide into two
camps that approach the task in different ways. The first camp is
likely to include children of the Great Depression, experts in finance,
elementary school teachers, and persons anxious about their own money
situation. Their first priority is to make sure that the budget
balances and that the congregation makes no plans or commitments it is
less than 100 percent certain it can meet. They squint over budget
sheets like bookkeepers of old with their bright lamps and shoulder
garters—I call this camp the Green Eyeshades.

The second camp typically includes young clergy, upscale
decorators, Baby Boomers, college professors, and commission
salespeople. They firmly believe that with God (or even without God)
all things are possible. They say, “We are a congregation, not a
business.” This camp can be identified at budget meetings mostly by
their absence. When shanghaied into talking about money, they glaze
over. Staring at a distant sunrise, they float over the surface of
numerical reality—I call them the Rose-Colored Glasses.

Read the rest of this article at Alban.org.

I’ve been working for some time on a diagram to express some of themes about congregational governance. Partly to get feedback, and partly as a test of the whole process of uploading, here it is. At some future point I’ll post a commentary, but even without that I would be interested to hear what you see or don’t see in the picture.

Dan

Click thumbnail picture to view:

Nineteen synagogue consultants met in Boston last summer … with Alban senior consultant Alice Mann, whose writings on church size have drawn attention in the Jewish world. In the top-floor conference room of Boston’s Combined Jewish Philanthropies building, Mann described the theory of church size most often used by the Alban Institute, and drew on the experience of participants to learn how the ideas have already been adapted for use in synagogues. The group discussed the best way to measure synagogue size, the characteristics of synagogues of various sizes, and the challenges that transitional stages present in Jewish congregations.

Read more of Searching for the Key: Developing a Theory of Synagogue Size.