Gathering Around the Table

Dan Holloway, Pinnacle Associate

In one of the churches I served, we responded to numerical growth with a decision to build a much-needed Ministries Building. This building was designed to include a room where the church leadership team could gather for its monthly meetings and a committee was appointed to decorate and furnish the room. The decision was made by the design committee to purchase a large, extremely heavy board room table for the room, a table that would have looked equally at home in the board room of most large corporations. The table was a beautiful piece of furniture, but it was also so large that it literally had to be built in parts and brought into the room for final construction. The table immediately became the centerpiece of the room and was the first point of conversation for those who were seeing the room for the first time, as well as those who sat around it in service to their church.

It soon became clear that this table sent a message about that room and the kinds of things that happened there. Part of the message of the table was that weighty and important things take place in this room and that was a true-enough statement, at least some of the time. But as several of our elders observed, it also sent a message about the nature of our work, and the message is that we gathered here as a Board of Directors for the church. We came together to run the church as one would a business, in the most cost-effective, efficient, and organized way possible.

Sadly, at least a few of the elders in that time began to see themselves not so much as servants of Christ as mangers of a religious organization. They had little patience for conversations about mission and purpose and instead were focused only on the bottom line. While they brought needed input to our conversation, they also brought considerable friction as well. Consequently in some of our earliest meetings in that space we had significant and spirited discussions that centered on the differences between a boardroom table mentality and a communion table spirit, which I believed to be our calling as a church.

Now one can rightly argue that a table is just a table and there is certainly truth to that. One can likewise argue that the church should be wise and judicious in the use of its resources and we are always blessed by those who help us to do that. Yet I am more and more persuaded that the key to a healthy church leadership team is the understanding that we come together around a communion table and not a boardroom table.

A boardroom table mentality is driven by one set of assumptions while a communion table mentality is driven by a very different set of assumptions. A boardroom table mentality is focused first and foremost on budgeting and control. The agenda is internally focused and is concerned primarily with the success or maintenance of the church as an organization. Efficiency and management are the measuring sticks of success even when there is little conversation about the claim of Jesus Christ on our lives. Control is the name of the game and people will go to great lengths to maintain it.

The communion table mentality starts from a different place. It starts with gratitude for what we do have rather than anxiety about what we don’t have. The leadership body’s agenda is driven by the church’s mission and the most important question at every meeting is this: “What is God calling us to do?” Leaders are constantly focused on hospitality and how all can be welcomed to the table. Individual congregants are encouraged to find their own place in God’s service and power is always shared. The kinds of questions that are most often asked include, “What can we do to build up the body?” and “How well are we serving Jesus Christ in the decisions we are making?”

So it is worth asking: What kind of table do your leaders gather around when they meet? The size of the actual table really doesn’t matter but the things we do when we gather there most certainly do.