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It has always been said, “Don’t mix church and politics.” Yet the reality is, every church needs good polity and processes in order to function and grow. However, the only thing worse than no church polity is bad church polity. Unfortunately in many rural churches, bad polity is a big problem. It’s like a religious poison that everyone overlooks. It   cripples  decision making and creates dysfunctional  leadership.  Vision and Mission Paralysis   Vision and mission become paralyzed when action steps  require  a majority vote of the people. I have  worked  with different rural churches across the country  where this is the case. I have seen churches that voted on everything, from  buying ink pens to which type of light bulbs would be used, standard or  florescent  (I'm not kidding). It is  impossible  for a church to be healthy when decisions are made by some sort of corporate  democratic process. Does it really make sense for an entire church to vote on who sho

  One morning I stopped at Walmart to pick up supplies for the office. When I entered the door, the greeter asked, " How are you ?" I replied, " Fine, and you ?" She simply nodded and repeated the question to the next person walking in behind me. As I was walking through the store, I begin to think about the door greeter. Did she really care whether or not I was having a good day? And did I care how her day was going? In reality, she asked how I was doing because she was getting paid; and I asked how she was doing because it was the polite thing to do.   Walmart greeters really aren't much different than our church greeters. Each Sunday they stand in an assigned spot and most of them have a rehearsed line for each person who walks through the door. While greeters are nice to have around, I have to wonder if new guests think the same thing I did at Walmart, " Do they really care how I feel today? " While I'm sure most church greeters are