Frequently asked to make significant decisions, boards must demonstrate skills in visioning, planning, organization, and oversight. Learn how boards in your congregation can juggle these responsibilities while attending to God's presence, discerning God's call, and allocating resources appropriately.

LEADERSHIP : Board Development 

Attentive to God: Spirituality in the Church Committee (Book)
Karen Marie Yust, Author.  St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2001.
Our current models of decision-making often prevent us from hearing God’s voice and experiencing God’s presence as we serve. Yust presents a new model that focuses attention on God and God’s role in the committee’s work.

Boards that Make a Difference: A New Design for Leadership in Nonprofit and Public Organizations (Book)
John Carver, Author.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2006.
This book calls upon organizations to change static boards into dynamic ones by revising the types of policies they address. It describes how to produce boards that think big, have clearly stated missions, and can bring long-term goals to fruition.

Creating Caring and Capable Boards: Reclaiming the Passion for Active Trusteeship (Book)
Katherine Tyler Scott, Author.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2000.
Author Katherine Tyler Scott contends that church board members can better serve their parishioners and themselves by attending not to "answers" but to relevant questions about the organization and its history, future, mission, and publics.

Governance and Ministry: Rethinking Board Leadership (Book)
Dan Hotchkiss, Author.  Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 2009.
Dan Hotchkiss explains the importance of unified structures for making governance and ministry decisions. He also addresses the tasks of boards and offers advice on making board meetings productive. Here is foundational reading for any board.

Transforming Church Boards into Communities of Spiritual Leaders (Book)
Charles M. Olsen, Author.  Herndon, VA: Alban Institute, 1995.
This book offers ways to structure board meetings more like worship services than business meetings as a way to reduce conflict, offer board members a more fulfilling experience, and create a core of spiritual leaders in the congregation.

The Board Member’s Guide to Strategic Planning: A Practical Approach to Strengthening Nonprofit Organizations (Book)
Fisher Howe, Author.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1997.
This book will help eliminate the dissatisfaction many congregations have about the results of their strategic planning by carefully moving through the planning process step-by-step.

Death by Meeting: A Leadership Fable...About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business (Book)
Patrick M. Lencioni, Author.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2004.
Convinced that good meetings are crucial to organizational effectiveness, Patrick Lencioni has written a book outlining the elements of meetings that work. Everyone who manages staff or volunteers will find this book helpful.

Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards (Book)
Richard Chait, William P. Ryan, Barbara E. Taylor, Authors.  Washington, DC: BoardSource, 2005.
This book outlines governance as a form of leadership. The authors contend that a generative role, in which boards provide a new sense of the problems and opportunities facing their organizations, is an essential component of governance as leadership.

Governing Boards: Their Nature and Nurture (Book)
Cyril O. Houle, Author.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1997.
Cyril Houle contends that all governing boards can be understood in terms of a tripartite system: the work to be done, the administration of that work, and the establishment of policies to guide it.

Growing Together: Spiritual Exercises for Church Committees (Book)
Rochelle Melander, Harold Eppley, Authors.  Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Books, 1998.
This book offers 50 exercises designed to help church task groups and committees become communities that spiritually nourish group members as they work together.

Lift: Becoming a Positive Force in Any Situation (Book)
Ryan W. Quinn, Robert E. Quinn, Authors.  San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2009.
Using the history and science of flight as a metaphor, Ryan and Robert Quinn explain the four principles of "lift" (being purpose-centered, internally-directed, other-focused, and externally-open) and how all of these principles work together.

Reinventing Leadership (Media)
Distributed by Guilford Publications.  Duration: 40 minutes. 
This video describes how communities become dysfunctional when they are gripped by anxiety and how such communities tend to sabotage healthy leadership.

Reinventing Your Board: A Step-by-Step Guide to Implementing Policy Governance (Book)
John Carver, Miriam Carver, Authors.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2006.
This book builds on the Policy Governance model John Carver introduced in Boards That Make a Difference, offering detailed advice for implementing and effectively applying the model in real-life situations.

Selected to Serve: A Guide for Church Officers (Book)
Earl S. Johnson Jr., Author.  Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2000.
Detailed enough to be used in training Presbyterian Church officers, this handbook also addresses questions concerning biblical authority, church tradition, conflict, discipline, and change.

The Strategic Board: The Step-by-Step Guide to High-Impact Governance (Book)
Mark Light, Author.  John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2001.
This book offers nonprofit boards guidance for implementing a plan for setting organizational direction, delegating work, and monitoring the organization’s effectiveness in meeting its stated goals.

Teams That Click: The Results-Driven Manager Series (Book)
Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2004.
Teams that Click suggests ways to make your team "click" in four areas: boosting productivity, handling inevitable conflicts, dealing with special communication challenges, and rewarding team performance.

Trustee Leadership Development (Organization)
TLD is a national leadership education and networking program for the leaders and boards of nonprofit organizations, religious groups, and civic communities.

Turning Team Performance Inside Out: Team Types and Temperament for High-Impact Results (Book)
Susan Nash, Author.  Mountain View, CA: Davies-Black Publishing, 1999.
Susan Nash draws upon her understanding of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator and team dynamics to present a densely packed book aimed at developing both the gifts of individual team members and overall team strengths.

The Vestry Handbook (Book)
Christopher L. Webber, Author.  Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2000.
This reference provides an overview of the roles and responsibilities of the vestry, addressing such topics as financial and property management, caring for the rector and staff, overseeing church programs, and working with the diocese.