To know where you need to go. congregational boards first need to know where the congregation is, in order to know how to utilize the congregation's resources and assets, including its institutional wisdom captured in policy, for the fulfilment of the congregation's vision and mission, the congregational Board needs the fourth practice of congregational boards, a practice of congregational assessment.

This is a regular practice of the board studying the congregation. Looking at what is working well, and what is not; looking for areas of the congregation that need more resources to better create the congregations vision and fulfill the mission; and perhaps even discovering areas of the congregation where resources and assets are being expended in ways that do not help fulfill the congregation's mission, and assessing then how to transform those areas.

There are tons of tools out there to help congregational boards assess how well the congregation is doing. But when I work with congregations on implementing the seven board practices I usually recommend they start simply. I recommend congrgegational boards pick just two aspects of a congregation every year that they as a Board want to learn more about. Often, one that is more administrative, and one that is more programmatic.

Let's say this year, your board wants to learn more about what is happening in faith development. And the board wants to learn more about the long term care that is needed to maintain the congregation's building. The board then designs a process for each of these, where they are going to learn more about those areas of the congregation.

For faith development, the board might set up a series of listening sessions between the board or a subcommittee of the board -- doesn't have to be everybody. And those in the congregation that are most connected to faith development, you know, teachers, parents, youth, the religious educator. Maybe these listening sessions are in groups or individually. And you just ask questions like, What is going well? Where are there challenges? What dreams do you have for faith development? What would it take to make those dreams a reality?

And the board listens, takes notes, and then takes this back to those the whole board can learn from and discuss. Perhaps these listening sessions will feed into the open questions process and be part of the Board's own developing discernment and understanding of the congregation's vision and mission. Perhaps the what the board learns from these sessions might impact the fiduciary decisions in next year's budgeting process. Who knows?

A similar process might be done on the other area of study we talked about for this year, the long term viability of the building. It likely would involve some listening sessions. But it might also involve some outside contract assessments by contractors and the like.

How long do we have to replace the roof? Does our AC system or air conditioning system meet our standards for environmental efficiency? In this case, the board might even charter a taskforce to do this exploration, this learning for them and to report back to the board.

This would give the board the necessary information to do good fiduciary responsibility work to ensure that this asset, the building, is ready to support the vision and the mission of the congregation for decades to come.

And then next year, the congregational board picks two more aspects of the congregation that the board wants to learn more about. And the year after that the board picks two more, allowing the board over time a base of information from which they can do the next practice of congregational boards and that is planning for the future.