The fall of a leader is one of the greatest financial risks for a church. I’m not referring simply to headline-grabbing moral failures. Certainly, a breach of trust of that magnitude does tend to have the biggest immediate blast radius. But we shouldn’t overlook alarming trends of burnout and dropout in ministry either. They all come with a cost.
This make sense to many of us. We tend to intuitively understand that a danger exists. In fact, surveys of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA)—the church and Christian nonprofit ministry accreditation organization I’m privileged to lead—show 94 percent of our members reporting leader integrity failures as having a negative impact on community and giver trust.
But a perhaps intimidating question remains for many serving in an executive role at the intersection of “business brain and pastoral heart” of their church. What can we do to mitigate this risk? My answer:
Concentrate on leader care. An emphasis on the holistic well-being of senior leaders will not simply reduce risks for their organizations. It will stir a new day of flourishing for ministry in our communities.
Loneliness Can Be Costly
Leading a church is a high and holy calling. A pastor’s ministry can be a catalyst for life-change through the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s exciting! It’s an honor. It has significance for eternity. But, too often, it’s also lonely.
Loneliness can come with a cost. Every Christian leader, especially senior ministry staff, will face daily trials and sudden storms while at their ministry’s helm. If they feel alone, they may be able to hang on for a time. But every passing day in isolation—real or perceived, self-inflicted or not—will increase the likelihood of burnout, dropout, and even tragic breaches of trust.
As the stewards of the ECFA seal—a gold standard for many donors looking for accountable organizations that share their Christian values—our team takes the mission of enhancing trust very seriously. And, sadly, we’ve seen the huge costs of leader failures. While much is impossible to quantify, there are tangible financial consequences for ministries. For example, along with major unbudgeted expenses, giving often slows significantly in the aftermath of a leadership crisis. At the very least, ministries must cut back programs due to declining finances. In some cases, it causes organizations to close their doors completely.
Our work at ECFA has convinced us that there is a critical connection between leadership integrity and ministry financial accountability.
Bold Standards Enhance Trust
May I pause for a moment? I want to share a verse with you that the Lord has placed on my heart in recent weeks:
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:23-25)
Praise God that we are not subject to a spirit of fear or defeat! Our hope is in our faithful Lord and He has charged us to spur on—to help—one another. We owe it to fellow leaders as loving brothers and sisters in Christ, as well as to our organizations, to be proactive in addressing this matter of trust.
That’s why I believe we need a new standard of care and accountability.
Standards can shape culture. ECFA’s healthy governance and financial transparency standards are a testimony to this. While many donors expect accountability controls now, our accreditation requirements were at one time revolutionary. Did you know, for example, that financial statements audited by independent CPAs were virtually unheard of in the nonprofit world decades ago? That changed in the 1970’s when ECFA began requiring them for member organizations. Our standards also dramatically shifted ministry culture by mandating that a majority of an organization’s board members be independent—a biblical check on many Christian leaders in those days who said they were “only accountable to God.”
ECFA standards were needed back then because churches and ministries were facing a crisis of confidence, just as they are today. At that time it was a series of fundraising scandals taking a toll on trust. Today, while organizational integrity remains a key concern, leader burnout, dropout, and moral failures are rocking congregations and communities.
With that in mind, ECFA recently announced the development of a new leadership integrity standard—the most revolutionary update to our accreditation standards in 45 years. Specifically, we are working to ensure ECFA-accredited organization boards are purposefully coming alongside their organizations’ senior leaders to establish biblical character expectations and to be proactive in offering them holistic care.
Why? Because leader care is ministry care. And adopting a bold standard will build trust and seed the ground for life-transforming ministries to flourish.
A New Standard Of Care Will Grow Trust
According to polling from Barna Research, 4 out of 5 Christian donors agree with the statement, “It would help strengthen my trust in churches and ministries if they took steps to proactively care for their leader’s health and holistic integrity.”
Enter ECFA’s new standard of care for leaders. Our leadership integrity standard will require ECFA-accredited church and ministry boards to purposefully—at least annually—come alongside their organizations’ senior leaders (1) to discuss the leader’s commitment to upholding mutually agreed on biblical integrity principles and (2) to discuss with the leader opportunities for the organization to offer proactive care. All the details, including a full commentary and FAQs, are available at ECFA.org/LeadershipStandard.
You might note that our new standard focuses on both an organization’s leader and its board. Why? Because it’s pivotal in this struggle for ministry integrity that intentional leader care should grow out of a strong relationship between the board and the leader. Leaders are ultimately responsible for their own health and integrity, of course. But church and ministry boards can help in an environment of strong, Christ-centered governance. We can carry each other’s burdens in the spirit of Galatians 6.
I so appreciated how Tami Heim, Christian Leadership Alliance President & CEO, accentuated this idea when she offered words of support for ECFA’s new leader care standard:
“I am grateful for ECFA’s work that recognizes the vital relationship between the board and the CEO,” she said. “I urge Christian organizations to fully embrace and execute this new standard so that together we faithfully model integrity, healthy culture, and operating excellence.”
You might also notice that our new standard is not just focused on protecting integrity, it’s about promoting flourishing. This isn’t simply an effort to help leaders survive. It is an opportunity for Christian leaders and their Kingdom-work to thrive!
As Craig Groeschel, Senior Pastor of Life.Church, declared in a word of support for this effort:
“This is about more than organizational integrity. It’s about intentionally building a Christ-centered culture where leaders are held both in love and accountability by the people they serve.”
Ted Esler, President & CEO of Missio Nexus, added:
“The health of any ministry is directly tied to the health and vitality of its leaders … Spiritually vibrant leaders create spiritually vibrant ministries. ECFA’s emphasis on proactively raising the bar for leadership health will bless ministries for years to come.”
We have seen what happens when a leader’s health erodes. But imagine where Christian leaders could take their ministries if they were leading from positions of holistic strength. Imagine the possibilities for life-transformation in our communities!
The time is now for this new standard of care. We’re not powerless bystanders. We don’t need to just watch helplessly as more leaders struggle and fall. We can make a difference by proactively raising the standard for leaders and ministries based on biblical principles. Will you join us in supporting healthy leadership and enhancing trust as we reach the world for Christ?
Please learn more by visiting ECFA.org.
