By Dawn Taloyo, Associate Superintendent, PacNWC
In early June, Harbor Covenant Church in Gig Harbor, WA hosted a Church Chair Training. This workshop has been under development for a couple of years and is the brainchild of Will Davidson, chair of the Pacific Southwest Conference (PSW) Executive Board. He has served multiple terms as the chair of his home church in Walnut Creek, CA as well as on the denominational Executive Board. He, along with management and church consultant Alan Forsman, Pastor Michael White from Harbor Covenant, and Mike Hagen, previous chair at Harbor Covenant, designed a full-day, intensive workshop to provide resourcing and connection among church leaders. Topics covered included:
- Meeting Planning & Facilitation
- Team Building
- Lead Pastor Relationship
- Managing Conflict
- Managing Pastoral Transition
- Understanding Financial Statements & Budgets
- Church Insurance & Risk Management
- Constitution & By-Laws
- Digital Communication Strategies
The PacNWC partnered with the PSW to underwrite two Church Chair Trainings in 2022 – one in Pasadena, CA, and this one in Gig Harbor – at no cost to participants. In June, we had 23 leaders representing 8 of our PacNWC churches attend this new initiative and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. One participant commented, “I had no idea there were so many resources available to us. This was eye-opening and needed.” Another said, “The conference was wonderful, the presenters were thoughtful and concise, and the topics that were covered were extremely useful.”
A particular benefit of this training is the introduction to the myriad of resources available to churches through the ECC. Knowing that not all lay leaders have a history in the Covenant, it provides a big picture overview of how the ECC is structured (Mission Priorities) as well as the ancillary entities, such as National Covenant Properties and Covenant Trust Company. Also, participants learned that churches can obtain a review of their insurance plans along with their risk management/prevention procedures from Brad Hedberg of Portico Group, LLC for free. We highly recommend churches take advantage of that opportunity.
The facilitation team is looking forward to bringing this workshop to other ECC Conferences in the near future and we will be sure to communicate the next PacNWC offering to church leaders.