Building a Church That Can Handle Growth | Miles Terry
In this episode, Mike Glenn sits down with Miles Terry, managing partner of Gideon Law Group, to unpack why many churches struggle not because they aren’t growing, but because they aren’t prepared for growth. From outdated bylaws to unclear leadership and lack of accountability, Miles explains how internal misalignment often creates the very problems churches fear most.
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Mike Glenn: Our guest today is Miles Terry. Miles. Terry is the managing partner of the Gideon Law Group, uh, that focuses on church law and nonprofit law. And, uh, he and I have had a lot of discussion since we have started the Engaged Church Network, uh, about the. Trouble and, uh, situations that churches get into because they haven't taken good care of their constitution and bylaws.
And so one of the first things that we do now with the Engaged Church Network when we talk with a church, is we insist that they get out their constitution and bylaws and we review them and make sure everything's up to date. Things are very, very different now, uh, when it comes to constitution and bylaws.
And how churches make decisions, and then how churches are held accountable for those decisions according to the constitution of bylaws. We're gonna get into all of that and more. Welcome, miles. Glad you're here.
Miles Terry: Thank you for having me.
Mike Glenn: Thanks, uh, for, [00:01:00] for, for being here. Alright. Tell me why it is so important for a church, and let's just focus this on church for purposes of our discussion today.
To have. A constitution of bylaws and a, an effective constitution of bylaws?
Miles Terry: Well, they, they need, they need, whether you call it a charter or bylaws or a constitution, a lot of times those are synonymous. But they, they need something to provide structure, to provide accountability, to provide a governing apparatus so that they have the ability to make decisions of they're nonprofits.
So, um, you know, it's a. You know, most people can start a church in, in America, in fact, I mean, based upon the First Amendment. Mm-hmm. You have the freedom of, of religion. You could just get a bunch of people together in your home and, um, say we're a church and by God you're a church and you can do whatever you wanna do within your statement of faith and, and let that thing grow.
The problem though is, is that if you are an, what we call an [00:02:00] unincorporated association, um, then. You take on all the liability. Mm-hmm. So if someone gets hurt on your property, well, you're all getting sued.
Mike Glenn: Right?
Miles Terry: It's like a general partnership. Mm-hmm. Um, and for, for years in our country, everybody who started a business, a small business owner, they were either in a partnership or limited partnership.
Or a general partnership. Right. But you made all the money, but then you took all the liability as well. So as you grow. Most churches form as a nonprofit corporation. Uh, they're still a corporation, but they're a nonprofit corporation. And when you do that, you've got to start putting in structure in place, and you gotta figure out who makes the decisions.
Is it gonna be a senior pastor? Is it gonna be a deacon board? Is it gonna be an elder board? Um, you know. We talk about this all the time in the New Testament. Um, scripture is very clear on certain functions of a church, certain jobs, uh, we, there's even job descriptions of this is what constitute an elder.
This is what constitutes a deacon. Um, this is the fivefold ministry. You have pastors and [00:03:00] teachers, and evangelists, and prophets, and apostles. You have all these job descriptions and titles in the New Testament. The one thing that you will not find in the New Testament is this is the bylaws you should have for your church.
Mike Glenn: This is the actual structure a church should have.
Miles Terry: Exactly. And in fact, I mean, I, I know that I've, I've seen you in action talking to other pastors. Um, one of the things that you often say when you're working in a workshop with pastors is, uh, not only are, uh, there different types and, and shapes and sizes of churches, but one church themselves may have be a, uh, you know, a different type of church depending on the decade you look at them.
That's
Mike Glenn: right. Yeah.
Miles Terry: They there, you know, one church, but over the course of 50 years, there were actually five different churches.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. I tell people all over my 32 years at Brentwood, I pastored four or five churches at the same address.
Miles Terry: At the same address. So what you have is you have a church that grows, it changes, sometimes it changes internally, sometimes it changes externally.
Uh, the, the church that, that Brentwood was that you had [00:04:00] back in the eighties and nineties mm-hmm. Same address, but the zip code has changed quite a bit.
Mike Glenn: Right.
Miles Terry: A lot of people coming in, a lot of money coming in, a lot of development coming in, and then the church reacts to that. They respond to that.
Mm-hmm. Well, because of that change and the way that a, the life cycle of any organization, whether it's a business or in our case a church, as it changes, uh, the bylaws or the charter, or the constitution, whatever you have. You know, when you first started, it's not gonna be what you need to take you to the next level.
Right. I know that you had that experience at Brentwood,
Mike Glenn: right? Mm-hmm.
Miles Terry: You guys went through, I think, probably, what, 20 years ago. You went through a major, you knew growth was coming, and you knew that the bylaws you had were not gonna be. Uh, capable of taking you,
Mike Glenn: you have to rework the, the skeleton so they can handle the growth that's coming,
Miles Terry: handle the growth, and that's where we come in.
Our approach is to practice preventative medicine with churches. We are, as general counsel, we try to come in and, uh. Basically foresee what, where the direction they're going as a church and [00:05:00] try to get their documents, whether it's their employee, uh, policies, their bylaws, all their governing documents.
We try to get them in really good shape before a problem happens. Mm-hmm. But the reason problems happen typically is one of two things. They're either, they have great. Things in place, but they're not following them. They're growing so quickly that they're getting distracted and they're not following the rules that they have put in place for themselves, or they're trying to play by old rules that just don't work.
Mike Glenn: Right.
Miles Terry: And so that's what, that's one of the problems you have when, uh, a church grows. I mean, the churches are. Organically made to grow. When God gets involved and we give him room to to grow and bring people in, that's typically what happens. So churches grow. In fact, they're used to explosive growth if you're doing things the right way.
But the problem is, is that you have. A lot of growth and the documents, infrastructure, the, the governance
Mike Glenn: never updated or changed.
Miles Terry: They're never updated and changed. They're not updated. A change to, uh, to reflect how they practice in day to day.
Mike Glenn: And, and, and it's [00:06:00] not that anybody did anything underhanded or nefarious.
We were just trying to do the next thing. And so exactly, we made a decision, which then became precedent, which then became the practice.
Miles Terry: Correct
Mike Glenn: of how the church does things, even though it may be totally disconnected. Correct. From the original documents. And why is this a problem?
Miles Terry: Well, it's a problem because the, unfortunately, most people, uh, assume that the big problem that's gonna take the church out is, is some sort of boogeyman, right?
That it's gonna be the, the federal government, or it's gonna be a, uh, politically, uh, in, uh. A politically motivated group mm-hmm. That's gonna say, you've gotta do this or you gotta do that. And, and the problem is, most churches, because they're so, um, distracted, they just assume, well, the only thing that's really gonna take us out is an external event.
Mike Glenn: Some kind of persecution,
Miles Terry: a per persecution, politically motivated, uh, campaign against them. Uh, they're gonna be forced to violate their statement of faith. [00:07:00] Something like that. Uh. And that stuff does happen. I don't wanna make light of that, and churches should be prepared for that, and we help churches get prepared for that.
The problem though is, is that I would say 90% of what takes the church out. It is actually something internal. It's, they, uh, they make mistakes. There's a scandal. There is a lack of integrity in the process. There's embezzlement, uh, there are, uh, employees being managed by the employer, and they're being managed in a way that is not reflected in their employee, uh, handbook in their policies.
Again, the, the documents, um, are not reflective of the day-to-day management practices and therefore. You get hung by your own rules, right? You give, you give the church enough rope and they hang themselves because they're violating their own policies and procedures. That's, that is the biggest area that we see commonly in most, um, most churches.
The, the other thing that we see, and we're seeing more and more of this. Is what I call the, the segregation of ministry and, and segregation of ministers. And we talk about this all the time [00:08:00] and the fact that, you know, you're, you've always been known for saying that the first reformation gave the word of God back to the people.
You
Mike Glenn: say the reformation gives the ministry back to the people.
Miles Terry: And, and the problem though is, is that as churches grow, most people say, well, I can't be here Monday through Friday, nine five. I, you know, even if I'm a deacon or a board of director, I can't be here to sign checks like five times a a week.
Right. And so we hire, and what we create is professional ministers. We create a staff and, and as churches grow, the answer is always, let's just hire more staff. Mm-hmm. We get staff heavy, or we give more and more power to the senior pastor who becomes then the president of the organization. They're the ones that are in control of everything.
And you put all this power and all these,
Mike Glenn: the government dictator. A
Miles Terry: benevolent dictator, and they become the, they, the expectations on them. And let's just assume they're, they don't want the power, but they're given it. The expectations on them are so out of control that no one in their right mind, no one as a human can, can, can do
Mike Glenn: the job.
Miles Terry: They can't do the job. [00:09:00] It's impossible to the job. And so then you start having a breakdown of the organizational structure because the people at the top, uh, do not have the ability to do it. They don't have the accountability to do it. They don't have the margin in their daily or capacity. Yeah. Or capacity.
And so you have a lot of issues with what I call, again, going back to the, the term segregation ministry is we have this like, well, you're. If you, if you are not full-time, you're bi-vocational, or if you are not ordained, you're, you're a lay leader. Mm-hmm. Um, well, you, you're a, you're a banker or a realtor, or you're an attorney.
You, you don't understand. You've never been to seminary. You don't really understand ministry. So as a senior pastor, as executive pastor, you don't understand how to do the books of the church. And to me that is contrary to the word of God is contrary. To the Kingdom and the New Testament church. Mm-hmm.
Where the people of the church need to be very much in, involved in their church. Right. They need to be operating in their giftings and not everybody is gifted to work in the [00:10:00] nursery or the parking lot.
Mike Glenn: Right.
Miles Terry: If you are, if you are a CPA and you're accountant, you've got a background in banking, well. I would argue that you should be using your gifts in the finance department.
Mm-hmm. Even as a lay leader, if you're an attorney, you should be working on risk management and, and, uh, liabilities and protections for the church. If you are a contractor or I know that you've got a great story about how Brentwood actually did this, they say, we need, we need to expand. We need to build a multimillion dollar building.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Miles Terry: Mike, what do you know about
Mike Glenn: Yeah, why do we, you know,
Miles Terry: commercial real estate?
Mike Glenn: Nothing. Nothing or construction. So, ended up with a guy, uh, Joe Hudson and Joe built Ford plants. He built these huge plants for Ford. So our little church project was kind of an afternoon hobby for him, but he, but why? He saved us millions of dollars
Miles Terry: because he was an expert in this '
Mike Glenn: cause he was an expert.
Miles Terry: Now, most people would say, Joe, I'm sorry, but like I know you wanna serve God's working in your life. God's calling you. You know, you should work in the parking lot [00:11:00] or you should work on the greeter team. Well, he might be horrible with people.
Mike Glenn: Yeah,
Miles Terry: he might. He may have been great, but he might not be. He might not have the gift of hospitality.
Mike Glenn: Well, he's a phenomenal leader there. They named Hudson Hall after Joe. You know, I was there 32 years. There's nothing named after me.
Miles Terry: Yeah,
Mike Glenn: they named it after Joe. So if that tells you who they knew was really in charge of that process.
Miles Terry: Well, I think that that speaks volumes of the fact that you, I mean, you literally have a guy in your church that built four plants all across North America, and maybe we should ask his opinion on how we should proceed with this new capital campaign.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Miles Terry: And that gives him, I, I, I guarantee you he had more. Um, gratification and more a sense of calling out of that project than he did for any Ford plant he ever built.
Mike Glenn: And, and more importantly, the church had ultimate confidence in his decisions. If Joe came to the church and said, we gotta do this, it sailed never a hard question.
Sometimes it was, just explain it more to us so we understand, but [00:12:00] the confidence in Joe and his ability, and they knew what he was doing. If I had brought that same motion, we'd still be there arguing about. Because,
Miles Terry: correct.
Mike Glenn: They would, they rightly wouldn't trust me in a construction thing.
Miles Terry: Well, I would argue that that is a, that is a great example of the equipping of the saints.
Mm-hmm. Equipping of the saints. Most of the time people think that, well, that just has to do with evangelism or gospel conversations. And it does, it has to do with discipleship. It has to do with all those things. It also has to do with like fulfilling your calling, your gifting, your talented ness for the kingdom of God and for the church.
Mike Glenn: Well, to, to that end, uh, Joe has family. Who were missionaries in Mexico, so he was learning how to speak Spanish, so he would go speak Spanish to the construction workers. And as a result led several of them to Christ. We baptized them.
Miles Terry: But he would never have had that opportunity. No. If he had not used his profession for the kingdom,
Mike Glenn: no.
And if I had been there, that opportunity never would've happened. 'cause I don't speak Spanish.
Miles Terry: Correct. And you would not have known how to communicate with them [00:13:00] on their level.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
Miles Terry: So that's, I think, to me that's the biggest problem is that I'm seeing this in the churches as they have come become. It is, I do think it's hilarious though, that when you get in some of these conversations with pastors and you start to, um, I guess suggest, well, maybe we should look at from this business perspective, right?
Or a legal perspective. They're like, well, that's not, we're a ministry. We don't do, it's not spiritual. Yeah, it's not spiritual. We, we don't do business. I mean, the business is different. This is ministry. And to me, I, I don't accept that. I would say that some of the greatest business principles that we've ever, uh, have known in western civilization have come from the Bible.
Yeah. I would say that the kingdom of God is based upon business principles. It's based upon integrity of process. It's based, I mean, you see the apostles in the New Testament there. They said, listen, uh, we are, we are overrun with widows and orphans.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
Miles Terry: We are trying to get back to ministry and prayer and what God's called us to do.
Can you bring men? Yeah. Together.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
Miles Terry: Who are elders? Can you guys take that over? Um, we did not. I [00:14:00] don't ever remember them saying, but, you know, make sure that we're an ex-officio member of that committee and, uh, make sure that, you know, we have to sign the checks to pay the bills. The, the tables are being weighted.
That's not it at all. I think that the equipping of the Saints is more than just discipleship. It's the church finding ways to let their structure grow in such a way that they have more people involved from the pews than people on the church staff. Mm-hmm. And that's not to, to make light of the church staff.
It's not to, um, overshadow them or to make light of full-time ministry. I think full-time ministry is great. In fact, all my clients are involved in full-time ministry. Yeah, most of them. But I do think there's a shift coming because I think that the, you can't say that, that that ministry and business are not able to coexist when in fact you're running a nonprofit corporation
Mike Glenn: with
Miles Terry: payroll.
Mike Glenn: Well, all truth, all truth is God's truth.
Miles Terry: Correct.
Mike Glenn: Uh, alter and, and, uh, our, our friend Mike mentor was in here the other day and, uh, and he was talking about the, the way we're doing church now is [00:15:00] unsustainable.
Miles Terry: Correct.
Mike Glenn: Uh, and that, that was, we're gonna have Mike on, uh, right after the first of the year to talk about that very issue.
So for someone like me,
Miles Terry: yes.
Mike Glenn: I love preaching. I love the teaching. I love working with people. I didn't wanna pay any attention to the constitution of bylaws. That was boring to me. It's the
Miles Terry: boring stuff.
Mike Glenn: It is. What does a constitution of bylaw have to have? What does a good one look like?
Miles Terry: Good one looks like.
Well, that's a great question. That's a great question. Uh, you need to first, um, you know, I'll walk you through some of the big, the high, the high points of a bylaws, but at, at most bylaws that we draft, it first starts with, this is the name of who we are.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
Miles Terry: This is how we're formed. We're either a, uh, we're either an unincorporated association or we are a nonprofit corporation.
This is, uh, where our business address is. All these things are important because it establishes. Where we're conducting, conducting business, it establishes who's in charge. Mm-hmm. Um, who, if, if somebody wants to sue you, who [00:16:00] is the only one that can accept service to process? Um, so I would, I would say you want to first, you know, identify who you are in the document.
Mm-hmm. Then you wanna, I would say, um, you wanna identify who, who is. Who we are as a corporate entity, but then who are we are as a people? Are we a church that is, has members, so corporations typically are controlled by members or shareholders. Mm-hmm. Are, are the congregation. Is the congregation that shows up every Sunday?
Are they the members? Meaning they get to vote on everything? Mm-hmm. Or have they said no as a, as a church body, even though we are technically the members, we are divesting ourselves of day-to-day control and we're going to like a representative government. Right. Give the data they control to somebody else.
And typically you either have a board of directors, a board of trustees, you have a board of elders, whatever you wanna call it, you're gonna have somebody in charge. And then when I, when I sit down with the church and we look at the bylaws, that's the big question I have is who's in charge? Mm-hmm. Who, where does the buck stop?[00:17:00]
Who at, when it all hits the fan, who's going to be in charge to make decisions or,
Mike Glenn: that was always my my question, when we would get to a situation.
Miles Terry: Yes.
Mike Glenn: And I would say. If you're going to give me the responsibility, if this is my fault. A senior pastor then, you know, and you're coming to me going, what's wrong here?
Then give me the, the, the authority to handle it.
Miles Terry: Correct.
Mike Glenn: Okay.
Miles Terry: So bylaw should have, that. Bylaw should say, first of all, who's in charge? Mm-hmm. Where does the buck stop? How many people are in charge? Is it gonna be one person is meaning it's a senior pastor? That controls everything or is it gonna be a board directors and how many are gonna be on the board?
Is it three to five? Um, one of the problems we have is the bylaws are pretty good, but they have never updated their articles of incorporation or what you would call their charter. Mm-hmm. With the state. And therefore there's a conflict. Between their incorporation documents and the bylaws, or there's a conflict between their bylaws and the employee handbook,
Mike Glenn: right?
Miles Terry: So all these things to most people are [00:18:00] boring. They're not boring. When you have a problem or you have a difference of opinion, and now you've got a. You've got two people saying, well, I want the church to go this way. I want the church to go that way. That's when everybody gets excited and wanna know what's in the bylaws and policy manual.
'cause they wanna know who's gonna win the fight
Mike Glenn: and who has right to vote in this and who to say correct. Right.
Miles Terry: So all of these things should be in the bylaws, the structure, who's in charge, how many people are in charge. Mm-hmm. Who are they giving the day-to-day control of, uh, of the church to, uh, your, which would be your officers?
Most likely it'd be a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, um, who has the ability to hire and fire staff on a day-to-day basis. Um, there should be a conflict of interest policy in every set of bylaws. Mm-hmm. I also like to put a whistleblower policy in, I mean, in this day and age. You've had so much lack of transparency in churches.
Yeah. You've had so much, um, scandal. Um, and people feeling like, well, I can't actually, um, like blow the, the, the whistle and, and, and raise the red flag that we have [00:19:00] an issue here. Right. Um, because I'm afraid of being retaliated against mm-hmm. As an employee. And I like to put a whistleblower policy in to protect those people to say, listen, we want, we encourage our staff at the, these churches.
If they see a problem, they see embezzlement, abuse, sexual harassment to bring it forward. Um, so we like to put that in. We also like to put in a cause, uh, dealing with emergency powers, uh, you know, uh. With what we learned from COVID, I, there's situations, there's times where everything, uh, in the world stops.
Mm-hmm. And so you've gotta have the ability to pay the bills, to make decisions when you can't get ahold of everybody. Right. When you can't get people to meet in person. So I like to put provisions into bylaws, dealing with that. Uh, the biggest issue though is, and this is why I tell every client. Uh, if you have a 30 page set of bylaws, but you only follow five of it, I would highly recommend you cut it to five.
Yeah. And just ask forgiveness later than to have 30 pages and to violate Right. 25 of the pages. [00:20:00] Mm-hmm. Same thing with employee handbooks. We, we work with churches all the time and they're not following most of their policies. They just kind of make it up as they go, and that's a problem. So we always say less is more upfront.
Initially, we wanna make sure everything we're doing is a. Pure reflection of how you operate on a daily basis. Mm-hmm. And then as you continue to become consistent and you're continually growing, then we will add more and more detail to those policies. Yeah.
Mike Glenn: More and more people as they look into the membership process.
Are asking for these documents?
Miles Terry: Yes, they are.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. When I come, I wanna see constitutional bylaws and what they're looking for is not necessarily the detail of all of that. No. What they're looking for is a process that Paul says is done rightly and in order.
Miles Terry: Correct.
Mike Glenn: So I can, I know there's a process in here.
I know there's a process I can trust. I know there's a process of accountability because if it's done well here. It's probably done well everywhere else. Who was the rock and roll guy that wanted Green M and msm? Uh, and only [00:21:00] green the, yeah. And you know, all the green m and ms out or something. He put something stupid in the writer.
Miles Terry: Yeah,
Mike Glenn: the contract writer. Because he knew if they did that,
Miles Terry: that most of the
Mike Glenn: time then, then probably they followed everything else is
Miles Terry: correct.
Mike Glenn: Everything else taken care of.
Miles Terry: Correct. No. That and the, and the, the thing is, is in the, in a world that is now demanding transparency, right. Which I think is a good thing, that doesn't mean that you can't have confidentiality.
We go into a lot of meetings where there might be an issue, or at least the perception of an issue. Mm-hmm. And we have church members or parents saying, we want transparency. We want all the minutes of every board meeting released and put on the website. And we want right everybody to see it. And there's reasons why you would not wanna do that.
Because confidentiality, or I would even say an NDA nondisclosure agreement is not a bad thing. No. If used properly. Now it is, it's a very bad thing if it's used improperly to silence people and to keep people from following the law and to be mandatory reporters. So, but, but I tell people like, listen, it's a balancing test.
You want, you've gotta do what's legal, you gotta do what's [00:22:00] ethical, but you also have to protect people's identities if. You don't have confidentiality and we're talking about a family that's going through a divorce or we're talking about a child that where we suspect we are suspecting abuse and we wanna deal with that and we're, we're working with local law enforcement to handle that situation.
And that's being brought in a board meeting. Well, we're now violating the law to like in the name of full transparency when we release that thing, you know, the minutes. So,
Mike Glenn: but my right to full transparency and my right to know everything. Does not override the church's responsibility to protect the little ones.
Miles Terry: Correct.
Mike Glenn: To protect the wounded ones?
Miles Terry: Correct.
Mike Glenn: Uh, and there are times when we do release that, that the innocent people would be hurt more than the guilty. Correct. Those times happen and we don't. We don't do that.
Miles Terry: And you know, this is, this is all boring stuff until you put people's names and faces on it.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
Miles Terry: Until you say, wow, you know, the confidentiality policy, maybe we should take an hour every month or two and talk about that. Mm-hmm. And are we doing the right [00:23:00] way because of this family? And also, it, it, when you put it in personal terms and you also look at how much time is wasted. Um. From staff and volunteers and church leaders who pulled their punches or they hesitate, or they spend so much time in fear of operating in their giftings in the church because they don't know where they have solid footing.
Mike Glenn: Right?
Miles Terry: So they're like, well, I don't know. You know, we see this all the time where, and in fact, when we do all staff trainings with churches, we see, we, we, we, we've. We force everybody as a matter of getting out of the staff training, you've gotta give us one question that you've had in the last year so that we have an opportunity to address it over the next year.
Mm-hmm. And, uh, we, that's the majority of the questions we get from staff are, I'm always, uh, worried about this. I'm always worried about that. I don't have any clarity at all on how to handle this well, what if it wasn't abuse? It just, the kids are on a soccer team.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. What happens? What happens when [00:24:00] somebody tells me something in confidence?
Miles Terry: Correct.
Mike Glenn: That may involve the wellbeing of another person, a child, or whatever. What am I legally responsible for and how do I handle it? All of those questions have to be. Answered before they're asked.
Miles Terry: Correct.
Mike Glenn: Because if they don't, then you get in trouble.
Miles Terry: That's when you get in trouble.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
Miles Terry: You, you know, once you pull the trigger, you can never put that bullet back in the gun.
Right. And that's the problem. That's the majority of the issues that churches face mm-hmm. Are internal. Uh, they're, they're, they're self-inflicted wounds. They're internal. Issues that get out control because they're so, um, distracted, they have no margin. Um, and, and they're, they're doing the best they can.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
Miles Terry: But I, you know, I, I often joke with our clients, it's like, you know, if you looked at this, if you took, if you took, uh, the spiritual aspect out of all of this, and you looked at it purely from a legal economic perspective, you were inviting people. With, I mean, some of the worst baggage, the worst [00:25:00] problems in your community, you're inviting them on your campus every Sunday,
Mike Glenn: right?
Miles Terry: In fact, you're saying bring us the worst of the worst with no expectation of a transaction taking place, or you're getting money, no expectation of anything in return, and you're inviting and, and if, if it wasn't for the gospel of Jesus Christ, you would be. Insane to do this. Mm-hmm. To take on all the liability from the minute they walk onto your campus.
They drive their car on the mm-hmm. You're inviting all the cars, all the pedestrians, all the kids. Bring
your
Mike Glenn: child into your building,
Miles Terry: bringing all the children, the minors. You, you're then saying, Hey, we're not gonna put like, you know, professionally trained, um, and, and paid employees and staff running.
From a daycare facility running the running the children's program, we're gonna bring in volunteers. Now, you, they should be trained, they should be background checked, all the above, but you're literally running everything off of volunteers,
Mike Glenn: right?
Miles Terry: Uh, who might be disgruntled volunteers. You're, and again, the point is, and God bless everybody, that's a church volunteer.
[00:26:00] We love 'em to death. But the li the sheer liability that is, is now always on that campus. Right.
Mike Glenn: And people may not realize that legally a Sunday school teacher. Is considered an employee by law. If a Sunday school teacher does something and causes legal action toward the church, the law will treat that Sunday school teacher as an employee.
Miles Terry: Whether they're an employee or not. They will.
Mike Glenn: Yeah,
Miles Terry: they will. They will. The li as far from a liability perspective, they are, once you have brought them in to do something on your, on your behalf, it's, it's pure agency law.
Mike Glenn: Right.
Miles Terry: It by the liability is, is is now, um, on. Um, the church.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
Miles Terry: And it's, and it's directors, it's members, everybody.
Mike Glenn: Okay.
Miles Terry: So,
Mike Glenn: alright, let me look. I'm, I'm a pastor. I'm, I'm listening to this and you have just scared me to death. Okay. What, what do I do next? How, how, what's the process? To begin to make sure things are right.
Miles Terry: I would say, first of all, get control of your [00:27:00] schedule because the, the problem here is this, is that most people in ministry have no margin.
They have no time.
Mike Glenn: Right.
Miles Terry: And so they have a moment here and there that God orchestrates where it scares 'em to death. It's almost like when you slam on the brakes 'cause you didn't see somebody coming and, and the adrenaline rush, right? And you get scared. And then human nature is, okay, we'll just take a moment, process it, deal with it, and then you sit, stick your head back in the sand and it's outta sight, outta mind.
Right. And that's what happens every time.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
Miles Terry: Every time. All the time. That's what happens.
Yeah.
Miles Terry: And so then the world takes over and you just go back to your reactionary state of always reacting.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. And then the internet would fix, and then you end up with fixing to get ready.
Miles Terry: Yeah,
Mike Glenn: we're fixing to get ready to do that.
Miles Terry: We're gonna do that, we're gonna do that next year. We're gonna do that next spring. We're looking at that. Um, and you keep telling people that, and it never happens. And so the only way to make time for something is to make time for something. Mm-hmm. And to force yourself in, in one hour a week or one hour a month is better than.
No time at all. Right? And so I think you've gotta get the decision makers together and you've gotta figure out, can we [00:28:00] do this on our own or should we call and help the experts to come in and do it? But I think you've gotta look at everything. You've gotta look at all your documents and you've gotta look, then look at your entire congregation and where you are, where you're going, and in the same way that you, you know, plan out a building campaign along these lines, right?
You should build out, I would say. More importantly than a structural building campaign, you need to like enter into a season Exactly of building your actual internal structure. '
Mike Glenn: cause that's the skeleton that holds the body.
Miles Terry: I mean a house built on sand, a church built on sand. It's not gonna, it's not gonna last as that principle still applies to church is not just to your house, right.
And not your personal life. So you have to make time for that and you have to do is have some honest conversations. Um, and so in the same way, I would say is important. I know you're big on this, you in your, your years of ministry, you, you and all of your associate pastors went off on an annual retreat to plan.
For the next year's messages and the vision casting and the, the principles of [00:29:00] ministry, I would say the same thing. You need to make time to do the same thing. From a logistical legal liability perspective. You need to get the decision makers involved and have a annual retreat where you sit down, uh, you seek the counsel of an attorney, you seek the counsel of an accountant, you seek the council of a contractor who deals with, um, infrastructure.
Mm-hmm. You seek the council of the people who have a background in the things that you're dealing with. And, and you try to get wisdom. Wisdom comes in, in, in the council of, of a multitude, not just a few. Um, so I would say you start doing that and you start map mapping out a roadmap, a plan, uh, to get your house in order.
Mm-hmm. And again, less is more. I would rather move the, if, if there's a policy or procedure or something that you have in the church that you haven't looked at in a year or two, it's time to look at it again. Right.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. I often tell people the number one way to increase giving. To increase trust in the system.
Miles Terry: Correct.
Mike Glenn: If I know, if I give a dollar that my dollar does what you told me it would do, and I [00:30:00] can trace that dollar to its ministry impact, yes. Then I'm, then I'm, I'm eager to give, uh, the next time I have an opportunity. And I would say that goes across the board with constitution of bylaws, structure, job descriptions, uh.
Confidence in that system.
Miles Terry: Well, it also goes with when you have an issue too,
Mike Glenn: right?
Miles Terry: Churches that, because there's this idea that churches have to be perfect.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
Miles Terry: And everybody realizes that nobody's perfect. Mm-hmm. Churches would be perfect if it wasn't for the people. That's
Mike Glenn: right. Yeah.
Miles Terry: So since you have people involved, um.
When issues are gonna happen. And, uh, you know, a lot of people put these expectations on attorneys that like, well, you're an attorney, you gotta keep us from ever having a problem. I good luck with that.
Mike Glenn: Right.
Miles Terry: Uh, you couldn't pay me enough to like make that, that's
Mike Glenn: what I tell people, you open the door and don't charge admission.
This is what happens.
Miles Terry: Correct. Exactly right. So the, the, uh, a wise man would say, Hey. It's not if it's
Mike Glenn: when. Mm-hmm.
Miles Terry: And it's not even when it's on a regular basis. It will, it will happen. Therefore, will, when it [00:31:00] happens, how are we gonna respond? And, and that, I would say this is that when a scandal happens, most people, the reason that they hate churches and they, they don't trust churches and many people are not.
No longer in churches, it's because they say it's not because they were, they say they're hypocritical because they, they should have been perfect and they were not perfect. Right. It's because when they had issues, they acted like nothing was going on. Right. And what people crave is authenticity and they crave leadership.
And so if there is a problem and. The, if you wanna like, get ready to have a building campaign start coming out and airing out the dirty laundry before the church and say, Hey, we discovered this. We had some people look at it. We're holding people accountable, we're dealing with it. Mm-hmm. And as long as we're in charge, we are gonna seek God's guidance.
We're gonna be humble about it, and we're gonna deal with problems as they come up. 'cause they'll always come up. Mm-hmm. People, when they know that there's an adult in charge, they know that somebody's gonna like, like be the glue to hold it together. They will never leave that church.
Mike Glenn: Right.
Miles Terry: They will always be invested in that [00:32:00] church.
'cause there's trust there. They know that because they know at some point their life is gonna fall apart and when they do, they have somewhere they can go.
Mike Glenn: Right? Yeah. I used to tease, Lisa Francisco was our business manager for a long, a long time at Brentwood and I, and I called her the minister of No.
Miles Terry: Yes.
Mike Glenn: Uh, because she was, she was tight on the budget and what we could spend and when we could spend it. And she was talking to me one time, she said, I don't like you calling me the minister of No. And I said, Lisa, I said, do you know how much money we raise and how eager our people are to give and how they enjoy giving because they know there's a minister of no sitting in our office making sure we spend our money correctly.
Miles Terry: Correct.
Mike Glenn: So, yeah, just that trust in the system has done that. Okay. So how do, how do we get started and how do people reach you?
Miles Terry: Well, people can reach us if they want to by going to gideon law group.dot com. So, and if people want are interested, they can find more information on us there. Mm-hmm. Uh, if they would like to talk to us, they can fill out a contact form and get ahold of us.
Um, we love working with churches. We work [00:33:00] with churches in Middle Tennessee where you're at, but we're also in many of the states. Um, and so if there's a church out there, that's another state. Please contact us. If you'd like more help, we'd love to talk to you. Uh, and we, we don't force it. I mean, we, we love working with everybody, but if it's not the right time, that's great.
Yeah. We're only gonna work with churches who want help. Uh, we're not gonna sell a church something that, uh, they're not gonna use.
Mike Glenn: Right.
Miles Terry: And we're not gonna give a church something that came from another church. We're gonna work with something that is reflective of who they are. It's unique to them
Mike Glenn: in the ministry.
They want to, they want to accomplish. E Miles, Terry and Miles, we're very grateful you have been with us today. I'm Mike Glenn, the president and founder of the Engaged Church Network, and we'll see you next time.
