Minister’s Letter 1/1/2026
Dear Friends,
The new year has begun. The winter holidays are coming to a close. The days continue to get longer. Possibility is in the air. We have many transitions coming up this year at 2U, a winding path ahead of us. I am grateful that I get to journey along it with you for the next six months.
One of the things I am hoping we can spend some time discussing over the next six months is how power, decision making, and authority play out within our congregation. There is an activity that is often done at the beginning of a settled minister’s time with a church called, “who’s in charge here?” This activity is designed to gain clarity about what is the responsibility of the Board, the congregation, and/or the minister. The activity asks participants to look at a multitude of potential decisions and actions that happen within the church and position them in the appropriate column: minister, congregation, board. We did this activity in 2019 at the beginning of my time at 2U. I wonder what it might be like to do this activity again.
Decision making, authority, and power in a congregation exists in multiple forms. I think it is helpful to break it down into two primary types of power: formal and informal. I want to take a moment to look at both.
Formal power exists in the established structures of the church. The Board of Trustees has formal power as it makes decisions about the operations, finances, and wellbeing of the church. I have formal power as the settled minister which I use to make decisions about direction of church ministry, staffing, and worship. The congregation has formal power as a voting body that dictates the annual budget, calls a minister, and chooses which justice issues to align with. There are other examples of formal power as well. Committees/team/ministries all have degrees of formal power that allow them to make decisions about their area of work. Staff at the church have formal power which imbues them with the authority to decide most effective ways to move forward with their work. I wonder if you can think of other examples of formal power.
Informal power can be trickier to put our finger on. This is the power that can be more challenging to see. The hiddenness of this power can make it invisible not only to the congregation but even, at times, to those who hold that power themselves. Informal power can come in the form of knowledge about the goings on at church. Informal power can come from contributing large amounts of money to support the congregation’s ministry or building. Informal power can come in the form of influence over the minister’s behavior. Informal power can come from close relationships with staff. Informal power can simply come from the strength of one’s voice, confidence in one’s own vision, and capacity to clearly articulate oneself.
Over the next six months I am hoping we can do some work to shine a light on both formal and informal power at 2U. Who makes the decisions? Who influences the decisions? Who’s in charge here? The greater clarity we have, the more we can share power with one another. This conversation need not be easy for it to be important. I hope we can move outside our comfort zones and do some mapping of where we are and where we might want to go. Ours is a congregationalist tradition, power resides within the congregation, and how it does so is yours to decide.
In faithful solidarity,
