The Greater Mission

No single factor more impacts the success of a non-profit organization than the health of its board. This is a story about becoming a healthier board. In these pages you will discover:

• The difference between an owner board and a steward board
• How owner board attitudes damage board culture
• Tools to help you create a steward board culture
• Your own personal challenge to become a more faithful steward

This is a book about becoming a healthier, more faithful board, but it is more than that. It’s about the recognition that we all live and work for a higher calling – a greater mission than the one written on our organization’s website. It’s the discovery of this greater mission that begins the process of experiencing the freedom and joy of living, leading and serving as a steward board and not an owner board.

Pursuing our greater mission embarks a board on a journey faith, courage, self-examination, discipline and prayer. In this way, it is just like our walk with Jesus.

I invite you to enter into this journey through the eyes of a frustrated board chair, a beleaguered executive director, the struggling board at Willow Cove Community Center and a board that has discovered a better, healthier way to govern and lead at Mountaintop Ministries.

I hope you will find something familiar in these people’s stories and a few recognizable features in these boards. And I pray you find a new sense of freedom and joy for yourself, and your board, as you discover your Greater Mission.