Transitioning to in-house Trustees, what advice/best practices would you recommend in selecting AND leading Trustees? What are the red flags/pitfalls to avoid?
You should do this as soon as you can. There should be a representative voice of the people – non-staff elders (Trustees). Everyone needs to be vetted. The larger the group the better – the more members, the smaller % their vote has. We currently have 7 Trustees at Highlands. PC controls what goes onto the agenda for the meetings (non-voting chairman), but the Trustees hold the vote.
Qualifications:
- They should really love the vision of the house – they need to be very involved in the church. (I.E. involved in small group, regularly attend on Sundays, etc.)
- They need to really love you – they should come alongside you and make you better.
- They need to be comfortable talking about large sums of money – large sums of money shouldn’t feel strange to them.
- They need to bring some skill set to the group that you don’t currently possess – at Highlands we have builders, an attorney, architects.