The Board: Behind the Decisions in the Church | Trinity Talks Podcast

It is exciting to have you guys with me today.

I'm so excited.

Yes, I know.

We were just chatting a little bit before this started, and I wanted to let you know

that I am very excited to have three members of Trinity's Advisory Board with me here today.

And I think that this is really important to show the congregation, anyone who's watching,

a little bit about how the church is run.

This is a really important part of the church that you represent.

And I think a part of the church that a lot of us, including myself sometimes, don't really

fully understand.

So thank you again for joining me.

So as I said, you guys are part of the Advisory Board.

You actually all have special titles and roles.

So let me introduce you first, and then we're going to play a little game.

So we have Jen here.

And Jen, what's your title on the board?

My title is Rector's Warden.

All right.

Well, welcome, Rector's Warden.

And Mandy, we have Mandy here.

What's your special title on the board?

I would be the People's Warden.

Well, welcome, People's Warden.

Thank you.

And Derek, you are also a member of the board and have a special title.

And what is your special title?

I'm the Treasurer.

Well, welcome, Treasurer.

So I've already thrown out the word board a few times.

So you may have noticed when you walked into the studio that there's a piece of paper by

your feet.

Now, on that piece of paper is a word that ends with board, B-O-A-R-D.

Not to be confused with B-O-R-E-D, where this is very exciting meaning here.

And I would like to ask you each to look at your word and for one another, try to act

out that word.

They were not expecting this.

No, we weren't.

You were not.

All right.

No, I can guarantee you that these are all very familiar words to you.

This is just more for fun.

If we can't get it, then I don't know.

I don't know.

Someone out there online will get it and maybe they can put it out in the comments for us.

All right, rectors, Warden, Jen, would you be able to act out your word that ends with

board for your?

I think so.

Yeah.

You ready?

Yeah.

Keyboard.

Keyboard.

Hooray.

Amazing.

That was easy.

That was like, yeah, there you go.

Wasn't so bad.

All right.

They don't get progressively more difficult either, guys.

All right.

I'm still stuck on piano.

Piano.

Piano.

A piano board?

Because it plays a piano.

Yes.

OK.

Me to go?

Your turn.

OK.

Chalkboard.

Excellent.

Wow.

All right.

I promise they didn't practice this ahead of time, guys.

All right.

Now, now, Derek, treasurer.

OK, guys.

I did give you yours on purpose, by the way.

Snowboard.

Snowboard.

Diving board.

Surfboard.

Fantastic.

All right, guys.

So if the board doesn't work out for you, then acting here we come.

We're going to play this at our next Board of Directors meeting.

That's right.

Everybody knows ahead of time.

All right.

So Trinity Church is actually an Anglican church, which some people may not even know,

and which means that we follow a set of rules and a governance structure set out by the

Anglican diocese.

Derek, I know you're quite familiar with this.

How far back does this governance structure that we follow go back?

Well, back to Henry VIII.

Wow.

OK, so back to Henry VIII.

We are still following the same structure, which is great.

Well, it has evolved a little.

It has evolved.

Hopefully so.

You don't get to wipe out your wives.

No, there's no beheading allowed.

I love it.

But you were mentioning to me just before that one of the things that we should note

is that there's a difference between an Episcopal and a Congregational model.

Would you be able to explain for us?

We're just going right in there what that is, Derek.

We're going to dig right down into the governance structure being, I believe, more Episcopal

than Congregational.

We are.

So a Congregational church is one where the church itself is the unit and it chooses to

join a denomination.

So for example, some people might be familiar, Baptist churches who like to duke it out with

each other all the time, they can join different Baptist denominations and then go ahead and

join another one.

So the church does it.

So that's Congregational.

That's Congregational church rules.

But in the Anglican church, the Episcopal church, the diocese rules.

So the diocese is the collection of all the Anglicans in a geography.

So it's not the bishop, the people of the diocese elect the bishop, but it's the people

of the diocese that are the Episcopal structure.

So Trinity is a church within the Anglican Diocese of Toronto.

So we didn't join it.

We are just in it.

We are a community of Anglicans who are in it, who worship at Trinity.

That's fantastic.

That's a really good summary of where we're at here.

So I wanted to then talk to you guys a little bit more about what your roles are, your responsibilities

and maybe some of the things that make this governance structure effective here at Trinity.

So forgive me because I do have my notes.

But I wanted to just begin by saying that the affairs of the church, the affairs that

are governed are divided into two subcategories, I believe.

The first are the pastoral affairs.

And that is where our senior pastor makes the decisions under the authority of the bishop.

The second set of the affairs are called the temporal affairs.

And that is where the senior pastor, sometimes called the incumbent, as well as the two church

wardens work together as a unified body to oversee those affairs.

So I mentioned the church wardens and we've got our two church wardens here.

So Jen, specifically as the rector's warden, can you tell us a little bit about your specific

role in that body?

Well, my role is to work in tandem with the people's warden.

So we make decisions together.

We have to agree.

We're responsible mainly for the structure of the building inside and out.

Also we're stewards of the finances and we are also responsible for making decisions.

Amazing.

All right.

That's very good.

And why are you the rector's warden?

What is specific about that?

The only specific thing is that I'm appointed by the incumbent, which is Rob.

Wonderful.

All right.

Now, Mandy, you are our people's warden.

Can you tell us a little bit about, is there any difference between what you do with Jen

or you can elaborate on that?

There's not a whole lot of difference in terms of role or what we do, but how I came to be

warden or how one comes to be a people's warden is where the difference is in that it's through

elections.

So at our last vestry meeting, I was elected and I also get to be the luckiest of the wardens

because I get to spend time with the rector's warden and the treasurer.

So it's pretty great.

So you get the best of both worlds.

I do.

I'm sitting in the middle here.

That's it.

You got it.

Exactly.

Now, as church wardens, it's my understanding that you also have the ability to appoint

a treasurer, which we have right here.

And you are the appointed treasurer, Derek.

Can you tell us a little bit about what you do here to serve Trinity in that role?

So the treasurer's really got two big responsibilities.

One is just to make sure all the money is secure and cared for and reported on and spent

in the way that people expect it to be spent, have asked for it to be spent.

So that's the one side, the safety kind of element.

And then the other is financial management.

So looking forward, forecasting what's going on with our money or what will happen and

the budget especially.

And in that side, I just put a little shout out to Natalie because as COO, she's the

one who digs into the guts of the budget and we work together to put it together.

And then she's the one to make sure we spend it the way the budget says.

And I'm just in a supervisory role in that.

Really, there's nothing to my job.

I've seen some of his budgets and I've seen some of that.

And there's a lot that goes into that.

So you're probably not giving yourself enough credit.

But thank you, all of you, for the work that you do.

But it's not just the three of you.

I mentioned the advisory board and there is this group of people who are even more than

the three of you.

And I'm wondering if, Church Wardens, you could tell me a little bit more about that

advisory board that we have here at Trinity.

Maybe Jen, could you just start out by telling us what is the advisory board and sort of

how it works?

So the advisory board is exactly what it says.

It's an advisory board.

So it's not like a board in a corporation.

They're there to help guide us and to get involved in some of the decisions that we

have to make.

So on our advisory board, we have, of course, Rob, the two wardens, the treasurer, the secretary,

COO Natalie, and then we have five other people who are parishioners of the church.

Okay, amazing.

All right.

And would you mind telling me, Mandy, just a little bit about when you meet and maybe

the types of affairs or the types of issues that you deal with when you have your meetings?

Yeah, so the 11 of us will typically come together once every other month.

Okay.

In person, we'll meet for a few hours and we will begin every single meeting with a

devotional where we talk about matters of the heart and we pray together.

I mean, keeping in mind that we are here because of our love and our care for the church and

how we choose to be together as a church family.

So we hold that prime and center as we begin.

And that's how we conclude.

We conclude in prayer as well.

During the in-between, we spend time thinking about what is happening across the church.

So for example, we will be looking at the operations.

We will be talking about the finances.

What are some other potential issues that may come up with regards to occurrences as

we plan for summer as something may or may not be going wrong with the actual brick and

mortar of our building?

Some of these things just kind of tend to pop up and we need to think about how we respond

in care and that response in care comes not only to the physical building, but to the

people.

And so sometimes there are just things that we need to think about as it responds to the

greater needs of the church community.

Thank you.

Now, Jen, you've been on the board for a few years now.

What do you think makes the board successful when you have your meetings?

I think it's the diversity that we have.

I think it's the fact that we sometimes our conversations are not easy conversations.

Sometimes we challenge each other because you may go in with the idea that something

should be a certain way.

And then when we're in discussion, you might learn that there might be a different way

to look at that.

So I like that we come together that way.

We have a lot of gifted people on our advisory board.

We have a lot of professional people.

For example, I'm not exactly really versed on structure of building or finances, but

I have learned that as a result of the people that are on our advisory board and through

Derek and some of the other members.

But I think it's diversity.

I think it's the fact that everybody has a voice, everybody is heard and respected.

And I think that's what makes it work.

That's great.

I do want to just let everyone know who's watching that if you're interested to know

who currently are members of our board here at Trinity, if you go on our tab, it's a meet

the team, I believe on trinitiestreetsfield.org, you can see all of the members of Trinity's

advisory board there.

And you can always feel free to approach them as well with some of your comments or questions

or even concerns of the church and they're always happy to bring those to the next meeting

as well.

So in something that you wrote to me, Derek, in an email just a week or so ago, you mentioned

that the board works best when they approach decisions and specifically from your lens,

financial decisions in three different ways.

And I'm just going to quote those and wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about

that.

That when we meant approach issues as stewards and not owners, you said it's about relationships,

not business, and it's about mission, not the bottom line.

So how does that factor into the decision making here at Trinity?

Well big time.

But the reason that's written out actually is it's really important when you have each

new advisory board to set common expectations of what the task is.

And people come in with different experiences, particularly different board experiences,

where their focus may be different from what we're doing.

And certainly what we're doing isn't business, but people go aboard.

That's business.

That means you have to be very serious and no laughter and you just get down to business

and that's all you have to do.

So it would become a B-O-R-E-D meeting and so forth.

So no, no.

So first, understand that we're here as stewards.

That's pretty serious.

But secondly, we've got to build relationship.

We've got to understand each other, get to know each other, become a group where we trust

each other.

And while you might think that's automatic, it's easy, normally with an advisory board,

but it's not automatic.

You need to work that.

When we have trust, then we're willing to disagree with each other because we know our

relationships aren't going to be destroyed.

In fact, we're just respecting each other's view.

So that relationship and trust part is what makes the whole thing work.

That's a really good part to it.

And then what was the third?

The third one you said was about mission, not the bottom line, which again might be

different from some typical business-based boards.

Right.

So, and doesn't that sound weird coming from the treasurer?

So yeah, we're evaluating how we use our resources, including the money, to accomplish our mission.

So sometimes we will in fact run deficits.

Oh my goodness.

But then, you know, we've got to make up for it.

So it's just, I am the treasurer.

But it isn't just about some kind of bottom line.

It's the best use of our resources.

And what's wonderful at Trinity is we have so many great ideas for mission.

It's just incredible.

And then that's difficult because we have to assess which are the best ways to do things

and we can't do it all.

But as people increase their giving and as more people are giving, we're getting more

resources and getting to do stuff.

And I think most people who are here would be hard pressed to list all the different

things we do and we put our resources into it.

It's just amazing.

Just amazing.

And so that's our mission.

I love that.

Thank you very much.

Now, we actually just have a few minutes left.

And I just wanted to, when I was going through notes again on advisory boards, I'm going

to throw this out and perhaps Derek, you'd be the one to want to answer these questions.

Because there's a few Anglican terms that sometimes come up.

And I think that sometimes they go over people's heads because they're terms that not everyone's

familiar with.

So I'm going to throw out three terms and I'm wondering if you could just define them

in everyday language for us.

So the first one is synod.

There's an S-Y-N-O-D word that is thrown around sometimes in our Anglican church.

And I'm wondering if you could explain what that is and how that works, Derek.

Yes, and when people first see it, S-Y-N-O-D, they pronounce it synod.

So then you know they're not an Anglican.

Okay.

All right.

And the problem with all these terms is that they're actually, it's not healthy in the

sense that they separate us from other people.

So in fact, at our meeting this week, we were talking about how to get rid of some of that

stuff.

So it's not a barrier.

But anyway, synod comes from the Greek and it means assembly.

And the synod is just a meeting of the collective Anglicans in our diocese.

So we send people to the synod as to do all the other churches.

And that's where all the decisions are made.

And I mean, in fact, when we want to change our tenant in our building here, we actually

get the approval of a synod meeting.

So that's how we work.

Love it.

All right.

And I've got one more word for you.

And if anyone else would like to jump in, I don't want to put this just on Derek, but

I know he's not going to say no.

He's very good at it and he loves it.

And this is off the script as well.

But the word that is going to be used is the incumbent.

Incumbent.

I think I'm now just asking questions that are personal to me.

But we sometimes use the word the incumbent and who is the incumbent and what is the incumbent?

Okay.

So the incumbent is the priest in charge of the particular congregation.

So it's Rob.

The incumbent is appointed by letter by the bishop.

So sometimes we'll have a minister here for a year and it's working out and congregation's

happy with him, bishop's happy with him.

The bishop will say, okay, I will appoint you the incumbent.

And before that, they didn't actually have that same authority and the rights to come

with being an incumbent.

And no, I won't go into the details of an incumbent's rights.

It does matter.

It does matter in the legal.

But as a congregation member, it's Rob.

It's Rob.

Perfect.

All right.

And then the last word I want to mention, only because Mandy, you brought it up, your

description of being the people's warden was the vestry.

So you mentioned that we have a vestry meeting.

So would someone like to tell us what is a vestry?

So it is one of the stupidest words.

This really goes back, all the way back.

But anyway, so the vestry is a room where you put your vestments on and the vestments

are the robes and stuff that the priests would wear.

It's not even where the choir puts their stuff on.

They have their own room.

This is the vestry for the ministries.

But anyway, in the old churches, the only room that had heat normally was the vestry.

So it was the cozy place.

So when they would have meetings, they would all crowd into the vestry because then they

didn't freeze to death.

So after a while, they just called a meeting in the vestry, a vestry meeting.

And that word has stuck.

So we still call them vestry meetings, even though in our case, we usually have them in

church hall.

We don't have a vestry here.

No, we have heat all over.

But that's what, so colloquially, the word just means a meeting of our congregation.

Excellent.

All right.

And we do have those annually here at Trinity.

And there is heat, absolutely.

And food.

And food, right.

All right.

Which I don't know if there would have been in the original vestry.

They were just happy for heat.

That's right.

All right.

Well, I feel like I learned something from the three of you today.

I hope that everyone listening has learned something as well.

And again, if you're interested in knowing more about the affairs that are discussed

during advisory boards, feel free to chat with someone who is on our advisory board

and you can find that list online.

So I'm going to pass it back to the slides.

And thanks, guys, for joining me today.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.