An Inside Look at the CCC Governing Board For nearly 100 years, Christ Community Church has been an influential voice among churches in our city. Throughout that time, God has been faithful to provide great leadership—wise men and women who seek to hear from God and discern his voice in order to make the best strategic decisions that position CCC and its people to be in the center of the mission to which God has called us. In addition to a great pastoral staff and other leaders who serve in vocational roles, CCC is blessed to have another layer of leadership called the Governing Board of Elders. Jed Logue, CCC’s Sunday Experience Pastor, had the privilege of sitting down with Governing Board member Ken Dick over a cup of coffee to learn more about who they are and what they do. Ken is a professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and serves there as a Research Fellow in Telecommunications. Ken has a PhD in statistics, a Master’s in counseling, and a Bachelor’s in math and physics. Ken has worked in a variety of environments, from teaching public school to directing an alternative school for dropouts, to twenty years in corporate life and now twenty years at UNO. How long have you been coming to CCC? How many years have you served on the Governing Board (GB)? We have been at Christ Community Church for thirty years. I’ve been on the Governing Board for almost twelve years, and the way that works
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JUNE–JULY 2019 / ISSUE 12
is really interesting. You serve in three-year terms, and after two terms you have to take a one-year sabbatical, which I think is really healthy. It gives you some distance and then you can come back. I’m finishing my twelfth year on the board with a year off in the middle.
What is the role and function of the Governing Board? The GB works on the strategic direction of the church—where we want to be, long-term. All of the strategic plans that come up through Pastor Mark and through the Management Team (a staff team of executives/directors) go to the GB, and we get to interact with them. We also are involved in financial review—long-term budgets and any expenditure above a certain amount has to be approved by the GB. So, we’re sitting there as an accountability layer representing the congregation in the governance of the church. We do the annual review on Mark. We are his boss. We determine his salary and set goals and directions for him. When a creative “winds of the Spirit” idea emerges, the GB helps to ask the right questions and to discern how those ideas fit into the larger vision and direction of CCC.
I hear a theme of oversight— oversight to Pastor Mark, to the health of the church and