Last week I came across one of those news articles that makes you wonder if we’re all just flying upside down. This headline comes from the Telegraph in the UK”Council sets up scrutiny panel - to scrutinize its scrutiny panels”

A spokesperson from the Wealden District Council said a working party was established in July to oversee the decisions of its three existing scrutiny panels and to “scrutinize the Council’s scrutiny arrangements.” It sounds to me like the citizens of Wealden District are the ones getting scrutted…but I digress. The article continues:

Mark Wallace, from the Taxpayers Alliance, said: “Whilst it may be well-intentioned the council appear to have wrapped themselves up in knots and ended up in an absurd situation. By all means they should review their procedures but there’s no reason why a separate committee to scrutinize the scrutiny panel should be any better than the original body itself…. Local residents would probably prefer they were asked how the council was run instead of adding this extra layer of bureaucracy.”

If my interest were primarily political this article would be raw meat for those who believe government is wasteful, bloated, and inept beyond redemption. But my interests are not primarily political but ecclesiastical. This wonderfully tongue-twisting article offers me the opportunity to question how many of our churches are organized and governed.

We like to make cracks about the inefficiency of church committees almost as much as Fox News likes to ridicule congressional sub-committees. But committees have their place-both in church and congress. The creation of an “extra layer of bureaucracy” in Wealden to scrutinize the three existing scrutiny panels reveals a value that permeate governments and churches alike-distrust.

The separation of powers was a principle of wisdom embedded into our Constitution by its framers, and it was born out of the abuse of power evident in monarchs. Many government bureaucracies are predicated on distrust-the fear that power will be abused and those with it will run amok. When taken to an absurd degree the result is scrutiny panels for scrutiny panels for scrutiny panels.

The same fear permeates many church governing structures. We worry that a pastor, a board, a staff, a committee will amass too much power and that abuse will surely result. To keep power in check, some churches construct numerous committees, panels, teams, policies, processes, bi-laws, and clauses to ensure stability. But at what cost? Do all of these fear-based structures end up hindering the mission of God’s people? We occupy people on so many boards that they have little time left to engage the community. Or we stifle new ideas in a black hole of church oversight committees.

To be fair church history has no shortages of stories of abuse. These structures are usually born out of the pain form earlier mistakes. But should our structures be predicated on the sinfulness of our leaders, built on the premise that abuse is inevitable, the way secular government or business structures are? Or should they be predicated on trust that God’s Spirit is at work in and through our leaders? Is there anything that ought to distinguish leadership in the church from that of unregenerate communities?

In Paul’s pastoral epistles to Timothy and Titus, his instructions regarding church leadership seem focused on getting the right people on the bus-to use popular contemporary language. He says to appoint leaders who are undeniably godly, mature, and proven, in good standing with everyone, and trustworthy. In other words, find leaders filled with God and put your trust in them. When we find ourselves trusting church systems and structures it’s probably a sign that we don’t trust our leaders.

Perhaps if godliness, character, and evidence of the Spirit’s fruit was the prerequisite for leadership in more of our churches, rather than performance and quantitative output, we’d need fewer committees and oversight panels to sniff out abuse and corruption. Committees and structures are not beyond redemption. They can be very beneficial be enacted, but that would require them being predicated not on a fearful distrust of leaders, but as an aid to equip and empower church members to “do the work of ministry.” Until that day, let the scrutinizing continue.