Church Governance

Member, you are not exempt. While many point to leadership as the cause of church decline, true church accountability also belongs to the members. This article challenges the consumer mindset in the church and calls for real participation, community impact, and responsibility beyond attendance, showing that faith in action is what truly strengthens and sustains communities.

Black women have long strengthened the Black Church. Today, growing disengagement is shifting influence, leadership, and accountability across congregations. What happens when fewer voices speak up and how does it reshape the future of the church?

For generations women carried ministries, mentored younger members, and sustained congregations through difficult seasons. Today many longtime female leaders are quietly being replaced or sidelined. This transition raises important questions about institutional memory, leadership stability, and the future of church governance.

March is Women’s History Month, a time meant to honor the women whose leadership and sacrifice helped build our institutions. Yet in many churches today, the very women who sustained ministries for decades now sit quietly in pews or remain at home while inexperienced leadership rises around them. When seasoned voices are replaced with convenient loyalty, the church does not move forward. It begins to lose its memory, its balance, and ultimately the sound doctrine that once he

Side hustles are shaping today’s economy but one income stream rarely gets discussed: preaching. Itinerant ministry mirrors the professional speaking world, yet often operates with no structure, no documentation, and no financial accountability. When invitations become income, access becomes currency… and silence becomes strategy. This isn’t an attack on ministry it’s a call for clarity, transparency, and structural integrity. Because structure doesn’t weaken calling. Struc

Private conversation Pastor and Member Backdoor deals don’t start with evil intentions. They usually start with a whisper. A quiet meeting. A “quick conversation” in a hallway. A decision made before anyone else even knew a decision was being discussed. Most people in church life know exactly what that looks like. You don’t need a theology degree to recognize when something is off. You feel it. Because the room gets quieter. People stop asking questions. And suddenly, someone

Before decisions become irreversible, consider the source. A practical framework for discernment when votes and leadership choices carry lasting consequences.

The office of deacon was established in the early church to protect the vulnerable and safeguard institutional integrity. From Acts to the present, deacons have stood at the intersection of people, property, and stewardship. In a time of governance strain and generational transition, the biblical mandate of frontline stewardship remains urgent.

Churches are spiritual institutions. But when they incorporate as nonprofit organizations, they also become legal entities. Doctrine is protected. Money, property, and corporate governance are regulated. Courts do not decide theology. But they do examine whether a nonprofit followed state law, its own governing documents, and basic fiduciary duties. When those standards are ignored, the issue is no longer spiritual disagreement. It is legal compliance. Nonprofit Law Still App

Thesis Elder financial exploitation within religious institutions is a critical public health issue because it (1) inflicts profound psychological and financial harm on vulnerable older adults, (2) constitutes a serious breach of ethical and fiduciary duty by trusted leaders, and (3) exposes significant gaps in elder protection laws and reporting systems that leave victims without adequate safeguards. This Matters for Public Health Financial exploitation is the illegal or imp

“Without Their Sacrifice: Aging and Accountability in the Black Church” The aging population within the Black Church represents a generation that constructed, financed, and sustained religious institutions during Jim Crow, World War I, World War II, and the pre-Civil Rights era. These churches were not simply houses of worship. They were centers of education, political organizing, economic cooperation, and physical protection at a time when broader American systems excluded B

How a 122-Year-Old Black Church Is Being Used to Dismantle the Communities It Was Built to Protect - The House of God Church and Its Historical Significance The House of God Church, formally known as The Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of the Truth, Without Controversy, Keith Dominion, is one of the most historically significant Black Pentecostal denominations in the United States. Founded in 1903 by Mother Mary Magdalena Lewis Tate, the church was revolutiona