The Art of Agreement: Good Committee Process for God's people

In a world of active and passive aggression, in a society of get ahead competition, Christ calls us to unselfishness and self-control. Too often church committee meetings, small group meetings, and congregational meetings conduct business in the world's arena instead of listening to the Holy Spirit's direction. Committees and congregations talk past each other, at each other, and over each other. People leave meetings with wrong perceptions of what happened, feeling they were not heard, or feeling discouraged over inability to negotiate agreement.

A further problem exists. Many Christians are unfamiliar with necessary skills to lead or participate in meetings, and their respective committees dissolve into catchalls for personal soap boxes. Agendas, if they exist at all, are ignored and decisions are not given the careful thought they deserve.

This manual seeks to better understand and resolve these difficulties. The New Testament process for decision making as modeled by the First century church gets prime consideration - a decision making process dubbed the Art of Agreement. This manual helps congregational leaders develop procedures to simplify decision making by offering skill training for business meetings, and by describing the actual practice of decision making.

The art of reaching agreement is not an exact science so this manual's limitation is the efforts of people who put it into practice. That is, its usefulness is proportional to how proven methods get used.

This book is built around two tiers:

• A series of six Bible studies that develop a theology of agreement. Decision making methods used by God's people throughout Scripture are explored, as are principles for decision making found in relevant Scripture rexts. Paul's call to church unity in Philippians along with the decision making passages of the early church in Acts are prominent.
• Skill training for church committee members and other interested persons. Its purpose is to teach a streamlined decision making process, as well as relevant decision making skills.