Leadership Care Is Ministry Care

A new standard for cultivating organizational integrity

by Michael Martin

Leading a ministry that offers life transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit is a high calling — a holy calling. It’s exciting. It’s an honor. It’s a cause worth pouring our strength into now because it has significance for eternity. And, too often, it’s lonely.

That loneliness can come with a cost. Every Christian leader — especially senior ministry staff like lead pastors, executive directors, and CEOs — will face storm clouds and daily trials while at their ministry’s helm. If they feel alone, they may be able to hang on for a time. But every passing day in isolation — real or perceived, self-inflicted or not — will increase the likelihood of burnout, dropout, and even tragic breaches of trust.

A leader’s fall not only harms them, but it also has ramifications for organizations. In fact, I would argue that leadership failures pose one of the greatest financial risks to churches and Christian nonprofit ministries today. And that is why the ministry team I’m privileged to lead at the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) took a giant leap of faith earlier this year.

You may recognize the ECFA seal. It’s become the gold standard for donors looking for accountable organizations that share their Christian values. As the stewards of that seal, our team takes the mission of enhancing trust very seriously, and that work has convinced us that there is a critical connection between leadership integrity and ministry financial accountability. Quite simply, the tone at the top matters.

With that in mind, we announced a new leadership integrity standard — the most revolutionary update to our accreditation standards in 45 years. Specifically, we are working to ensure ECFA-accredited organization boards are purposefully coming alongside their organizations’ senior leaders to establish biblical character expectations and to proactively offer them holistic care.

Why? Because leader care is ministry care. Adopting a bold standard will build trust and seed the ground for life-transforming ministries to flourish.

Bold Standards Enhance Trust

Donors who want to make wise giving decisions have come to expect the ministries they support to embrace healthy accountability practices, such as the good board governance and appropriate financial transparency practices required by ECFA’s accreditation standards.

But that hasn’t always been the norm.

Back in the late 1970s, a group of evangelical leaders recognized that a growing number of fundraising scandals were taking a toll on donor confidence and trust. This group of leaders, who were catalysts for ECFA, responded to the challenges of their time by advancing a bold set of peer accountability standards for Christian ministries.

The most revolutionary update to our accreditation standards in 45 years.

The Seven Standards of Responsible Stewardship™, rooted in Scripture, set an extremely high bar. For example, they required ECFA’s accredited members to obtain audited financial statements by independent certified public accountants at a time when audits were virtually unheard of in the nonprofit world. The standards also dramatically shifted ministry culture by mandating that a majority of an organization’s board members be independent. That was a biblically sound check on many Christian leaders in those days who said they were “only accountable to God.”

Now the ECFA community of more than 2,700 accredited churches and ministries is going to raise the bar for integrity once again.

Healthy Leadership is Crucial to Trust

While “financial accountability” is in our name, the ECFA standards have always been about much more than money. The concerns of ECFA’s founders went beyond the immediate issues of fundraising scandals. They understood that Christian ministries needed a way to demonstrate integrity and accountability to inspire confidence in a culture of growing skepticism and distrust. Again, ECFA’s mission then and now is ultimately about enhancing trust so churches and ministries can more effectively reach the world for Christ.

That’s why we paid such careful attention when recent ECFA surveys showed that 94 percent of our members say leader-integrity failures negatively impact community and giver trust — even as many signaled they lacked proactive practices to care for their leaders.

Indeed, we’ve seen the huge costs of failed leadership. Much is impossible to quantify, but included in these costs are very real and tangible financial consequences for ministries. Along with major unbudgeted expenses, giving often slows significantly after a leadership crisis. At the very least, ministries must cut back programs due to declining finances. In some cases, it causes organizations to close their doors completely.

The Bible gives us a bold charge to hope in the Lord and help one another.

Now it’s important not to yield to a spirit of defeat here or in any other challenge. In fact, the Bible gives us a bold charge to hope in the Lord and help one another:

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:23–25).

We owe it to our leaders as loving brothers and sisters in Christ to hold them to standards of accountability. We also owe it to our organizations as stewards of God’s resources to proactively address this matter of trust.

Intentional leader care should grow out of a strong relationship between the board and the leader.

A new standard of care will grow trust

According to polling from Barna Research, four out of five Christian donors agree with the statement, “It would help strengthen my trust in churches and ministries if they took steps to proactively care for their leader’s health and holistic integrity.”

Enter ECFA’s new standard of care for leaders. Our new leadership integrity standard will require ECFA-accredited church and ministry boards to purposefully — at least annually — come alongside their organizations’ senior leaders to discuss the leader’s commitment to upholding mutually agreed-on biblical integrity principles and to discuss with the leader opportunities for the organization to offer proactive care. All the details, including a full commentary and FAQs, are available at www.ecfa.org/leadershipstandard.

You might note that our new standard is relatively simple. In fact, it is deliberately neither prescriptive nor legalistic. It also focuses on both an organization’s leader and its board. Why? Because it’s pivotal in this struggle for ministry integrity that intentional leader care should grow out of a strong relationship between the board and the leader. Leaders are ultimately responsible for their own health and integrity, of course. But church and ministry boards can help in an environment of strong, Christ-centered governance. We can carry one another’s burdens in the spirit of Galatians 6.

I so appreciated how Tom De Vries, Citygate Network president and CEO, accentuated this idea when he offered words of support for ECFA’s new leader care standard.

“One of the greatest risks to a church, ministry, or organization is the compromise of integrity or moral failure of a leader. In our current environment, the pressure on a leader has never been greater,” Tom said. “Providing a way to create healthy culture and supportive relationships for leaders to navigate the leadership challenges of our present reality can help strengthen the character and integrity of a leader with intentional care and authenticity.”

Tom added, “Such a proactive posture can encourage the faithfulness of a leader while reinforcing trust in a ministry or organization.”

Ministry is a marathon that no leader should have to run alone. We don’t need to sit helplessly on the sidelines and watch as more leaders struggle. We can make a difference by proactively raising the standard for leaders and ministries based on biblical principles.

The fruit of trust

The launch of ECFA’s new standard on leader integrity and care is not simply an effort to help leaders survive. Far from it. It is an opportunity for Christian leaders and their Kingdom work to thrive.

As Scott Chin, president of Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission, declared in support for this effort, “As we bring this new standard to life, it should help all of us bear fruit, much fruit, and fruit that lasts.”

I can lead from a place of renewed energy, reliable community, and solid hope.

I believe cared-for leaders will indeed thrive — in their faith, in their training of the next generation of leaders, and in their individual callings to reach the world for Christ. That belief is not just based on studies and data. I personally know that I am a healthier leader today because of leader care.

While I am grateful that my relationship with the ECFA board has always been strong, together we decided to proactively apply what we’ve been learning about leader care during the last year. A newly formed “Committee on the President” took initiative to care for me more intentionally as a leader — not just for what I do in service to ECFA, but also for who I am in Christ. The outcomes have already been very impactful to me and, I believe, for our organization. I am encouraged as I feel I can lead from a place of renewed energy, reliable community, and solid hope. And we’re just getting started.

We have seen what happens when a leader’s health erodes. But imagine where Christian leaders could take their ministries if they were leading from positions of holistic strength. Imagine the possibilities for life transformation in our communities!

I am filled with hope, and I believe the time is now for this new standard of care. Will you join us in supporting healthy leadership and enhancing trust as we reach the world for Christ?

Michael Martin, president and CEO of Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, is passionate about helping churches and Christ-centered ministries maintain high standards of integrity. As an attorney and CPA, Michael communicates his expertise and passion through writing, conference presentations, workshops, webinars, videos, and podcasts. He and his family live in Winchester, Virginia.

Please learn more by visiting www.ecfa.org/leadershipstandard.

To read more articles like this from our bi-monthly members-only magazine Instigate email Aly Zadurowicz about membership today.

This article originally appeared in the September/October 2024 issue of INSTIGATE magazine. © Citygate Network, All rights reserved. Please email editor@citygatenetwork.org for additional permissions.