What the early church has taught me about leadership, governance and the rooms where faith is never mentioned.

“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…”
Acts 15:28

I have the privilege of sitting on and working with some very different boards and leadership teams. Some are explicitly Christian organisations where faith is naturally part of the conversation, prayer has a place in decision-making and words like stewardship, discernment and service are well understood. Others are completely secular, where the conversation is much more likely to centre around governance, strategy, risk, finance, technology, people and organisational performance.

I genuinely enjoy working in both environments, but one of the things I find particularly interesting is how often the principles cross over. There are concepts that have been part of Christian leadership for centuries that make just as much sense around a secular board table. I don't need to walk into a board meeting carrying a Bible or turn a governance conversation into a sermon to bring those principles with me. They have shaped how I understand leadership, responsibility and service, so naturally they influence the questions I ask and the way I approach decisions.

One of my favourite examples comes from Acts 15.

A leadership problem that feels surprisingly modern

The early church was going through a period of enormous growth and change. What had begun largely within the Jewish community was expanding, Gentiles were becoming Christians, and some pretty significant disagreements were emerging about what that meant. There were questions about tradition, identity, expectations and ultimately what this growing movement was going to look like into the future.

The leaders came together in Jerusalem to work through it. There was debate, different perspectives were heard and people spoke about what they had seen happening in the communities around them. They had to work through strongly held views while also considering what their decisions would mean for the people they were trying to serve.

Eventually they reached a position and sent a letter communicating their decision. In that letter is a phrase that has always stood out to me: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…”

As a Christian, the reference to the Holy Spirit obviously carries meaning that goes well beyond governance. There is an acknowledgement that leadership involves discernment and that our own judgement isn't the highest authority in the room. What I also find interesting, particularly through a governance lens, are the final two words: “to us.”

This wasn't one person announcing what everyone else was going to do. The leaders had listened, debated and worked through the issue together. They had reached a point where they could collectively take responsibility for the decision they were making and communicate it clearly to the people affected by it.

Nearly two thousand years later, that still sounds like pretty good governance to me.

Different language, similar ideas

Sitting across faith-based and secular organisations has made me realise how often we are talking about the same principles using different language. In Christian organisations we talk a lot about stewardship. Around a secular board table we might describe that as responsible governance: understanding that the resources, reputation and future of an organisation have been entrusted to us and that we have a responsibility to manage them well.

The same applies to servant leadership. In a Christian context that has a very particular foundation, but the practical idea that leadership exists to serve people rather than simply exercise authority translates incredibly well into any organisation. A secular organisation might call it people-centred leadership, but much of the practical behaviour looks remarkably similar.

Discernment becomes thoughtful decision-making. Community becomes culture and stakeholder engagement. Integrity becomes accountability, transparency and ethical leadership. The language changes depending on the room I'm sitting in, but the underlying questions are often very similar.

That doesn't mean I think the concepts are identical or that the faith element is somehow irrelevant. My faith gives those ideas a particular meaning for me. It simply means that I don't need someone else to share my faith before we can find common ground on what responsible leadership should look like.

There are lessons in both directions

Working across both environments has also shown me that neither has everything figured out. Faith-based and purpose-driven organisations can have an incredible clarity about why they exist. There can be a genuine sense of service, community and commitment that is difficult to manufacture through a strategic planning process.

At the same time, a strong sense of purpose doesn't automatically result in strong governance. Good intentions don't replace financial oversight, passion doesn't remove organisational risk and prayer doesn't mean we don't need good systems, policies, accountability and evidence. In fact, I would argue that if an organisation believes deeply in its mission, that should make it even more committed to governing the organisation well. The people and communities relying on it deserve that.

The opposite problem can exist in secular organisations. A board can have excellent policies, comprehensive risk registers, beautiful dashboards and a carefully developed strategic plan while gradually becoming disconnected from the people the organisation actually exists to serve. Governance can become an end in itself rather than the framework that allows an organisation to achieve its purpose safely and sustainably.

This is probably where I most enjoy sitting: somewhere in the intersection between the two.

Bringing the two worlds together

Sometimes my contribution is bringing more structure into a deeply purpose-driven environment. That might mean strengthening governance, improving the way risk is understood, asking harder questions about technology and cyber security, or turning a broad strategic ambition into something measurable that people can actually deliver.

In other rooms, my contribution might be bringing the conversation back to people. Who is affected by this decision? Are we making this easier for ourselves or better for the people we serve? Have we actually listened to the people closest to the issue? Are we protecting the organisation so carefully that we've become afraid to do anything meaningful?

Some of those questions are informed by my professional experience. Some are informed by my experience in governance. Some are undoubtedly informed by my faith, and I don't feel a need to separate those parts of myself every time I walk into a different room.

What matters is how I bring them into the room.

I don't need to quote Scripture to talk about stewardship. I don't need to turn a board meeting into a theological discussion to believe leadership should involve humility and service. I can work alongside people with completely different beliefs to mine and still agree that integrity matters, that people deserve to be treated well and that leadership carries a responsibility beyond simply holding a title.

Governance is still about people

I enjoy the technical parts of governance more than most people probably should. Give me a strategy, risk register, financial report, technology roadmap or governance framework and I'll happily get into the detail.

The danger is forgetting what all of those things are actually for.

Somewhere outside the boardroom there is usually a person who will experience the consequences of the decisions being made inside it. It might be a family accessing a service, a child walking into a centre, an employee trying to do their job well, a volunteer giving up their time or a community relying on an organisation continuing to exist in five or ten years.

For me, good governance has to hold both sides of that responsibility together. Organisations need good systems, appropriate controls, financial sustainability, effective risk management and people who are prepared to ask difficult questions. They also need leaders who listen, who remain curious, who are prepared to admit when they don't know something and who remember that the organisation exists for something beyond the board itself.

Perhaps that is why Acts 15 continues to resonate with me. The technology has changed, the organisational structures have changed and thankfully our board papers have moved on a little, but many of the fundamental questions of leadership haven't changed nearly as much.

How do we make difficult decisions together? How do we disagree without losing sight of our shared purpose? How do we respect where we have come from while still being prepared to change? How do we exercise authority responsibly, and how do we make sure the people affected by our decisions aren't forgotten while we make them?

Those are questions I can comfortably ask in a church boardroom or a secular one.

My faith will inevitably shape how I think about them, because it shapes how I understand leadership in the first place. I don't expect everyone around the table to share that faith, nor do they need to for us to work incredibly well together.

Sometimes the language will be completely different. The principles underneath it might be more familiar than we realise.

Perhaps, after all the reports have been read, the questions asked and the different perspectives heard, one of the marks of a healthy board is still being able to look around the table and genuinely say:

“It seemed good… to us.”