PCC meetings can be a great opportunity to listen and tap into the varied insights of different people within your church. But sometimes (often) help is needed to encourage everyone to contribute. Here are some tips based on 15 years of being on and leading PCCs.

Tips:

Before the meeting:

Create agenda items that need people's contributions: items that explore different ideas, propose a range of solutions, ask for different opinions or discuss a variety of possibilities all create opportunities for people to contribute, even if though don't feel like experts.

Have all written reports available the 3 or 4 days before the meeting: if you want people to engage with discussion they need time to digest reports, and seeing that everyone's lives have different demands and limits, by giving a few days, you give them to chance to be flexible about when they set aside time to read them.

Encourage written reports to be focused and purposeful: reports don't need to be long, they do need to be informative. It can be helpful to write a summary of the report in the first two or three lines, and then go into more detail. Headings help keep the focus. And including questions or proposals helps people know why they are actually needing to read the report. 

Ensure everyone can access & read the agenda and reports: you can distribute paperwork in various ways (email, shared folder, paper copies), and it's important to check if everyone can use the method you choose. Maybe they're not comfortable with tech or don't have a computer, maybe they have limited sight or are dyslexic. Discretely ask and respond.

During the meeting:

Start the meeting by getting everyone to say something: My favourite way to do this is to go round the group and ask everyone to say one thing that they are thankful for. And then I turn that into a prayer of thanks to start the meeting. Doing this means everyone has spoken, and also builds a bridge between their lives and their presence in the meeting. It's very humanising.

Clarify terms and language that are specialist: Every meeting and group has it's own specialist language. Be aware and positively explain terms as they pop up. 

Use a variety of methods to get people to talk: (I'm planning to write a blog in more detail about this in the blog and will add a link when done) Quick examples include: 1) ask people to talk in pairs or 3s about the report and feedback 1 key point they'd like to raise, 2) go around the group and ask everyone to simply say 'yes', 'no' or 'more information needed' to a proposal; 3) ask everyone to offer one thought on the topic being discussed before opening it for responses and further questions.

Show people that you value their contribution: There's loads of way to do this: summarise what has been said, thank people, ask a vocal person to wait while quieter person contributes, make eye contact with people, write on a flip chart people's ideas.

Honour the finishing time: I think this is really important, as it honours everyone and the time they have given. If an agenda item looks like it is going to take up more time than planned, identify a suitable point to get to in the discussion for that meeting, and explain how you will then follow up e.g. work might be needed before the next meeting and then specific discussion about something might be needed.