This is the fifth of five chapters in a 25 part blog series titled: The Five Elements of a Fully Implemented Connections Strategy, published over a five week period. Everything I have posted here is the result of my own personal experiences, from serving on church staffs, volunteering as a lay leader, and being brought in as a paid consultant. It is my hope that these posts will help you and your church get better at connecting with guests, not simply to increase your attendance and membership, but ultimately to grow the body of Christ. Implementing a Connections strategy (or “Assimilation” strategy) is a long term process, and one that relies on a culture of continual improvement. This chapter has five entries, which will all be linked below the post as they are published.
When you give all your volunteer needs a seat at the table, your people (and guests) are the ones who benefit.
5.3 Share Opportunities. Don’t force your church leaders to compete over the same people.
Yeah, let’s go there.
Let’s just have a conversation.
Every church has places for people to serve, but getting the word out isn’t always something a church is good at. Church ministries naturally focus inward to be the best they possibly can, even in the healthiest and most unified churches. As a result, recruiting volunteers can be done in isolation, with each ministry department shouting at once to attract much needed leadership and volunteers.
Silo mentality.
Every staff member eating lunch alone at their own table (figuratively).
This happens when every ministry is solely measured on how many people they draw into the building each week, which is an incomplete number. They get territorial over people instead of sending them to do what God has enabled hem to do. Paid staff have the most pressure: your leaders will be tempted to only promote their own volunteer needs because their paycheck depends on it. When that happens, guests become commodities instead of unique persons drawn by the love of Christ.
When you have a volunteer need, it could be a place for a new person to serve. That may be more important than whatever you needed to have done in the first place.
Pastors, when you make numbers such a strong piece of your staff annual reviews, expect that data to eventually find its way into how you are also evaluated. When you play the blame game, you’re also teaching other people how to play too!
So fix that. Promote serving and provide a complete presentation of all the personnel needs in the church along with clear next steps and ministry contact information. If the church is intentional about calling people to serve, let your leaders in the church struggle with how to utilize all the new volunteers, instead of how to find them.
But you don’t understand: I NEED these volunteers! No, I do understand. Trust me on that. I’ve been on church staffs, I’ve been over just about every different department at this point in life. I’ve had seasons where I was only responsible for one specific ministry. I know how vital your ministry is, and how hard it is to be judged by numbers driven growth for your department in a church that isn’t actually growing. I get it. I still never tried to keep volunteers sequestered in my own area of ministry. Some will never want to leave, and others are always looking for something new.
When you have a volunteer need, it could be a place for a new person to serve. That may be more important than whatever you needed to have done in the first place.
NEXT: 5.4 Pastoral Invitation
Main Series Page: The Five Elements of a Fully Implemented Connections Strategy
Element Five: Serving Together