Need volunteers? Maybe your staff is too big.
Many churches have a vision for getting more people to volunteer and serve in the ministry. Fewer churches actually make it happen. One of the reasons is because they lean on staff to do ministry.
A few weeks ago I was at Lifepoint Church in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Their ministry needs to be on your radar. They’ve grown by over 50% in the last 12 months. But that’s not what’s most unique about this ministry.
What’s unique about Lifepoint is their commitment to giving ministry away to volunteers. They have several strategies for making that happen, but let me highlight the most obvious one — they don’t hire staff to do ministry.
Of all the churches I’ve worked with over the last couple of years, Lifepoint has the lowest staff to attendance ratio. They only have 1 full-time equivalent staff member (that includes all staff, not just ministry staff) for every 150 people in attendance. Only about 35% of their budget is spent on staff expenses.
Because they have very few staff, they are forced to empower volunteers to do the ministry. Almost 70% of their adults volunteer. That’s the highest percentage of adults volunteering of all the churches I’ve worked with.
So, if you’re following at home: Lifepoint has the record for the fewest staff compared to attendance, and they also broke the record for the most people volunteering. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
This is another simple reminder that you can have a strong vision, but it’s good systems and strategies that shift behaviors. This is just one example of that principle. Unfortunately, many churches hope (and pray) for different results, but they’re unwilling to change their systems and strategies. You can’t have both.
Love hearing that.
I know that I have been subjected to the idea that in order to grow we needed to hire more staff. Too many times we hire staff and take roles away from those in the church who could be doing that. We all need to working to get more people plugged into using the gifts that GOD gave them to serve the church.
Two quick questions:
1) Can you show me where the biblical reference for volunteer is. Seeing that the synonym for volunteer is unpaid worker. Was wondering if you could show me a Christian who is unpaid. I have been searching for a biblical basis for this word being used in churches and ministries today.
2) As a ministry leader who leads a 120+ team of God’s servant’s with a ministry that is not quite a year and a half old I have a fear. That as we become more polished looking more like a professional org. rather than a collection of earthen cracked vessels. That it will be the “good systems and strategies” that get the glory; any thoughts on how to prevent this?
Most of the people we read about in the New Testament were not paid for their ministry, but you can read about Paul’s personal story in 1 Corinthians 9.
Regarding systems, it might be good to think about all the systems God gave people to fulfill his purposes. One example in the Old Testament involved Nehemiah and his leadership in rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem. During the reconstruction project 1/2 the men worked on reconstructing the wall while the other 1/2 guarded the workers from enemy attacks. Just because Nehemiah deployed that system doesn’t mean God didn’t get the glory.
Then we can also look to the New Testament. There are many examples, but one of them involved Paul’s instruction to Titus. In order to spread the Gospel throughout Crete, Paul instructed Titus to make sure there was at least one elder appointed in every town and then gave specific instructions on who should be appointed as elders. Again, Paul used a specific system to accomplish the ministry of the Gospel, but that certainly doesn’t take away from who receives the glory when someone accepts Christ.
More important, though, you may want to study Ephesians 4:11-13 about our role as pastors and leaders in the church. We’re supposed to equip God’s people to do his work.
1. How many people do they have that currently attend?
2. What kind of roles are the volunteers doing that a staff would normally be doing?
3. How are they promoting their Church to their community?
4. How are they following up on prospects?
5. What percentage of their attendance is involved in Small Groups?
6. What is their Small Group Strategy? How large? Open or Closed? Is the lesson prerecorded by the staff?
We have a staff/attender ratio right now of 1 to 180. It definitely forces you to rethink how ministry is accomplished.
Two big shifts that force churches to rethink ministry strategies:
#1 = multi-site
#2 = lean staff + empowering volunteers
Your church is doing both. :-)
tony
Plus, Chris is a gentleman and a scholar. That goes a long way these days.
Great post, I think I’ve seen more damage done in healthy churches that get overstaffed than maybe anywhere else. It leads to codependency and spiritually sedentary folks.
Thanks for bringing work like this to a bigger audience.
peace
We are currently working on our volunteer staff communications and accountably systems. Ed young really describes it well in this post
http://cp.blogs.com/cp/2007/07/heres-the-lates.html
Which can be found here on Tony’s blog if you search this blog for “growth” or see link below
http://tinyurl.com/ocfsyo
In short people do what you inspect not what you expect. This simple thought has completely changed the way I interact with my volunteers.
this is encouraging. that metric (staff to attendee) is one of the most helpful for me in diagnosing the health of my ministry.
from the other churches that you have worked w is there a rough average/baseline for this stat?
I encourage churches to shoot for 1 full-time equivalent staff person for every 100 people in total attendance (adults + kids). You can read more about that here:
http://tonymorganlive.com/2010/11/03/10-keys-to-a-smart-staffing-strategy/
Tony
Your article got me thinking. Are there churches out there that train their volunteers to be leaders in the church. I know often a volunteer is thrown into the fire, then they quit their ministry, and never come back, or the volunteers are not reliable. It’s kind of a vicious cycle. Would it be wise to train them to become leaders and as a result take the pressure off the professional staff?
Dustin, you really need to begin following the writing of Mac Lake if you’re interested in leadership development. Mac lives this. He did it for years at Seacoast Church. Now he’s implementing those same principles to equip church planters. You can follow him here:
http://www.maclakeonline.com/
Thanks Tony!