By Nick Blevins, contributing writer

Nick Blevins

I get to meet with a local network of ministry leaders a few times a year. We talk about everything related to ministry as we share ideas and encourage one another. Every time we ask for topics to discuss, there is one that always comes up the most.

It’s finding volunteers.

People in our network consistently ask each other what they do to recruit volunteers. When asking that question, it seems as though everyone is looking for that perfect resource or idea that would cause people to step up in droves to volunteer. What we often miss is all of the other things in our churches that are negatively affecting volunteerism. Those other things could be a barrier to everything else we do to recruit volunteers. Here are some questions to ask when figuring out if something else is negatively influencing volunteering.

1. Are our mission and vision clear and compelling? A clear mission and compelling vision will motivate people toward action or help them see how they don’t fit. A lack of clarity breeds confusion, which leads to inactivity.
2. Do most people know our strategy? If they don’t know the plan, it’s harder for them to see where they fit in.
3. How many volunteers would it take to staff every role on every team and ministry? This would take some work to figure out but it’s worth it. If it would require more than 60% of the adults you’re reaching, you may be doing too much. Few churches have 60% of their adults serving.
4. What is our ratio of full-time equivalent staff to attenders? Leaning too heavily on staff can hurt volunteering. Tony recommends a ratio of 1:100 which will help churches empower volunteers.
5. Is our staff made up of doers or leaders? The staff needs to be both, but staff who lean toward doing everything themselves will be a barrier to volunteering. (more…)

A couple of days ago, I introduced this series on senior leadership teams. Today I want to take a look at the roles of this team. Again, I’m assuming for the purposes of this series that there is a separate team of elders if you are in a church. In this instance, I’m talking about the team at the top of the organization overseeing the day-to-day ministry and operations of the church.

These critical roles apply across any organization. It’s not uncommon for the Senior Pastor or CEO to own these responsibilities. What makes a great senior leadership team is when everyone on the team shares responsibility and ownership for these roles. When it’s a team rather than an individual, it leads to a healthier organization.

For an organization to be healthy, these are the seven roles of a senior leadership team that can’t be delegated:

1. Modeling team-based ministry from the top of the organization. It gets very difficult to challenge other staff and volunteer leaders to build and develop teams in the church if it’s not being modeled from the top. More important, the senior leadership team needs to model what “healthy” team-based ministry looks like. We’ll cover that more in future posts, but this includes both healthy conflict and unwavering unity. (You can have both.)
2. Identifying and implementing the strategy for accomplishing the vision. This, of course, assumes a clear vision for the church has previously been established. The senior leadership team, though, is ultimately responsible for identifying the strategies that will be used to accomplish that vision. They fill the gap between vision and execution.
3. Leading the staff and volunteers. Every person, whether they are in a staff or volunteer role, needs to be connected through your organizational structure back to someone on the senior leadership team. There shouldn’t be any staff members, volunteers or ministries floating out there without leadership and direction connected back to the vision.
4. (more…)

I have a great opportunity for you or someone you may know. I’m working with NewSpring Church in Wichita, Kansas, to help them find a new Worship Pastor.

NewSpring Church is a large and fast-growing, contemporary church that averages over 5,000 in worship each week. In addition, NewSpring services are on television reaching an audience of 50,000. Worship services are casual and comfortable. The musical style is a combination of southern rock, Hillsong, Gateway and Lakewood Churches.

The Pastor of Worship will provide oversight and leadership to the NewSpring worship team. The successful candidate will be able to work collaboratively with the Lead Pastor, the production and technical teams, and the music and arts volunteers. NewSpring has a small, intentional staff and is looking for a proactive leader who is comfortable with a high level of involvement in all areas of the worship and creative arts ministry. The successful candidate will have five to ten years of worship and creative leadership experience with excellent musical and technical ability. An evident and growing relationship with Christ and with others is essential to the DNA of NewSpring Church.

NewSpring Church is located in a high-growth area on the northeast side of Wichita. Nearby Andover has the best school system in the state. Wichita is nationally recognized for its high quality of life and low cost of living.

If you are interested in the role, you can upload your resume to our secure site or email us directly at resumes@vanderbloemensearch.com. Don’t worry. We understand the importance of confidentiality in situations like this. (My lips are sealed.)

I partner with Vanderbloemen Search Group, a retained executive search firm, to help churches find their key staff. I’m frequently helping large, fast-growing churches with a focus on reaching the unchurched. If your church needs assistance in this sort of search, feel free to contact me.

As a consultant and leadership coach with churches, I often am involved in conversations about shaping and empowering the team at the top of a church’s organization. I’ve seen this team called by several different names. It might be the senior management team, the executive team or the directional leadership team. For the purposes of this series, I’m going to refer to it as the senior leadership team.

This is the team of leaders that usually includes the senior or lead pastor and the group of leaders that oversees the day-to-day operations of the church. In some instances, the church’s governance also recognizes this group as the elders. Scripture identifies a number of specific responsibilities of elders in the church. Every church needs elders, but that’s not what this series is about. Instead, I want to focus on the role of the senior leadership team which may or may not also be the elder team in your church.

Additionally, I know some churches that have a board of overseers that includes people from outside the church. Again, that’s not the team I’m referring to when I’m talking about the senior leadership team. An outside board will never have enough knowledge of the local church to provide the leadership and influence required to oversee day-to-day ministry. (As a side note, I’m not a big fan of outside boards of overseers. I’ve seen too many situations where senior pastors lack support and accountability because they don’t have other leaders directly involved in their ministry/life. But that’s a topic for another day…)

In this series of articles, I will address these questions related to senior leadership teams:

• What’s the role of the team?
• Who should be on the team?
• How do you empower the team?
• Where do you find leaders for the team?
• What are the big mistakes churches make?

Let me start, though, with this basis for the conversation: I never think it’s too early to begin developing your senior leadership team. The primary reason I believe that is because Jesus modeled team-based ministry from the very beginning. Jesus hand-selected twelve disciples (Mark 3:13-19). Then he invested even more time in his relationships with Peter, James and John (Mark 5:37). Jesus also routinely sent his disciples out in teams (Luke 10:1). I firmly believe God designed ministry to be done in teams primarily because Jesus modeled it.

(more…)

“Purists are passionate, but their passion will build boundaries that stifle, strangle and eventually kill off innovation.” -Joshua Blankenship

Go read the rest of Joshua’s insightful article. Change is hard. But change is necessary.

Next week, I’m going to offer a series of posts on building senior leadership teams. I’ll be addressing questions like these:

• Why should churches have teams at the top and when should they start building them?
• Who should be on that team?
• Where do you find people to serve in those roles and how do you choose the right leaders?
• How do you encourage senior leadership teams to perform at their highest capacity?

I want to make sure I tackle all the big issues and questions related to this topic, so I need your help.

What are the questions you have related to building senior leadership teams? If you have a senior leadership team already, what are the biggest issues you face that prevent your team from performing at the highest capacity?

Feel free to leave a comment or email me your thoughts and questions. Watch for this new series coming next week.

In a couple of weeks, I will be releasing my newest eBook. It’s called Hanging Up the Leisure Suit: How to Get Unstuck. It’s the second in a series of eBooks I’m releasing this year to help churches get unstuck. The first one, The Leisure Suit Trap: 8 Reasons Your Church is Stuck, is available as a free download.

I’d like to give some of you the opportunity to read the eBook before everyone else gets it. I’m looking for 100 bloggers who will read the eBook and then post a review the week of October 3. If you’d like to participate, leave a comment on this post. Act quickly. The last time I did something like this, the 100 copies were claimed in about 30 minutes.

For the rest of you, stay tuned for more details about this resource in the coming weeks. I’m really looking forward to the conversations this eBook is going to generate.

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who has responded. I’ve closed the preview requests. Watch for the release the week of October 3.

Research shows that 84% of church members engaged in a small group/class stay at the church for at least five years. In fact, the number one reason the formerly unchurched stay active in the church is based on ministry involvement.

In an earlier post, we discussed how to get people from Point A (inactive) to Point B (engaged).

The question now is how to get someone from Point B (engaged) to Point C (participating/serving). Numbers don’t lie. They show that someone who is not only participating, but actively serving is among the happiest in the church.

Combining several of the main drawing factors to a church, and integrating it with the way our culture communicates, a social media driven Inreach Site (member dashboard) can truly help your visitors and members get from Point B to Point C.

• Communicate through social media effectively. People spend more than 5.5 hours a day, on average, engaged in social media. Why not utilize the language our culture is speaking to engage them?  Allowing your active members, staff and leadership to easily share all sorts of items from their member dashboard opens the door to increased guest invites and member participation to small groups, special events, volunteer opportunities and more.
• Allow visitors to connect with the pastor. #1 reason the unchurched choose to attend a church is based on the pastor/preaching.  With an integrated feed of your sermon audio/video into the member dashboard, your visitors and members can easily access the most recent media items uploaded to your website.
• Facilitate engagement through prayer. 82% of adults and 89% of teenagers pray in a normal week.  Utilizing the Prayer Wall, which is accessible through the member dashboard or the church website and is moderated by the website administrator, engaging visitors and members is much easier when you incorporate the power of prayer into relationships.
• Increase participation in small groups.  As mentioned earlier in the post, 84% of church members engaged in a small group/class stay at the church for at least five years.  Equipping other small group attendees to personally invite others via Facebook and Twitter makes small group integration organic and natural.

If you long for an environment of committed, like-minded believers that have everything in common as the church in the book of Acts is modeled, give IgniteCRM and its Inreach Site a try.  You can receive a free consultation from a faithHighway representative to learn more about the Inreach Site (member dashboard) and associated CRM (church relationship management) web-based software.

Call 877.703.2484 and press 2 or visit our website to talk to an expert.

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This is a sponsored post from faithHighway, one of my ministry partners on TonyMorganLive.com.

My friend Jon Acuff from Stuff Christians Like recently released a new book called Quitter. Though the book is written to encourage and challenge people who are experiencing a gap between their day job and their dream job, I think the principles can apply to anyone who is looking to find their purpose and take their next steps. Quitter offers some great insights. The bonus is that you also get Jon’s excellent writing and humor.

Here are the highlights from my reading:

• “Quitting a job doesn’t jump-start a dream because dreams take planning, purpose and progress to succeed.”
• “‘Success always comes when preparation meets opportunity.’ It’s true, and the opportunity to quit your job will always be there. The real question is whether you’ve prepared.”
• “You don’t ask the bottomless, ‘What do I want to do with my life?’ but instead, ‘What have I done in my life that I loved doing?’”
• “Quit perfect. It’s an unnecessary obstacle. Chase the idea of your dream being better finished at 90 percent than perfect and not pursued.”
• “You have the perfect amount of time each day for the things that matter most. The key is spending time on those things.”
• “I don’t think any of the information in this book works without applying hustle to it.”
• “Hustle isn’t just doing the things you love all the time. Hustle is doing the things you don’t enjoy sometimes to earn the right to do the things you love.”
• “Do more of the things you love and less of the things you like.”
• “Pitting your dream against someone else’s is a fantastic way to get discouraged and depressed. Nothing good comes from measuring your dream against your competition.”
• “If I say yes to this opportunity and am successful at it, what will be the long-term outcome?”
• “The reward of getting really good at something less significant than your real dream is that you get to do it more often. That’s not a reward; that’s a punishment.”

The new book Outspoken: Conversations on Church Communication releases today. I joined over 60 other contributors to share my thoughts on how we can improve communications in the church. You’ll find my contribution on how to improve your marketing without spending any money in the very last section of the book.

• Here’s an overview and sample from the book.
• Here’s a list of all the contributors including many of my friends.
• Here’s my Amazon link to purchase the book.