Make your first Church hire the Volunteer Coordinator

As organizations grow, they begin to hire employees.   

Churches are often started with a minimum of employees and rely heavily on volunteers to handle most of the assignments and responsibilities.

As churches begin to grow, the pastor looks forward to the time that he or she may begin to hire staff to help in the ministry.  Worship leaders, youth leaders, an office assistant or Children’s coordinator are often likely first hires.   While this has often worked well in many of our churches, I think we have missed a great opportunity.

Make your first hire, a volunteer coordinator.

Churches have an amazing source of talent in the pews.  Most of us know that getting the people that are simply attending church to being the church is one huge and clear illustration of discipleship in action.  People grow in their faith walk as they exercise their gifts by serving. 

Active involvement in church ministry in various volunteer capacities is not only healthy for church members, it also fulfills one of the primary missions of the church, to make disciples.  What could be better than to also learn to be a servant, like Jesus? 

While church leaders intuitively realize they need volunteers, they often begin to dream of the time that they will be able to get 'real' staff.  Church leaders also dream about become one of those growing, healthy churches that have conferences and have pastors that write books about how to do “it.”

Growing, healthy churches that have conferences also have figured out how to create and maintain a healthy culture of volunteerism.   They recognize the importance of having a staff person that is 100% focused on volunteers.  

Churches have found amazing volunteer teachers, leaders, worship leaders, children's ministry coordinators, business administrators, computer experts and gardeners.  Getting new people engaged in some volunteer activity, coordinating schedules so that volunteers know where and when they are to serve, ensuring adequate depth in volunteer roles so that volunteers get vacations and regular opportunities for respite, and creating a culture where volunteers are regularly recognized, trained, and thanked are great bullet points on a volunteer coordinators job description. 

Hire the Volunteer Coordinator and empower the people to be the church, utilize their God-given talents and grow in their faith.  

Greater Works

One of the most important things that Jesus did was delegate the responsibility and authority of His ministry to his disciples

Jesus knew that the disciples would do their greatest work only after He left them.  He said, "He who believes in Me the works that I do will he do and greater works than these will He do because I go to intercede at the right hand of my Father." (John 14:12)

We need to empower those who work with us in ministry, those who we lead and encourage and instruct to have the desire and the authority to trust God for greater works without having to constantly supervise or control them.

Jesus knew that it would be for the disciples’ benefit for Him to ascend to heaven Jesus said, "It is for your benefit that I leave you, for after I leave I will send you the Holy Spirit, who will guide and teach you and empower you." (John 16:6) 

It’s not that human leaders can fail you but that they will.  When we allow the Lord to work through our gifts and callings and we allow the Holy Spirit to have control of our lives we can do these ‘Greater works'.

When we hold on to control, when we refuse to release people and give them authority to do the work that God has for them, we actually limit what God can and will do through them.    Authority is to be delegated.  When authority is delegated it is released and multiplied. 

Submission as Discipline

So often today we find that people are quick to try to redefine words in order to make them more palatable or acceptable. One of the words is submission.   In a world that is constantly trying to encourage people to be assertive and express their point of view and even demand their rights, submission is often overlooked as a more appropriate option.

The Bible has a number of direct references to the word, submit and submission.  According to Strong’s Lexicon, the original Greek word was a military term referring to the arrangement of troops but also in a voluntary, non-military manner of  yielding, providing support and cooperation.

In the world submission is thought of as a weakness.  As a result, we are encouraged to not submit but rather to compete.  We compete for attention, for an audience and for our ideas, whether right or wrong, to be recognized.

However practically every way, despite the culture’s instances on being assertive and the distaste for submission, we actually submit to each other everyday.   At a four-way stop, you submit to the person on the right.   Getting on an elevator, we submit to those getting off.   When we go shopping we submit to their lines and queues, even counting the number of items we have in our baskets in order to submit to a small sign that says, “Express Check-out, 12 items or less”.

Jesus provided the best example of submission by His submission to the plan of salvation.  Jesus was not only the incarnation of God but He was born in order to die.   He submitted to His Father in Gethsemane when He said, “Not my will Father, but yours”.  He also modeled for us the appropriate  path of submission in serving his disciples  in washing their feet and in His submission to Pilot and the religious authorities. 

Practicing submission is actually a spiritual discipline.   When we serve each other, we submit to each other.   Wives are not the only ones that are to submit but we are to submit to one another  (Eph 5:21).

When we live in submission to God and each other, we are practicing the principles that Jesus showed us as He loved his disciples and showed them how to serve each other.   Biblical submission is not living according to what the world expects or defines as ‘success’ but by the principles and calling of Jesus. As a spiritual discipline it provides freedom, an alignment with the Gospel and true peace.   Richard Foster writes in Celebration of Discipline that submission is “the ability to lay down the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way".  

When we understand submission as discipline we can practice the discipline by serving God, by serving each other and contributing greatly through the plan that God has established for us. 

Training vs. Trusting

One of the words we hear often when it comes to people and a particular responsibility or assignments is the word “trust.” I remember my children often saying, “Don’t you trust me?” when we were setting boundaries, limits on activity, or checking to see if their homework was completed. As parents, my wife and I often had to explain that it’s not about trust but about training. The concept of trust, while important, is not as important as other things. Other things like training, equipping and generally gaining experience are the way people establish trust.

This concept and understanding of training and trusting is important in our churches and ministries. When we have important processes, tasks and responsibilities, it’s best not to rely solely on trust. Its only through training that we can truly expect that important processes, tasks and responsibilities are executed properly. Training provides the appropriate knowledge transfer and an adequate period of time for the employee or volunteers to gain the experience needed to do their job properly.

No shortcut in training

While all jobs and assignments don’t have the same complexity or skill level required, all require some measure of training. Personally, I rely on the three-step training process:

1. I do it 
2. We do it together 
3. You do it, I watch

I’m not sure exactly when I first heard about this model, but I have learned that not only does it work but it also can’t be bypassed. This doesn’t mean that as a pastor, I need to train every staff member and volunteer, but it does mean that everyone being trained needs to have someone that personally demonstrates, supports and then supervises in order to verify knowledge and skill have been transferred.

Trusting is not a substitute for training

When we hear someone use the words “trust,” one of the things we can do is try to discover if the word trust is being used as a substitute for training. All too often we press new employees and volunteers into the job without adequate training. Most of us have experienced inadequately trained employees and volunteers from receptionists to preachers. When this happens, these newer and inadequately trained appear to be less “trust-worthy” when it really isn’t a matter of trust but a matter of training.

Trusting should not be a substitute for training. Trust is earned and developed through very intentional orientation and training processes that transfer knowledge and experience. The three-step training process: “I do it; we do it together, you do it, I watch” is a great and necessary part of developing trust.

Reprint from ChurchExecutive Magazine September 2012

62.8 Million Can't Be Wrong

If you are leading a volunteer workforce, you are in good company.  The US Department of Labor reported that this past year (ending September 2011) that there were 62.8 million people that were actively volunteering in some organization. These people came from all walks of life, all economic classes, some college, some not, all races, both genders, young and old.

On average they spent about 52 hours in the past year volunteering, about one hour a week.

While you may not remember all these numbers, remember the "one hour a week".

Studies have shown that in about an hour, the average volunteer can be fully trained to perform the job for which they are assigned.  The church jobs that volunteers fill range from some simple jobs like handing out the weekly bulletin or folding chairs to more complex tasks like supervising a nursery or leading worship.

What is unfortunate is that all too often, we don't give these volunteers the one hour of training that they need.  This is unfortunate because the church is one big volunteer-run organization.  Since the day of Pentecost, the vast majority of the leaders in the Church have been volunteers.  Volunteers provide the invitation, the hospitality, the teaching, the training, the development and also the governance of most churches.

When training is inadequate, volunteers don't get the opportunity to fully understand the importance of their role.  Without proper training they can't lead and without leadership the mission suffers.

Fortunately the best people to do the training is volunteers.  We just need to give them the opportunity and let them know it is a priority; let them find the one-hour to train.  Let them lead.....62.8 million can't be wrong.

Those who can do.....TEACH!

You have likely heard the saying, "Those who can't, teach".

I've never liked that saying. As an occasional teacher at various levels, church, corporate, profit, nonprofit and educational, including undergraduate and graduate, I thought it was not true regarding my colleagues and hopefully not true of me as well.

Over the years, I've become even more certain that the opposite is actually true. For those that consider themselves leaders, people that influence and provide encouragement, guidance and inspiration, it is imperative to understand that you need to be able to teach.

Everyone can discover their teachable point of view. This teachable point of view is how leaders develop leaders. It is often said that the true test of leadership is how well life goes on when you are no longer the one that is leading.

Personally, I've had mixed results. There have been times when I felt that even a relatively short amount of time that I've had to develop leaders actually left a lasting imprint. Things including people, processes and organizations were forever (at least for the foreseeable future) changed. I was able to look back at my short tenure and smile, knowing that I had not only led but taught and developed other leaders that were able to carry on.

Other times, I had no sooner moved on to a new assignment, a new town or a new organization and everything that I thought I had accomplished returned to the state it was before I ever engaged. It's sad but true and sometime disheartening but very few can claim a perfect record.

I've learned from those times however. I don't necessarily have to think of them as mistakes as much as they were lessons learned. When I have the opportunity I develop a stronger and more determined resolve to not only 'do' but 'teach' others so that they have the opportunity to learn from my experiences both good and bad.

I want to be one that not only can do....but also teach.