5 more ways to overcoming the code words
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How can you get beyond the code of rejection as a leader? It's a matter of overcoming the code words. Here are five more ideas to consider.
1. Empower those already serving. People will project their own gifts for ministry onto you. Those with a gift for mercy will want you to do more visitation. Those with a gift for prophecy will want you to defend the faith more often in your teaching.
Those with a gift of administration will want you to organize the church better. People tend not to be aware of their own abilities as gifts. In fact, what people criticize reveals their own gifts. Your role is not to take on their gifts. Your job is to reflect the gifts back on them and enlarge their confidence to expand their own ministry.
Lift up others who are serving. Reward them with much thanks. Ask current volunteers to share stories of how God has worked in their lives through serving. Share their stories live from the stage or via video productions.
2. Prune for fresh focus.Churches have trouble finding workers or leaders. How often have you heard someone say, "We don't have enough leaders"? If you have more opportunities to serve than people available, don't assume the issue is too few leaders.
Perhaps you have too many slots to fill. Churches are often trying to do too much. It's not a recruitment problem but an attempt to do more than is possible. Prune back your ministries and do less, but do it well. Consider streamlining the ministry into sections that can be led by teams rather than individuals.
Then build a team based around people's gifts and strengths. This will give each person a support group to help them while taking some aspects of ministry off individual shoulders. Combine competing ministries. Since people often don't or won't give you more than about three hours of time beyond Sunday attendance, make sure ministries aren't overlapping or competing.
If two or more ministries are competing for the same participants, see if there is some way to streamline them into fewer ministries. In his story about the vine and the branches, Jesus noted how the healthy branches that brought forth last year's fruit were pruned back to make room for next year's vines.
Pruning allows you to focus on what God wants you to do this season, and you'll need fewer workers to do it.
3. Establish reasonable qualifications. Don't expect volunteers to be elder-qualified to get started. All churches desire mature volunteers who are walking closely with the Lord, but the reality is that churches set the requirements to serve so high, hardly anyone can reach them.
Remember the qualifications listed in 1 Timothy and Titus are for elders and deacons, not for beginning servants! Get people involved early. It's a little risky, but not doing it poses greater risk. If newcomers sit too long, you actually are teaching them not to serve. It's better to recruit newcomers into service quickly—by their third or fourth visit if possible.
Ask for their help putting Bibles out on tables, making coffee, setting up chairs, making name tags, or distributing programs and bulletins. Invite them into anything that says, "We want you to serve." Letting newcomers assume some small degree of responsibility says two things: you are valuable and needed.
4. Invite them to come on mission with you. People want to do something important to make a difference. Replace the request to serve, teach, or manage with a request to help influence the minds and hearts of people for Jesus Christ.
Ask them to help win the world, or at least your community, for Christ. Demonstrate the value of the ministry and resist the temptation to downplay it.
Install a call-driven ministry model. Help your people discern their own call to ministry. If no one feels called to fill a slot in a current ministry, maybe that ministry is due for closure. Let that ministry die with dignity. Called leaders are passionate. Don't start a new ministry without them.
5. Finally, give ministries to younger people. Older church leaders are legendary for making comments like, "Why don't the younger people take over? We've done our job." Or, "Younger people today are just not committed." I'm sure you've heard the comments.
Possibly, you've made them yourself. Young people have potential for leadership, but they just aren't given an opportunity. This is keychain leadership, meaning that whoever holds the keys has the power to let people in or out. Some people hold the keys of ministry tightly, refusing to give them to others.
Others loan the keys out but quickly take them back if the new volunteers don't do things the way the key holder likes. Look for younger leaders and give them their own set of ministry keys. Let them do ministry their way. Support them, train them, and trust them.
They are driven by passion and the opportunity to feel a part of something larger than themselves. Numerous younger people are waiting to be asked.
Excerpted from The 10 Key Roles of a Pastor: Proven Practices for Balancing the Demands of Leading Your Church, by Gary L. McIntosh, Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, June 8, 2021. Used by permission.
 | Gary L. McIntosh (PhD, DMin, Fuller Theological Seminary) is president of the Church Growth Network and professor of Christian ministry and leadership at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. He is an internationally known speaker and church consultant who has written more than 25 books, including his most recent book, The Solo Pastor: Understanding and Overcoming the Challenges of Leading a Church Alone. He lives in California. Learn More » |
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