Ministry Teams Archives - Passion for Planting

Episode 606: Team Development

Sean Cronin — Sat, 10 Jul 2021 09:00:00 +0000

By NewChurches.com: In Episode 606 of the NewChurches Q&A Podcast, Daniel and Todd discuss what it looks like to build back better in regards to team development.

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

Why you need a structure to team development
How to create an environment that engages feedback

Shareable Quotes (#NewChurches):

“This is a great opportunity to audit your roles and audit the individuals in those roles.” – @toddadkins
“In retooling, it is a great time to take a step back and look at everything you do from the actual ministry that you do to the strategies, systems, and structures of it, to the volunteers and people themselves.” – @toddadkins
“Having a culture of development where people are learning and growing is important.” – @danielsangi
“The key factor is simple structure and systems that will help distribute the weight.” – @toddadkins
“Something as simple as a one page job description can really help you on your way to retooling.” – @toddadkins
“I recommend that all of your volunteer roles are only one year commitments and that way it forces you to do feedback.” – @danielsangi

Recommended Resources:

Listen to Episode 602: Remote Work
Listen to Episode 604: Staffing
Learn more about Ministry Grid

Help us Multiply the Mission:

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Leave a rating and review on iTunes
Ask a question by clicking Send Voicemail on the right hand side of NewChurches.com
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When you’re recording, introduce yourself and your context in about 15 seconds and then record your question for 30 seconds

This Episode’s Sponsor:

Downline Ministries’ mission is to encourage a restoration of biblical discipleship in and through the local church by equipping men and women to know God’s Word and make disciples.

The primary way we partner with churches is through the Downline Institute, a 9 month biblical discipleship training program that walks students through the Bible (Genesis-Revelation), biblical manhood/womanhood, and key discipleship lessons. Listeners can receive $100 off tuition cost by using the code LIFEWAY when you apply at www.downlineministries.com.

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Source: Episode 606: Team Development

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Tendencies That Sabotage Team Building

Sean Cronin — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 09:00:00 +0000

By Shawn Lovejoy: When building a team, we all start with great intentions.

Then disruption comes and it can be hard to tell where things went wrong.

Can we get real? You may be sabotaging your team without even realizing it. Disclaimer: this is actually a lot more common than you may think—don’t beat yourself up.

On this episode of The CourageToLead Podcast with Shawn Lovejoy, Shawn describes the tendencies that sabotage team building and why they are so often found in new teams. Ready to overcome these tendencies?

Watch or listen in on this episode of The CourageToLead Podcast with Shawn Lovejoy on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

Source: Tendencies That Sabotage Team Building

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Diffusing an Angry Volunteer

Sean Cronin — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 09:00:00 +0000

Home > Blog > Diffusing an Angry Volunteer

June 16, 2021

Diffusing an Angry Volunteer

By New Churches Team

Maybe it’s happened to you. You are running through a regular weekend service, minding your own business, and things get tense. Cut it with a knife tense. Something doesn’t go as planned, systems begin to breakdown, communication lines begin to get blurred, and people begin to get riled up. What do you do when the angry people are a part of your volunteer team?

If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will. Here’s a process to follow when a team member gets upset.

Focus on the relationship. It may be that you aren’t the best one to talk to the volunteer who is involved. Perhaps you don’t have a strong relationship with them, but a fellow leader or team member does. Consider involving that person first so that you aren’t exacerbating the situation.
Isolate. Do your best to get the volunteer in question away from others. Especially in the heat of the moment, it does little good to let them continue to rant in a public setting. Invite them kindly and graciously to step outside or to a private room. Show them respect by lovingly confronting them in private.
Get the facts and find common ground. Figure out exactly what happened. Ask questions. Let them vent. And whenever you can, use a phrase similar to “I can understand why that makes you angry. It would make me angry too.” Of course, only use that phrase if you can do so truthfully.

To read the remainder of this article, and to listen to the entire video training with Danny Franks, click here for the full videos and post.

These videos are part of Plus Membership. To get full access to them, and much more, I encourage you to become a Plus Member. Click here to see all the benefits of becoming a Plus Member.

Source: Diffusing an Angry Volunteer

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Servant Leadership with Dino Rizzo

Sean Cronin — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 09:00:00 +0000

By Shawn Lovejoy: Servant leadership is not an isolated event.

It is a cultural shift.

In this episode of The CourageToLead Podcast with Shawn Lovejoy, we are joined by Dino Rizzo, Executive Director of ARC Churches, Associate Pastor at Church of the Highlands, and author of Servolution.

Shawn and Dino discuss how serving accelerates the efforts of leadership and share about Serve Day, an annual opportunity for churches to impact their communities by showing the love of Christ through service projects.

Watch or listen in on this episode of The CourageToLead Podcast with Shawn Lovejoy on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

Source: Servant Leadership with Dino Rizzo

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Three Ministry and Volunteer Audits to Consider

Sean Cronin — Sun, 30 May 2021 09:00:00 +0000

Home > Blog > Three Ministry and Volunteer Audits to Consider

Three Ministry and Volunteer Audits to Consider

By Todd Adkins

By Todd Adkins

We cannot eliminate uncertainty. In this season of ministry, we can only address what is known. When it comes to the number of volunteers we need and in what positions we need them, there is a fair amount of uncertainty moving forward. As new guidelines and new normals are established in our churches, the ideal number of volunteers we previously needed and the roles in which we needed them has likely changed. Taking into account the CDC’s guidelines for vulnerable populations, you may also lose volunteers who fall into at-risk categories or have family members that do so.

However, there are ways to pivot and adapt to these changing dynamics.

Because ministries in the church are often siloed, we only have an anecdotal idea of who is serving and where they are serving. And let’s face it. Many volunteers serve in multiple roles. To have a good understanding of your church overall, you must audit every ministry area and all volunteer roles. This is not an easy task, but it will save you a great deal of time and frustration down the road.

Here are three audits to consider.

Ministry Role Audit

Identify each ministry area then identify all volunteer roles within that ministry. For each role, note the current number of volunteers serving in that role. Next, determine if the role should remain as is, should pause during this season, or should be adapted.

Ministry Volunteer Audit

It’s time to name names. For each ministry area and role, note the names of volunteers who serve. You should also note how often they serve and their assigned service or shift. Unfortunately, at least for now, identify if they or a family member are considered part of a vulnerable population and if it’s okay for them to serve in this role according to those guidelines.

The Great Roll-Up

The heavy lifting is mostly done. Now, you can roll up each ministry of your church to see what areas are at risk and what areas have the most volunteer positions that are paused and could be redeployed to areas of need. You also can dig deeper and understand which volunteers are at risk and help them find a safer role elsewhere.

You likely have names coming to mind right now. For example, one of your door greeters may be a 20+ year volunteer, but he is part of a vulnerable population because of his age and health. Instead of greeting attendees who arrive on Sunday morning, maybe he could moderate chat and greet those who participate in your church’s livestream or make phone calls to those who remain homebound.

Our team wants to help your church respond with vision, understanding, clarity, and agility in the midst of this season. Check out our FREE Guide to Rapidly Recruit Volunteers and Realign Ministries on Ministry Grid here.

Source: Three Ministry and Volunteer Audits to Consider

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How To Lead Better One-on-One Meetings

Sean Cronin — Thu, 27 May 2021 09:00:00 +0000

By Shawn Lovejoy: Of all of the tensions you will face as a leader, the tension you will have the most self-doubt and inner turmoil over is the tension around the people you lead.

I am talking about Team Tensions!

Ever felt those?

Thought so. So have I!

While I can’t give you the entire system for building a killer team without killing yourself or your team, I can give you one simple step towards what I call “fostering togetherness” on your team.

In fact, a couple of years ago when the NBA relaunched in the bubble to complete their season during the pandemic, Phil Jackson made the statement, “The team that emerges from the COVID-19 NBA bubble as winners will be the team that has the strongest sense of ‘togetherness.’”

Togetherness is the competitive advantage of effective teams in today’s culture; the ability to foster it is the superpower of today’s most effective leaders.

Here’s your simple step:

Schedule Strategic One-on-One Meetings with everyone who directly reports to you.

Are you already having these meetings? Great! This article will help you get better at them by giving you a simple system.

Are you not having these meetings? You should be! Don’t beat yourself up, just make the adjustment and add them to your calendar.

(Do you have too many people reporting to you? We would love to coach you through that, but you can start the process toward narrowing that focus in our free teams course.)

Let me give you a simple focus and formula to get you started having deeply impactful one-on-one meetings with your team.

First, when meeting with the individuals on your team, be sure to…

Build People Rather Than Institutions.

Maximize the potential of people and team around you. Not programs, productions, problems, processes…people.

This meeting is the time to get to know them personally. Ask about their family, their hobbies, their dreams. Share about your family, what you did over the weekend, the things you dream of.

Humanize this meeting and your team will begin to approach you with more trust and honesty.

Next, during your meeting…

Create a Simple, Predictable Agenda.

What is happening to predictability on intensely competitive, rapidly changing teams (especially in a virtual environment)? It is being destroyed.

The practices that leaders are adopting to make their teams more competitive often ignore the human need for predictability.

Many leaders I coach are frustrated by this, but the truth is, unpredictable meetings lead to erratic results and eroded trust.

Every one-on-one meeting should include space for asking good questions, listening, getting updates on projects, coaching and accountability.

Here is a short list of 4 good questions to ask in every one-on-one meeting with your team:

1. What’s working?

If your team is filled with high capacity leaders, they naturally focus on what needs to be fixed. Force them to start by identifying where they’re winning. Celebrate with them and celebrate them.

Hearing what’s working also gives you perspective. You learn what your team thinks is most important, which helps you coach or be in the mind of your team. You also learn of what could be potential competitive advantages for your organization.

2. What are you challenged with?

Word this question right. Don’t ask what isn’t working. Ask what is challenging them personally. This opens you up to more honesty and for them to share more from their personal lives. When trust is high you should hear about work challenges and private challenges organically in the same conversation.

3. What do you need from me?

Availing yourself to serve your team is more than just symbolic leadership. Leaning into one issue someone on your team is having for just a few minutes can possibly fix a problem they have spent hours on, not to mention the value you add to them simply by be present in their problem.

4. How can I pray for you?

I am a spiritual person. That means I am a spiritual leader. You may not be. If not, this question may not be for you. For me, I want to pray with my team. In some instances, we pray on the spot. In the right setting, this is a valuable tool to help those on your team be valued at the highest level as human beings.

One of our coaches would love to walk you and your team through our process of building healthy one-on-one meetings, but first, let’s start by discovering how coaching could best serve you and your team on a Strategy Call. Schedule a call today!

Schedule your strategy call

— We JUST Launched THE COURAGETOLEAD PODCAST with Shawn Lovejoy SEASON 2 —

SEASON 2 of the podcast is filled with practical coaching from myself as well as interviews with seasoned leaders like Bill High from SIGNATRY: a Global Christian Foundation, Derwin Gray from Transformation Church, and Elizabeth Dixon from Chick-fil-A!

Episode 1, titled “The #1 Thing That Keeps Me Awake at Night” just dropped on May 18th.

Subscribe today!

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Source: How To Lead Better One-on-One Meetings

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Why Role Clarity Is Vital

Sean Cronin — Wed, 26 May 2021 09:00:00 +0000

Home > Blog > Why Role Clarity Is Vital

Why Role Clarity Is Vital

By New Churches Team

During COVID, so many churches changed people’s job descriptions. Many people, both paid staff and volunteers, may not have even had a job description. Some churches saw higher rates of attendance and giving, some saw much lower attendance and giving, some paused church planting, and some forged ahead. But what was constant was that people’s roles changed.

Audit First

Hopefully by now you’ve already audited all your ministries to see what is in perfect alignment with the purposes of church and what is effective and not effective. The next round of that is looking at the volunteer positions that go with those categories. If you stopped or paused a ministry, those volunteers are your first line of offense for new roles.

By auditing ministry areas and then volunteer roles you naturally have the ability to say what roles and people are missing and match those up accordingly. Once you define a new position, one of the most helpful things you can do is write it down. Create a one-page document that describes the role and responsibilities. When you write it down, it’s helpful both for the volunteer and for you.

Make It Simple

New roles and new volunteers result from deciding what you are stopping or changing. There will be many things that have to change. But it’s not about changing it’ it’s about simplifying it and making it more flexible. You have to be nimble going forward. As quickly as things have changed in the last few months, it is good for us to not get set in our ways and make sure we are adaptable and moldable for change. The easiest way to do that is to make things as simple as possible. This applies to job descriptions but also processes and language.

Things are continuing to change now, but don’t delay having this conversation about job descriptions and role clarity. You may have to revisit it in a few months, but it is important to get on the same page and know what success looks like right now.

Adapted from the New Churches Q&A Podcast Episode 574: The Importance of Role Clarity. Click here to listen to more to church planting, multisite, and multiplication tips.

Source: Why Role Clarity Is Vital

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How to Accommodate – and Engage – Kids in a Multisite or Portable Church Venue

Sean Cronin — Fri, 14 May 2021 09:00:00 +0000

By Portable Church Industries:

Creating an irresistible, welcoming environment for young families and their children is extremely important.

Launching a new church or campus in a rented facility offers many benefits that permanent locations don’t: lower cost, speed, flexibility, community partnership, and volunteer engagement. That said, creating an excellent and inviting children’s ministry in a rented venue requires different planning and preparation than a permanent campus. From our 25+ years assisting churches launch in rented spaces, here are some best practices & insights of churches that launch children’s ministry well.

Create A Great First Experience

The children’s environment sends a message. Think about the message I received from a church I visited with my children when I arrived ten minutes before service time and found many adults milling around and inside the classrooms. People were still organizing the room, and a back door to the classroom was open. I got the message that this church was disorganized and maybe didn’t think any visitors would show up today.

Contrast this with Cypress Church’s new campus launch in Ohio. They engaged Portable Church® to design their children’s area at the high school they rent so that new families had a curbside personal welcome, easy check-in experience, a volunteer escort to the classroom (past a security guard). The kids area was separate from the main worship area, and had special treatments in the classrooms that were bright, colorful, and engaging for the kids. Visiting Cypress Church, you get the message that the team expected visitors and were more than prepared for them. Meaning visitors will likely conclude that their church is organized and intentional with all aspects of their ministries.

Volunteers & System Design

Finding enough volunteers for children’s ministry is challenging in all churches. When you add the extra volunteers needed for setup and teardown, it is critical to take the extra time and expense to design setup/teardown solutions that are volunteer centric – designed to maximize BOTH the volunteer and participant experience. Churches that plan ahead and engage portability experts when designing their portable children’s ministry have better success and don’t wear out the volunteers as quickly as churches that do it on their own.

Relationship With Your Venue

As a church who will interface with the landlord and community, you will want to be treated professionally and have a professional relationship. But, if Sunday setup requires extreme early arrivals because you have hundreds of totes and equipment not designed for quick setup, in heavy cases built in the back garage that scratches floors, the church appears anything but professional to the school. We have witnessed over and over that when the church invests in a professional portability solution, the school/theater/community center treats them better, more professionally, and with more grace.

Theater Best Practices

Can you do children’s ministry well in a movie theater venue? Yes. It can be done well and is being done well by hundreds (maybe a thousand) of churches across the country weekly. Valley Christian Church in
Poughkeepsie, New York is one of those churches that does children’s ministry well. They partnered with Regal Entertainment Group and Portable Church to design an excellent and inviting church environment for young families. You can learn more about their story here.

School Best Practices

Two (of many) best practices for schools are utilizing treatments and partnering directly with the staff of the local school. Many school rentals are organized by the district office. But, it is the local teachers and custodians who are most impacted. Churches that serve the local school without strings attached create the most favor and best partnership experiences. A number of churches get teacher classroom supplies wish lists and make sure they are filled. Others flood the school with willing volunteers to read and serve. An interesting story about one church (Faithbridge Church) that launched strong in an elementary school is here.

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Source: How to Accommodate – and Engage – Kids in a Multisite or Portable Church Venue

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Episode 589: Student Ministry in a Micro-Church Context

Sean Cronin — Mon, 10 May 2021 09:00:00 +0000

By NewChurches.com: In Episode 589 of the NewChurches Q&A Podcast, Daniel and Ed discuss what student ministry can look like in micro-churches.

“How, as we launch micro-churches or small church plants, can we encourage and develop strong student ministries?”

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

What student ministry looks like in micro-church context
Why student ministry volunteers are important

Shareable Quotes (#NewChurches):

“The idea is that the house church is not going to be age-graded in the same way.” – @edstetzer
“Students will be brought into the life of the congregation as the young adults that they are.” – @edestetzer
“If it is a movement, sometimes the student ministry does connect across the movement.” – @edstetzer
“There can be community student ministry. There can be collaborative student ministry with other micro-churches.” – @edstetzer
“My experience has been that most people in micro-churches who have student age participants, they are actually involved in the life of the church and are often engaged in the student ministry of another church in town in a larger context.” – @edstetzer
“As a volunteer, you have an opportunity for profound impact.” – @edstetzer
“Perhaps your role within a micro-church context within a student ministry is about equipping students and developing them into leader-developers and disciplers who can disciple others in their context.” – @danielsangi

Recommended Resources:

Read Organic Church by Neil Cole

Help us Multiply the Mission:

This Episode’s Sponsor:

No matter how many people you have on staff at your church, there’s only so much you can accomplish in a day, right? Your church exists to serve your community, so the mission of your church and its staff is to reach as many people as you can.

So BELAY, the innovative staffing solution with over 10 years of experience serving churches with virtual assistants, bookkeepers and social media strategists, is offering a free download of their resource, ‘Church Leaders: Essential Strategies to Unleash Productivity.’

Let BELAY help your church live its mission in your community by helping you juggle less and accomplish more. Visit belaysolutions.com/lifeway for your free download.

The post Episode 589: Student Ministry in a Micro-Church Context appeared first on NewChurches.com – Church Planting, Multisite, and Multiplication.

Source: Episode 589: Student Ministry in a Micro-Church Context

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Practical Strategy for Developing High-Capacity Volunteers with Danny Franks

Sean Cronin — Wed, 05 May 2021 09:00:00 +0000

By unSeminary: Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast! This week I’m chatting with a repeat guest, Danny Franks, Pastor of Guest Services at The Summit Church. The Summit Church has twelve locations around North Carolina and the heart of the church is set on sending. They continually want their people to be asking: how does God want to use me and send me?

As a church grows, it’s not uncommon for the culture and DNA to get watered down. The Summit Church realized that as they launched more campuses and moved to a central model, the guest experience looked drastically different from one campus to another. Listen in as Danny shares how to examine your church’s DNA and replicate it by developing high-capacity volunteers that will in turn invest in others.

We can’t send people that we don’t keep. // In order to be a good sending church, we first need to learn how to be a good receiving church. For The Summit Church this meant taking a good look at their guest services experience at each of their campuses. Guest services covers a person’s visit from the street to the seat and everything in between. It’s about making sure the church is doing everything it can to help its guests know that they’ve been expected, planned for, and that the church is excited to have them return.What is your DNA? // To create a uniform guest services experience at each of your campuses, first ask: What is our DNA when it comes to caring for guests? It will be a process to talk through who the church is and what it looks like to welcome guests well and help them take their next step toward the gospel. After a lot of prayer and discussion through these questions, Danny developed a High-Capacity Volunteer Cohort to help communicate the church’s DNA surrounding guest services clearly to all the campuses.Identify your high-capacity volunteers. // The High-Capacity Volunteer Cohort is an eight-month journey where a small group of two to five volunteers from each campus come together. At The Summit Church there are about thirty volunteers that are a part of the Cohort at one time. They meet each month for an hour and a half to discuss books and principles that help everyone understand what the church’s DNA is. The books cover a wide swath of topics and serve as a springboard for the monthly conversation and there is always a practical component to what they teach. Ultimately the goal of the Cohort is to equip volunteers to be better leaders.Invest and Influence. // As the Pastor of Guest Services, Danny has a dotted line relationship with the Guest Services Directors at each campus. They report directly to the campus pastor and may be responsible for guest services as well as things like small groups and membership. Sometimes all of their responsibilities feel like an impossible task but when they are identifying high-capacity volunteers who are in turn trained, they are replicating themselves in a smaller group that can then go on to invest in and influence others. The Cohort process has allowed the Directors to be more like shepherds and less like administrators. And it’s empowered volunteers to find areas of need where they can pitch in and help with specific problems.Where to begin? // You don’t have to be a multisite church or a mega church to start a High-Capacity Volunteer Cohort. Any leader should be looking for who their high-capacity people are and invest in them. The first question to ask as a leader is what’s the win? What are you trying to accomplish with this cohort? What is your timeframe? Your cohort doesn’t have to last 8 months – you can do a smaller, focused version over six weeks. Next define the parts of that DNA that you want to clearly communicate. If you have trouble identifying who your high-capacity volunteers are, that may indicate there is a problem with your leadership pipeline. Something needs to shift to make sure you are regularly identifying and bringing in those potential high-capacity people. Also be aware of not having a clear end goal in sight. For more tips on how to begin, download this PDF: High-Capacity Volunteer Cohort: A How-To Guide.Resources for your cohort. // Danny has a wealth of resources on his website, including articles, workshops, training events, a coaching network and more, that you can access by visiting dfranks.com. In addition, a great book to read with your cohort would be “People are the Mission: How Churches Can Welcome Guests Without Compromising the Gospel“. In it Danny shows churches how to take a balanced approach to hospitality by developing ministries that are guest-friendly from the outset and gospel-centric to their core. Churches will learn not only how to effectively bring people in and convince them to stay, but also why our hospitality to honor the stranger doesn’t stand in opposition to honoring the Savior. Lastly, download this PDF for an overview of The Summit Church’s High-Capacity Volunteer Cohort: Guest Services 2020.

To connect with Danny Franks, reach out to him on Twitter @letmebefranks, and learn more about The Summit Church by visiting their website.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe

Is your church ready? Are you re-opening? Ready to welcome MORE people to worship and grow with your church? Are you out of space or are your interiors dated and needing improvement?

The architecture and design team at Risepointe want to help you align your facility with the mission and vision that God has given your church. That’s why Risepointe developed The Needs Analysis. The Needs Analysis is a comprehensive look at your site to seat experience through the lens of your first time guests. Learn more by visiting www.theneedsanalysis.com. Let them know you heard about The Needs Analysis on unSeminary for $500 off!

Source: Practical Strategy for Developing High-Capacity Volunteers with Danny Franks

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