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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.