Situation: The leadership of West End Church describes their church as far too “staff driven” with a strong desire to become more “lay driven.” But they have historically struggled to recruit and train volunteers. They have tried soliciting help through the newsletter, the bulletin, e-mail messages, even begging during the Sunday services but the vast majority of volunteers continue to come from the small pool of faithfuls who have served for years. Often, those who do volunteer complain of being overloaded and burning out.
The youth ministry is no exception to this pattern. The short-term volunteers who served in the youth ministry couldn’t wait until the new youth director was hired, allowing them to step back from their volunteer work. Within months of his arrival, the new youth director realizes that all of his youth ministry volunteers have resigned, leaving the church with less hours invested in the ministry than before the staff person was hired. This youth director, a “kid magnet” filled with energy and creativity feels overwhelmed, recognizing that he now must not only minister creatively to youth but must build an organization at the same time.
When the youth director suggests to church leaders that some programs might need to be cut in order to give him the capacity to develop a volunteer team, he meets with strong resistance and well-meaning suggestions that he simply “learn to delegate.”
Questions:
1. What do you see as potentially being the root cause(s) of this situation?
2. What are some recommended solutions for this problem?
3. What processes should be set in place to prevent this from happening again?
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1. One of the root causes seems to be a congregational formational problem. The staff has created or allowed a congregation to think ministry is done by professionals. If this is a pervasive problem in the congregation, then this youth director will be unsuccessful unless the senior pastor makes it a key priority for change. However, I see a few issue with this youth director. First, the youth director seems to rely on impersonal communication methods-- newsletters, bulletins, emails, and public appeals. I am wondering why this youth director is not taking even a couple of hours a week to have meals with families, couples, and individuals to explore their own faith journeys, potential involvements in the youth ministry, etc. The youth director has failed to "sell" the ministry to people by not having a personal connection. Second, most volunteers who are relieved to have a professional take over are wanting to get away from the high level of administration, communication, and directing functions of the ministry-- all of these take a lot of time and do not have a lot of immediate pay-off for volunteers. Finally, the youth director is suggesting cuts but is failing to narrate a vision and strategy. Even the small effort of a 1-2 page proposal with accompanying powerpoint presentation that outlines strategy, justification, and potential outcomes (as well as weaknesses-- since every plan produces its own problems) can have a huge impact on pastors, elders, church boards, committees, and parents. Being able to put together a proposal and signing on even 1-2 key leaders in the congregation is key.
ReplyDelete2) This youth director needs to create new avenues for adult involvment. Many adults don't want another management task (either they are scared by this or they already do this at work during the week). A lot of adults are scared of teenagers and feel inadequate in having a relationship with them-- parents and grandparents often articulate frustration with their own relations let alone a teen they do not know. Providing simple in-roads (like having an older couple prepare lunch for the youth group and then have the couple recount their own teen years to the youth group) can provide the needed situation for a couple to realize that teens aren't so scary.
3) Step 1: assess what has worked and what hasn't worked. Step 2: determine new ways of communicating and connecting with potential volunteers. Step 3: List off potential volunteers. Step 4: Begin asking potentials to have a meal. Step 5: Listen to these potential people-- what do they think of the youth ministry, how do they see their involvement, etc. Step 6: Begin preparing a strategy proposal. Step 7: Run drafts by a few key, trusted individuals and ask them to look for weaknesses and improvements and suggestions for presenting. Step 8: Present and get leaders to sign-on. Step 9: Communicate, communicate, communicate-- let people know that change is taking place and what this will mean. Step 10: Implement. The big thing is to not panic and allow the proper time for all of this to take place. Youth leaders are notorious for their anxiousness and constant movement from one plan to another. Also, if leader feels like they are failing and may even get fired, then the leader really has nothing to lose by slowing the process down because you can't solve the problem over night. The effective solution is to lay a good foundation one layer at a time.
At least that is one approach that I thought of. I sure there are other approaches and views of the problem(s) and solution(s).
I'm writing this before reading your comment so that I can give some uninfluenced thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI think something that could be the root cause is that there's is no system for matching volunteers with roles that fit their gift sets. It seems that the practice has been to first create ministry programs then find people who would be willing to carry out the programs.
It also seems that people are not excited about serving in this church. If people are truly enjoying their volunteer experience, feeling empowered by it, and growing in their faith as a result, then they will naturally communicate this joy and excitement to their friends in the church. This then creates a buzz whereby other people want to see what's so great about volunteering in the church's ministries.
A solution to go with this problem is to take a completely different perspective on volunteer recruitment. Instead of seeking volunteers to run pre-established ministry programs, the church should be seeking ministry programs that utilize their volunteers according to the unique gift set of the volunteers. Moving to a spiritual gifts model of volunteer placement would yield much better results.
To prevent this from happening in the future, the church should put together a volunteer survey packet. This would include assessments to determine spiritual gifts, personality types, dreams, and life experiences to get a thorough picture of who the person is. This information would then be used to determine what type of role would best fit that person. It will not necessarily be a role that currently exists in any of the church's ministries, but rather a more generalized conclusion. A church leader would work through this process with the individual.
Once this assessment phase is completed, the volunteer would then begin in whatever role was determined. The role would have a predetermined trial period long enough to know whether it is a good fit. There will be as many trial periods necessary until a role with the right fit is found.
Once the role is finalized, a timeline will be set to determine exactly how long it will last. "Vacation days" will be included in the timeline to give the volunteer periodic breaks.
This basically breaks down to a volunteer-driven model rather than the church's current ministry-driven model. Putting the volunteer first creates a more fulfilling environment and is a magnet for others who are seeking to be more action-oriented with their faith.
Oh, another thought. There should also be a program evaluation process put in place. This evaluation would set very specific goals for each ministry initiative and would serve as a guideline to determine if a ministry needs to be discontinued. Specific scenarios would be listed as program-ending scenarios.
Okay, now I've read your comments. I love seeing different perspectives on the same problems!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your highlighting of the personal nature of volunteer recruitment. I think a common theme among our two answers is that the process has to be more organic and more personal. I also didn't think about the presentation aspect from the YP's point of view. I think you're right that a good route to go would be to formulate a detailed vision with a roadmap of how the youth ministry is going to get from here to there. Instead of just saying that programs will be cut, the vision presentation would show what's going to fill the perceived void and demonstrate that ministry needs will still be met, just in a different way.
I walked into a youth ministry like that when I took my job in Middlebury. All the volunteers were sooo thankful that a youth pastor was coming to relieve them of their duties. I managed to talk the head of the jr. high into volunteering for one more school year, and provided her with a lot of support throughout that year.
After my first year, I started to change the dynamics of the youth leadership team in a way that naturally weeded out those who were burnt out because my new process demanded a higher level of commitment. What I found very interesting, though, was that the fresh faces I had invited to the presentation of my new youth staff plan were the people who were most excited by it because I had invited them due to their gifts and interests. I never got to see how this played out because I left shortly after, but it was already generating some grass roots excitement among the new leader recruits.
The approach you suggest is super needed. I think this goes along with the Dream Manager. I see an evolution or morphing of the pastoral role into launching people into their God-given vocation(s) and that even our preaching/teaching transition from pulpit-based to conversation-based. Sort of a chief-formational officer of the church. During my last two years in Fresno, my role was moving that direction. It was a very 1:1 relationship with students, exploring with them, challenging them, etc. My group teaching would center on critical thinking skills and developing their theological imaginations while these 1:1 conversations would seek to bring it all down to the individual's everyday life, their skills and personality, and what God has in store for them in the present and future. Everything in the context of "what are you becoming?" I also started having meals with whole families to explore the inter-related concepts of identity and vocation with the whole family. These meals became a highlight of my ministry. As well, we created many rites of passage, participation opportunities in worship, etc. that helped students to expand on these things. Then our service opportunities, mission trips, etc. would serve as a way to expand awareness, critical thinking, and explore various passions.
ReplyDeleteI also think your idea of ministry flowing out of the congregation's giftings is hugely needed! Pastors and leaders can serve to create frameworks of understanding in order to channel these various works in a common direction. Then instead of offerings being distributed to programs, they can be redistributed to individuals and groups working on various short-term projects.
Speaking of short-term projects... this is something I would add to this whole case study solution. Church leaders tend to think in weekly programs that last forever. If they would change their mindset to short-term projects that are creative and imaginative, then they could really expand the number of people who want to be involved as well as explore whole new areas of ministry without burning people out.
I love the short-term-project perspective. I think this would be a great element to incorporate most especially into the Sunday services. It could provide a relief from the week-in week-out shallow sermons often given. Instead, pastors could still give sermon series if they want, but that would be balanced with other short-term non-sermon services, whatever those may look like (discussion format, drama series, prayer and praise a la Taylor, etc.). Personally, I like the idea of incorporating a college-class-like teaching series in the Sunday service whereby attendees actually acquire useful information rather than "Five Steps to Become a Better Christian (and they all happen to start with the letter "P"...amazing!)".
ReplyDeleteI tried doing something similar to what you did when I was at the church in Middlebury. When confirmation came around, I tried setting up dinner meetings with each of the parents of the confirmands in order to discuss a spiritual growth plan for their kid for the next seven years (the time they would be in the youth ministry). I thought it was a great idea, but I only got one set of parents to actually meet. That church was awesome.
When I discussed our line of comments here with Devan, she began stating an idea that exactly mirrored what you were saying at Olive Garden about setting up a personal formation plan for individuals. I really like that approach.