Growing Your Ministry Through…Process

Every ministry that intends on sustaining healthy growth must have a process. This process starts from the time a potential recruit applies to your ministry and ends when they leave. In between, it should cover things like: training, recruiting, scheduling, workflow, and promotion. It may also include things such as disaster recovery, emergency procedures/backup plans, and scheduling meetings. If you lack any of these things that are critical to your ministry’s execution, you could lose your new recruits as quick as you gained them. Here is why:

Execution without process is not Biblical

For some reason, staff and lay leaders think that just because it is God’s work, we should jump right into it and accept that it is less than optimal. Excuses range from “I don’t have enough people” to “God just wants to see the lost souls won, it doesn’t matter how we do it.” However, if you have ever read your Bible at least to Genesis chapter 1 (*cough*), you will see that our God is ordered and had a process that He executed.

Execution without process is unreasonable

Would you spend any amount of time at all with a team of volunteers that are disorganized and ill-prepared for service? Unless you have a deep connection to the ministry leader, you’d probably bail that day or soon after, right? So, why do you expect anything less of those that sign up for your ministry and you are not prepared for them?

If you have ever participated in the Crown Financial Ministries study, a 40 Days of Purpose, or some other organized small group, take a moment to think about how it worked. It went pretty smooth, didn’t it? You showed up with your study complete, possibly recited your memory verse, and discussed how the study applied to your life. In fact, many of those studies even suggest that each member or couple lead a week on their own to see how easy it is. It works because they placed before you the process and materials necessary to make you successful. Should we do anything less for our ministry volunteers, even if we are an ushering ministry, or run the overhead projectors?

Execution without process is unsustainable

Is your ministry like running a sprint rather than a marathon? Ministry processes give your volunteers a chance to prepare for a marathon of service by giving them a direction to run, a distance to target, and the time to prepare.

Some things to consider when defining your process (we’ll dig into some of these items in future posts):

1. A recruting/interviewing policy – who are you looking for, how long do you expect them to serve, and how do you know if they are a fit for your ministry?
2. A training policy – how do you plan to take a new recruit and get them comfortable with the tasks at hand?
3. A procedures guide – what are the rules and steps for accomplishing assigned tasks?
4. Exit guide – what are the steps to transition someone out of your ministry, and what sort of security considerations are there?

In the end, your process, like your purpose, should be follow the 5 D’s: Determine, Define, Dream, Document, and Disseminate. Now, go build a process for your team!

BTW, Anthony Coppedge has a great post on using checklists and process to make sure you hit the record button.

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