Is Your Ministry Moving Forward or Just Staying Busy?
I’d been serving at one church for a few years. I’d put in the systems the children’s ministry needed the most, most of my volunteer positions were filled, and I was happy with the way things were going. Kids were getting saved and baptized. Visitor flow was good. Outreaches were well attended. I felt like I could just sit back and relax. Which we all need to do from time to time.
But the problem comes when we take our foot of the gas for too long. Just like a car traveling at high speeds needs to have the accelerator depressed to maintain speed or go faster, we have to do the same in our ministries. Otherwise, we’ll find ourselves stuck in the middle of traffic with others whizzing by us.
I call this mode of ministry Maintenance mode. It’s easy for any of us to slip into, many times unintentionally. Like the situation I outlined before, I didn’t mean to slide into Maintenance mode. It just happened. Then one day I looked up and all my carefully crafted systems were understaffed and in need of repair.
Other times we can intentionally go into Maintenance mode, like during a leadership transition or tragedy. I’m moving my current church out of this mode after being without a pastor for 8 months.
Maintenance mode isn’t all bad. We can’t be stretched thin forever. There are times when we need to release. But the problem comes when we stay there too long.
So, what I propose is that you set your ministry up for Growth mode. The Growth mode is not just maintaining speed, it’s accelerating. It’s not waiting for volunteers to come, it’s actively searching for them. It’s not running the service, outreach, or ministry you’ve always run. It’s doing something new and different to reach people you’ve never reached before.
Running your ministry in Growth mode is the only way you’ll reach new people.
Growth mode is the only way you’ll be able to continue ministry for years and generations to come.
Growth mode is the only way you can keep quality people serving.
So how do you move from Maintenance mode to Growth mode? It’s not easy and I’m still learning things along the way, but here are three key ideas as you transition. Before I go any further, I am indebted to Jim Wideman’s excellent book Stretch. Many of the ideas in this post are from his work.
1. You always have to push or you’ll lose
I’ve seen it a hundred times and experienced it myself. You get most of your volunteer positions filled, and so, you sit back and relax. You put your focus on other things and let your recruiting efforts fall to the wayside. Sure, you can do this for a week or ever a few months. But six months or longer, you’re going to run into problems.
You can have the world’s best culture. People can absolutely love coming to your church and serving in your ministry. But people will still leave. They get a new job. A health concern arises. Their life situation changes. You will lose people. Just as much as you won’t be where you are forever, nor will your volunteers.
So, you must always push. As Jim Wideman, the literal GOAT of recruiting once told me, “Always be recruiting!” If by some miracle that you fill all your volunteer positions, then it’s time to create assistants and mentors. Build your bench. So that when the day comes that your most faithful volunteer steps away, you have someone ready to step and take the reins.
But volunteering is just one aspect of ministry. There are many things that we can just set and forget. So, look at every aspect of your ministry and ask yourself, “Are we just doing what we’ve always done?” Look at your music. When was the last time you sang a new song? Look at your outreaches. What was the last time you tried something different? Look at what your teaching calendar. When was the last time you tried a new method, curriculum, or Bible story?
If you’re not pushing, you’ll lose momentum. So, look at each element of your ministry and ask, how can I make this better? Do that and you’ll be on your way to Growth mode in no time.
2. You will only rise to the strength of your systems
Craig Groeschel has said that your systems are perfectly designed to get the results that you are getting. So, as you move from Maintenance to Growth mode, look at all your systems, check-in, volunteer onboarding, policies and procedures, visitor follow-up and assimilation. All of those systems can be improved upon.
Over the years, I’ve learned that the systems that got you where you are won’t necessarily get you where you’re going. So, you may have to break a good thing to get to a great thing.
I wrote about it in this post. But a few years back, I led the charge for changing our Church Management System. We were going multi-site. But our management system, and more specifically our kids check-in system, was on a local server, not cloud-based. The system had served our church for years. I didn’t like it, but the powers that be were happy maintaining the status quo. But we were headed for a big change, and I knew our current system wasn’t going to work. It took months for change. I had countless meetings. Numerous trainings. I learned all new things.
But it was all worth it. When we launched our second campus, all our systems were ready for new Growth and new people. They’re still using those systems today.
If you want to reach new people. If you want to take your ministry to the next level, you’re going to have to change some systems to better reach them. If you’re in kidmin, I wrote a whole book about it.
3. It may feel easier to stay. But stay too long and you'll lose your best.
This goes along with my first point, but it’s important. High-quality people, thoroughbreds as Dave Ramsey calls them, are attracted to growing and successful ministries. When they see momentum, when they see excitement, when they see success, they’ll come and want to be a part of it. People want to win. And thoroughbreds that much more.
But if you just maintain. Just keep things the same, those high-quality people you worked so hard to recruit will move on. They’ll feel like they’re spinning their tires and wasting valuable time. Out of loyalty and commitment they may stay with you for a while and even suggest improvements to be made. But eventually they will go.
Donkey’s, to keep to Dave Ramsey’s metaphor, on the other hand, don’t really care. They’ll show up, do what you ask them to do and little else. They may not even do that. Because they lack energy, excitement, and drive, you’ll find yourself pulled down to their level.
So instead of settling for warm bodies, look for the best. Talk about your wins to everyone. Show how you’re being successful. When someone comes with a new idea, listen to them and if it lines up with you mission/vision, give it a chance. It may just be the breakthrough you’ve been looking for.
Living in Maintenance mode is easy at first. You can sit back and relax. And sometimes we need that. But if you stay there too long, you’ll start to fall behind. Moving to Growth mode can be difficult. It may take longer to get out of it than it did to get into it. As Newton’s law says, an object at rest tends to stay at rest. But remember the second part, an object in motion tends to stay in motion.
Keep pushing. Keep changing. Keep moving. You never know what God may do.
