Growing Your Team as a Team

Recruiting and involving new people in ministry is a top priority and one of the biggest challenges for leaders in the church. A key aspect of creating a continual stream of new volunteers is shifting to a team approach in recruiting and team ministry building.

Team Story Telling. 

Now I don't mean that your team gets together around a campfire with some marshmallows and tells their favorite childhood bedtime story. What I mean is, everyone on the team actively telling others the visionary story of where your ministry is going and the real life stories of the great things that happen every week you serve.

People love to hear an exciting story! Even more important,  we all dream of being part of the story. Teams gather tremendous recruiting power when collectively team members focus on telling the story of where your ministry is going, what you do, and lives that are being changed. Those they come in contact with and hear the story begin to see themselves in your ministry before they are even asked to serve.

  

Team Story Telling Increases Your Potential Volunteer Pool.  If your present team is comprised of 20 volunteers and each volunteer has 5 relationships in the church that are not involved, your circle of potential new volunteers grows to 100.   

Team Story Telling Transforms You From A Drop of Water to a Waterfall. Never forget that a waterfall is nothing more than a bunch of drips that decided to work together.  One person on a soapbox telling a story looks like a fanatic.  A group of people telling a story is a movement.  Team Story Telling produces positive forward momentum.  Ecclesiastes 4:9 tells us, "Two are better than one because they have a good return for their work. " Team Story Telling infuses explosive momentum and strength into your ministry, enabling you to recruit new workers in bunches, and expand your ministry leadership base quickly.  

Team Story Telling Happens When Your Team Knows The Story. Engaging your team in Team Story Telling can only happen when you have adequately communicated and infected your team members with vision.  Remember that vision is a clear written articulation of where you are going.  Does your team know your vision?  If they don't know the story they can't tell it.  I make it a habit to begin every meeting with a reiteration of our vision and some quick story telling.  I remind the team why we do what we do, what we are going to accomplish, and some great stories that are unfolding.  This keeps them infected with excitement, purpose, and focus. When your team knows the vision, and sees themselves in the story, they become amazing at telling your ministry story and helping others join the team. 

Enthusiasm & Excitement

Coach your team to present your ministry to potential new team members through a spirit of enthusiasm and excitement. Guilt will cause people to make short term adjustments but not long term commitments to your ministry. 

Celebrate Success Together

Take time during your team meetings to allow for short celebrations of the positive difference you are making in the lives of those you serve and the victories you have had as a ministry.   Continue to foster an atmosphere of excitement and enthusiasm about serving in your area.  

Expect Enthusiasm

Continue to remind your team about the importance of staying positive and enthusiastic when serving.  Also, keep your most energetic and enthusiastic team members interacting with the congregation.  You want people to experience the power of their excitement.  

Assimilate New Workers Seamlessly 

The greatest challenge new people to church and to ministry have is assimilation.  Often we lose potential workers and new team members because we fail to assimilate them into the community and culture.  The more seamless getting connected to the team community it is the more steady your growth will be and you will lessen your turnover.    

Develop an assimilation process

Take a moment and ask yourself this very simple questions...

1. "How do new people get connected to serving in our ministry?"

2. "Are the steps to getting involved worth the reward of serving?"

3. "What assimilation systems are in place to get our new team members connected to our existing workers?"

Promote Assimilation Religiously

If you don't, you will quickly develop a ministry club rather than a ministry community.  Team members must be continually reminded, prodded, and pushed to welcome and include new people into the community of the ministry.  This means making a distinct commitment to invite and include them in activities that occur outside of times of service.  Extending these opportunities to new people send them the message, "We value you as a person, not just because you serve."  

Mentor 

The urgent demands of ministry often can keep us from the important responsibility of mentoring.  Mentoring is your bridge to continual leadership development in your ministry.  While it is not a necessarily complicated process, it isn't always easy, and mentoring takes time. 

Make your mentoring process clear and simple 

Once again mentoring isn't rocket science.  Plain and simple it is the basic process of...

     1. I do it-- master what you will teach

     2. You watch me do it -- model what you want learned

     3. We do it together -- support what you've taught

     4. I watch you do it -- inspect what you expect

     5. You show someone else -- recruit & teach someone new

Make mentoring a top priority

Mentoring new team members must be a top priority for the entire ministry.  Everyone needs to see themselves as a mentor to new people who have joined the team.  This allows the weight of training to be shared beyond the leader, connects new people with the team through doing ministry together, and lets new team members feel valued and supported.