How many People should be Volunteering at your Church?

Tag Archive - health

How many People should be Volunteering at your Church?

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Did you know that there is a direct connection between the amount of money a church invests in staffing and the number of people who volunteer? What we’ve discovered in our research at the Unstuck Group is that the as a church increases its spending on staffing the number of people volunteering decreases.

Translation: if you want more people to volunteer at your church you may need to spend less on staffing.

What we’ve learned through our experience and research is that the average church in America is mobilizing 43% of their adult and student population in volunteer opportunities. The reason it is so critical for churches to address this and take steps to move their culture in the right direction is because volunteering is discipleship. It’s not about filling roles and getting ministry done through people. It’s not about what we want from people, but rather what we want for people. Mobilizing people into volunteer roles is the ministry of pastors and church leaders. It is discipleship. Because volunteering and living an others first life is the very essence of what it means to live like Jesus.

Interested in learning more? Download the ebook “Vital Signs: Meaningful Metrics That Keep a Pulse on Your Church’s Health” or consider engaging the Unstuck Group to do a Ministry Health Assessment with your church to discover the health levels at your church and develop a plan to move things forward.

In the meantime below is a free exercise you can do with your team to begin addressing the volunteer culture at your church:

Posted in Leadership, Volunteers

How Many People should your Church have on Staff?

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Before you buy into the idea that you need another staff person at your church, think again. That just may be the worst decision you make at your church this year.

It’s not uncommon in churches that I work with to hear them say, “We need to add more staff.” After all if there are problems or areas where the church is stuck then throwing staff at that problem will surely fix it…right? Well, not always. In fact the opposite may be true. In fact the most effective churches that I see have a tendency to hire fewer staff not more staff. They hire more competent team members who have the ability to turn attenders into volunteers, volunteers into leaders, and build teams. Instead of paying people to do ministry they pay people to lead others to do ministry.

At the Unstuck Group we encourage churches to staff to a ratio of 100:1. As you can see in the chart above the average ratio of attendance to staff in most churches is 86:1. In other words for every 86 people in attendance at the church (including adults and kids), there’s typically one full-time staff person.

This number includes all paid staff at the church. That means administrative staff, support staff, ministry staff and pastors. This number also includes both full-time and part-time staff. We calculate the full-time equivalent (FTE) number by adding the total average number of hours part-time staff work and then dividing by 40. That number is added to the number of full-time staff to get the FTEs. For example, if there are 5 full-time employees and 10 part-time employees working a combined average of 200 hours per week, that makes for a total of 10 FTE’s.

Over staffing is a big deal in churches because it’s usually an indicator that:

1. The church has become Insider Focused

Typically an overstaffed church is paying people to do ministry and run programs to keep long-time people in the church happy.

2. The church has a Poor Culture of Volunteerism

There is a direct connection between staffing and volunteerism at churches. Generally the more a church spends on staffing the less likely attenders are to serve.

3. The church has Stopped Growing

There is also a direct connection between staffing and church growth. What we’ve discovered in our research at the Unstuck Group is that the more a church spends on staff the more the rate of attendance growth slows.

In other words the more staff your church has the more likely your church is to become insider focused, have a low level of buy-in and volunteerism by attenders, and to be plateaued or in decline.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing, Volunteers

Pastoring the Pastoral Staff at Your Church

Monday, June 2, 2014

In today’s forward moving churches many church leaders are so focused on what kind of performance they can get out of their Staff that they completely miss the point that their role is to invest in their Staff. It’s easy to get busy managing people, getting things done, and moving towards the vision. But if you’re so busy that you don’t have time to focus on discipleship, development and knowing the team then you run the risk of not only building a toxic culture on your church staff team but missing the real work God has called you to. At the end of the day the church is not a business, it’s the body of Christ. And listen, this is coming from a guy who loves goals, is addicted to progress and would much rather move further faster…but what does it matter if you get there, but you’re all alone, or worse, you’ve left a pile of dead bodies in your wake. If you’re having a difficult time figuring out how to Pastor your church staff while moving towards the goals and vision of the church at the same time then this simple list should help you.

1. Pray

It may sound elementary, but you’d be surprised how many church staff teams simply don’t pray together. On my team we take the time weekly to pray for the needs of the church for a few moments in staff meeting and I regularly start my monthly coaching meetings with individual team members in prayer together.

2. Play

Relationships are the both the glue and the grease that make work possible. Strong relationships minimize friction and keep the team close together. For me, that means I have to like my team, which in turn means we’ve got to spend time together. That’s why I do a couple of nights a year at my house where I get the team together, we’ve blown off work to go bowling, we’ve even been known to shoot skeet at during an offsite (please – all of my pacifist friends don’t hate). I firmly believe that teams that play together, stay together.

3. Spiritual Health Days

One of the better practices that we’ve developed is what we call “Spiritual Health Days.” These are a couple of half days that we build in through out the year where we literally give our staff a half day to complete a set of prepared spiritual exercises and then have lunch with another team member unpacking their experience. Here’s a link to the most recent Spiritual Health Day that we did. Feel free to use this tool with your team.

4. Development Planning

If you know anything about me you know that I believe you get what you plan for. That’s why each of my team members writes down an annual development plan in the form of goals, both professional and personal in nature. We not only talk about these when they’re put into writing but they’re measured through out the year.

Leave a comment; I’d love to hear about what you’ve done to pastor the pastoral staff at your church!

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

Helping Your Church Get Unstuck

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Churches get stuck for all kinds of reasons. It’s okay to get stuck, it’s just not okay to stay that way. There’s too much Kingdom potential on the line. That’s why 2014 needs to be the year that your church finally gets unstuck! At the Unstuck Group we help churches grow their impact through church consulting and coaching experiences designed to focus vision, strategy, and action.

At the Unstuck Group we don’t just offer consulting solutions. We help churches get unstuck!

Check out this infographic to discover more about how we help churches get unstuck!

unstuckinfographic

Consulting Services:

Ministry Health Assessment Complete a comprehensive assessment of your ministry and identify opportunities for next steps.

Strategic Operating Plan Clarify your mission, vision, and core strategies – and then realize it through prioritized action initiatives.

Staffing & Structure Review Determine the best organizational structure for future growth and get the right people in the right roles.

Communications Review communications systems, staffing, websites, graphic design, branding, social media and messaging to develop a communications strategy.

Training Join one of our leadership coaching experiences for pastors and other ministry leaders. We’ll equip and train you to have a bigger impact.

Speaking We’re available to speak at your conference, leadership or staff gathering on a variety of leadership and ministry topics.

Ready to move forward? Our team is prepared to help you have a bigger impact! We’d like to get to know you, talk through options and design solutions that work for you. Let’s start the conversation! Follow this link to get started today!

The Unstuck Group isn’t just the Consulting Group that I’m a part of. It’s the Consulting Group that I believe in – because I trust the team, I trust the process, and I trust the results.

Posted in Leadership

How Fresh Eyes can Help Your Church get UnStuck

Sunday, April 6, 2014

They wanted to reach people for Jesus, but they were stuck. The numbers couldn’t lie. They had been running 200-300 people for the last 10 years, but decline was settling in. Something felt off. The changes they had tried to implement–like creating a “blended” traditional/contemporary worship service–only left them more frustrated when growth did not come. They needed a fresh perspective.

In 2012 I met with Joe Stewart. Joe was the new Lead Pastor at Sabino Road Baptist Church and he was hopeful about their future. He refused to let this ministry stagnate into irrelevance. In my time with Sabino Road I walked them through a Health Assessment to lend new eyes to its strategies, systems and structure and provide a current snapshot of the ministry’s health.

“It was an incredible asset to have someone from the outside say what he saw and provide me with an ally for change,” said Pastor Joe. “The Unstuck Group has a unique way of facilitating discussion and helping staff and key leaders gain understanding of how to move forward.”

Sabino Road did not have a culture of change, which made the process move slowly. Some things were difficult, like transitioning to a new worship pastor and building a new website, but the mindset shift that occurred began to gain ground. The church realized its culture had unintentionally become insider-focused and was able to clarify its mission, vision and values to be about reaching out.

The “transition team” that Pastor Joe rallied set a goal of seeing 100 new guests visit the church between May 2013 and May 2014. As of today, they’ve already exceeded that goal, and they’ve retained 37% of the new folks.

The church has seen more growth in the last two years than it had in the previous 10.

“Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” Proverbs 24:3-5 (NKJV)

Click the following links to learn more about the Unstuck Group and the Ministry Health Assessment or other services we provide to help churches get unstuck!

Posted in Leadership