This blog post is written by our Fuse Ministry Director, Brad Cooper. If you missed part one yesterday you can read it here.
3) Intentional Volunteer Development
Very simply put, if we are going to see our ministries grow, we are not going to be able to do it alone. This means we have to fight the traditional church model of the experts only approach to ministry. There must be a culture shift if are going to reach and raise up a generation of students. Through the years we have failed forward in this area over and over again but one foundational mindset has always remained, every member of the body of Christ is equipped to be a minister of the Gospel of Christ. This is a Biblical truth, not a ministry preference. I am convinced many ministries stall out because of a lack of intentionality in volunteer development. My encouragement would be to really think about your current process.
How does your ministry recruit volunteers?
How does your ministry train/equip volunteers?
How does your ministry place/empower volunteers?
There are many different roles in the body of Christ. Many of those roles are working alongside you and your ministry. YOU (ministry leader) are the only thing standing between people in your church reaching their potential in Christ. YOU (ministry leader) are the only thing standing between your ministry doubling in size. Don’t waste another day. Take inventory of your current approach to volunteering. Make the appropriate changes. Get ready for growth.
4) Establishing A Creative Process
There are few things that have brought me more stress in my ministry life than working on a student service “week of”. If you have ever been here, or are currently here, you can totally relate. Thus, my suggestion is to fight to get ahead. Our creative process is the way we fight to stay ahead. For us it all begins with me getting a ‘word from The Word.’ This sermon is then brought into a weekly creative meeting where we think about music, videos, environments, illustrations, small group dialogues, etc. to support the sermon and it’s bottom-line truth. These support pieces (and the individuals responsible for over-seeing their creation) then have 6 weeks to be developed. We have found that this is ample time to create excellent content while also guarding the physical/emotional/spiritual health of those staff & volunteers responsible for pulling it all off.
For many of you the trick may be finding a way to get ahead before you can have a weekly meeting to stay ahead. The way we overcame this initial obstacle was having a weekend retreat with some of the key content creators. Over the course of the retreat we were able to lay out the next several weeks of our service. Upon our return we began having our weekly meeting to stay ahead in our service planning.
*Remember: Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
For more information on NewSpring’s Student Ministry visit this site or check out their blog.