As a follow up to the positive, we ask, “Do you see any gaps”? The New Members (NM) coming in are generally apologetic when they make any negative remarks; after all they are excited about their new church home. At the same time that they are apologetic, they seem to grasp that we are giving them a chance to participate in making decisions that will better the church, so they let us know what is lacking. The perceived gaps may reveal an area of service for the NM, an opportunity to teach the NM the why behind what we do or a ministry area that needs attention.

If we, as church leadership, can remain teachable enough to learn from others and if we are steeped in a God-relationship so that we remain faithful to the path He has us on, we will do nothing but benefit. We will receive the privilege of seeing through fresh eyes to new perspectives that can shed invaluable light on how we are doing ministry and where we might consider looking in the future.

Who’s on First?

Certainly pastors are charged with pastoring their flock. The Bible is clear that much is required for those who have been given the task of shepherding. What about Ministry Leaders? What about Assimilation Teams? Who is ultimately responsible, and is there a way to know who should be serving and where they should be serving? I can remember going to church as a young adult and seeing the same few people doing most of the ‘service’ at the church – at least those in visible positions. Has much changed in a decade or two? I believe it has. More and more churches are wanting to have a better grasp of how many people are serving. Who are they? Are they serving in areas that match their giftedness?

Spiritual Gifts Tests are Just the Beginning

Tools abound in the marketplace to help churches assess spiritual gifts and personality to try to get people serving in their right place. But you cannot stop there. Just getting people sent out to a ministry does little to help those responsible for accounting of these resources to report on these numbers of servants. To do that, true tracking and accountability systems need to be in place – - and they need to be used!

Ideally, churches need to know the serving opportunities that exist in their church, the number of hours required to do those jobs, who they have to fill those “jobs” and when those people rotate in and out of service (i.e. when the jobs are empty and needing new servants).

Communicating the opportunities for people to learn how God created them through the use of spiritual gifts tests/assessments, and vehicles to use that data to place them into ministry service are needed at every church regardless of size or denomination.

Stopping your efforts at sending servants out into ministry without keeping up with that service is akin to keeping a checkbook where you record every transaction but never balance your book – you don’t have a clue where you are.

Let’s not let our churches go into the ‘red’ because we don’t know where people are serving. Just like getting a message from the bank that you are overdrawn, we don’t want to find out that our ministries are suffering from lack of servants only when it’s too late.

How about your church? How do you keep track of your servants?