Going one step further…

Many of our leaders in ministry today are forced to wear many hats. I have found that great communicators are probably not the most gifted administrators. Even though our leadership needs help, most don’t know how to go about hiring the right person or recruiting volunteers. There was a phrase I heard used in ministry several years ago that said, “You have to get the right people on the right bus.” True enough. I would like to suggest that everyone on the bus has their own individual seat. If only there was only a way to direct the “willing” to the “right seat.”

Using PLACE as a resource…

Whether you are involved in leadership training, volunteer training, ministry placement, or recruiting volunteers, you need to know about PLACE. PLACE uses the DISC assessment to assess participants personalities. This is a great starting place for hiring the right person. I can tell you that if you hire a very social, inspiring person and place them where they have little or no contact with people you have set them up for failure. This personality assessment is as important as any skill assessment. Many people that I have introduced to PLACE now say they will not make another hire until that prospect has been through the PLACE assessments. If you are struggling getting the right person in the right seat give PLACE a try. I believe it is just the ticket.

Every investor wants to know how much his/her investment makes over time. However, rarely do I hear about churches wanting to know how to measure effective as it relates to their people serving, and whether their strategy to involve people in ministry is paying off.

WHY?  Some potential reasons are:

1. Believe the results are impossible to measure.

2. Believe the results are not important to measure.

3. Don’t want to know the facts regarding how effective they are at connecting people to ministry.

4. Have never considered why or how to measure ministry involvement.

I went on church staff in 1998 as Associate Pastor of Ministry Development and my job involved connecting our members to ministry. I never thought of where to start. I did what most church leaders did and started by giving our people spiritual gift and personality assessments. While instruments like spiritual gifts assessments play an important part, if I had it to do over again, I would not start with an assessment. I would start with knowing how many people were already involved in ministry. This result then becomes a starting point, so I can measure the results. I would start with wanting to know how much commitment a person already had to ministry. Then I would implement the process. Yes, the process would include the use of spiritual gifts assessments. Then I could measure at the end of a year or whenever I choose whether my process was increasing servanthood/ministry involvement at my church.

A practical place to start…

One of the easiest ways to find out how many people are serving already is by conducting a survey. Today’s technology and the survey resource provided by PLACE ministries allow people to log onto a customized church webpage and complete a survey. The survey provides information that helps knowing how many people are doing what role in ministry and how long of a commitment has been made. The survey also provides how many hours a week the ministry is taking and a short job description of what the person is doing. These results added with the investment of purposeful ministry strategy are bound to guarantee a big ministry involvement pay off! Go to Mobilyzr to learn more!