Tag Archives: change

When is a fabulous event a bad thing?

Posted on by

by Carol

When is a fabulous event a — well, maybe not bad, but — less than 100% good thing?

History

I knew a church that had an annual outreach event every year.  All of the children’s games, signs, food-prep stuff, etc., etc., were brought out of storage when the time rolled around.  Every church member (it seemed) had a favorite place to serve.  Even the families in the neighborhood knew when to expect the flyers and when to show up in droves.

Now, you are probably thinking that it had turned into a bad thing because everyone was in a rut.  And to be fair, it was not working as a true outreach event anymore.  But that wasn’t what turned it into a problem.

The New Kid

The problem started when someone new in the church — who had no awareness of the previous history — was asked to do something very different with the event.  Result?  A fairly successful event because the members tried their best to stay in their rut.

The Staff Kid

The next year, a staff member headed up a moderately successful event.

The Newest New Kid

And then came the “fabulous” year.

A new person in the church — who had no awareness of the previous history — was asked to lead.  She poured her every waking moment and her extended family into the event.  I repeat: It was fabulous.

But…

The next year, she didn’t want to lead it again.  (Can you blame her?)  And the staff member didn’t want to lead it again.  And the earlier recruit didn’t want to get burned again.  And the original games and signs and food-prep stuff had long since gone in a dumpster.  And the church members no longer had their favorite places to serve.  And….

And Finally

No one wanted to try to follow last year’s “fabulous” act.

Lessons to Learn

There are quite a few lessons here:

  • It’s hard to change a well-entrenched ministry.  It has to be done with careful planning.
  • It’s not fair to throw a change like that into the lap of a new volunteer.
  • The dance between volunteer leaders and paid staff can be tricky enough.  Switching roles back and forth creates even more problems.
  • Annual events build over time, so the leadership needs to be recruited and supported over the long haul. A flash in the pan burns out everyone.

Where were we? (more on church size)

Posted on by

by Carol

Where were we?  Oh, yes.  We were looking at the impact of church size on volunteers.  We had just looked at the large and very large churches, but we didn’t look at the difference between them.

IS there a difference between large and very large churches when it comes to volunteers?  The size categories we’ve used are small (up to 100 in worship attendance), medium (101-350), large (351-750), very large (751-1800), mega (over 1800) and super (more on that in a later post).

So, what’s the difference when you go from 600 up to 1,500?  You are going to have a larger campus, more staff, more programs, more diversity in the congregation, higher quality in everything you do, and more distinction between skills of staff and volunteers.

If you ARE a volunteer, you are going to see these differences in the church.  But, honestly, you might not feel the difference in terms of how volunteers are led or organized.

Staff members and volunteers who lead volunteers, though, will find that it requires
**more intentional communication,
**more intentional recruiting, and
**more lead time for events.
By the time you get to 1,500 in worship, the staff members are learning from the mega churches — the tips, the tricks, and the systems.

For the volunteers, other things matter more than mere numbers.  A church in the midst of explosive growth (because of relocation, a new pastor, etc.) may not have all of the policies, programs, and systems in place yet.  The newly-large will look much different from a church that has been large for a decade.  A church that has been slowly succumbing to outdated leadership may be an unpleasant atmosphere for volunteers, even if it has all of the bells and whistles of the very large church.

Yes, there are differences between large churches and very large churches, but they aren’t as easy to spot  — which is probably why you don’t see many books and articles about their unique characteristics.  In fact, they often get lumped in together.  It could be that more people just means more of what you’ve been doing, rather than requiring anything distinctly different.

If you have some ideas about how volunteers are influenced by the unique features of large or very large churches, leave a comment.  Let’s explore this together!

The Twilight Zone Revisited: From Medium to Large

Posted on by

by Carol

It’s interesting being in a medium-sized church that has a high proportion of members who have come from much larger churches.  I didn’t realize what was driving my expectations and those of other folks in the church until I started writing this post.

A Different Transition
A while back (see 10-30-2015 post, The Twilight Zone of Transition), we noted that volunteers make the difference going from small-sized church to medium. The transition from medium to large, though, can be uniquely difficult to maneuver. Members of the congregation, including volunteers, struggle to adjust their relationship to the lead pastor.  While members of the small church expect direct access to the pastor, members in the larger church understand that the pastor can’t do everything.  As the church adds paid pastoral staff, members look to the staff for matters within their areas of responsibility.

Half & Half in Medium
In our medium-sized church, I get the best (and worst) of both worlds!  Folks who have been with the church since it was small go directly to the pastor with their questions and concerns.  Folks who came from larger churches come to me, expecting me to know everything and expecting me to have the ability to make adjustments.  They are familiar with going to the staff member instead of the pastor.

As a volunteer myself, though, I am frequently out of the “staff” loop and can’t make the adjustments.  We are a medium church — so I got the title, but no office or day-to-day communication with the pastor.  (Let’s just say that I like the ministry, and I knew what I was getting into.)  Nevertheless, the expectation is there.

Armed with this new insight, I can revise my expectations.  We live in a fuzzy area, where some members will go to the pastor and some will go to the pastoral staff responsible for the program.  Neither way is wrong in the medium church.  But what about the large church?

Transition to Large
As the church continues to grow, members need to learn to look to the staff members instead of going to the lead pastor.  It is becoming an Acts 6 situation, protecting his time to lead the church and prepare sermons.  And, of course, the church will probably hire a paid staff member to take my position to the next level (1 Timothy 5:18).

Take-aways
We could say that communication becomes critical during this transition — which is true.  But even more, leaders and other volunteers need to be flexible and tolerant.  Medium churches can do things that won’t fly in the large church.  Until it is a large church (and everyone in the church thinks like large-church members), there will be differences of opinion of how things ought to be done.

If you want the medium church to become a large church, let people learn and grow into the structure.  If you want to be sure that your medium church will never become a large church, be rigid and intolerant, insisting that everything be done the way that the large churches do it.

7 Underestimated Words for Leading Volunteers

Posted on by

by Carol

In Matthew 5, Jesus repeated the phrases, “You have heard it said that ……, but I tell you……”

You have probably heard that the “seven last words of the church” are, “We’ve never done it that way before.”  But I tell you, maybe the seven most underestimated words for leading volunteers are, “We have always done it that way.”

Neither statement is necessarily true, thank goodness.  Still, they seem contradictory, so let’s take a look.

Some congregations fight against change with every ounce of their strength.  Staff members come and go, but the nucleus of the church holds fast to an old mindset that will not budge.  And yes, in that case, the congregation that refuses to entertain any new thoughts or different ways of doing things will die.  It may be a slow, lingering decline.  The church might even look like it is thriving, but only because it is a sealed-off pocket of ancient rituals in the midst of a landscape of change.

But we have a saying about not throwing the baby out with the bath water.  Think about that picture for a moment.  Who came up with that one?!  I’m trying to picture my grandmother or great grandmother heaving a washtub of soapy water from the back porch — along with the little, pink bundle of joy.

There are things in church that are precious to us.  They tug at our heart strings and define the roles we play and carry the faith to the next generation.

Take Christmas traditions, for example.  Candlelight services probably mean more to those of us that have always lived with electric lights.  We have a core group of Christmas carols that have been carried on for decades (some for centuries).  And most Americans could stage a Christmas pageant, even if they have no personal relationship with the central character.

Traditions, rituals, and things we “have always done” give us a head start with volunteers in the church.  People can imagine where you are going with a concept.  They can see themselves as a part of it.  They can build on last year’s event.  Youngsters can look forward to the day that they will join (or grow into a new role).  Newcomers can get a sense of what holds this group together at the heart level.

Change can be good.  Don’t underestimate tradition and repetition, though.  And don’t be surprised if, when you try to repeat something, you find that it turns out different.  Remember, we serve a God who makes snowflakes.