Since I love both football and strategy, it probably won’t surprise you that I’m an avid participant in fantasy football. Every year I pull a league together with my friends, draft the team that I think is going to win the championship and then manipulate my lineup each week to pull out another victory. I also like to win, so I take fantasy football very seriously.
Here’s one key lesson I’ve learned with fantasy football: You can’t win games if you don’t field a full team. You need a player in every position. If you don’t, you won’t score points and you won’t win games.
As crazy as it might sound to try to win games without having every position filled, it happens just about every Sunday at many churches across the country. Our players don’t wear pads, but they each still fill critical positions in children’s ministry, guest services, worship and every other ministry associated with our weekend services. When positions aren’t filled, we can’t win.
To help you diagnose whether or not this might be an issue in your church, here are some symptoms to keep in mind:
- Are leaders asking to hire more staff? It’s possible you may need staff, but many times this is an indication you need more volunteers instead. On average, churches hire one full-time staff person for every 100 people in attendance. If you already have more staff than that, you probably have a volunteer shortage.
- Are key volunteers overworked? If you have volunteers serving in several different volunteer areas, that could actually be creating a barrier for others to serve. If the same people always respond to help, others will stand by and wait for them to step up. Sometimes we need to focus key volunteers to free up new opportunities for others to serve.
- Do you feel like there’s not enough help? On average, churches get 45% of their adults and students to volunteer at least monthly if not more often. If your percentage of volunteers is smaller than that, you need to connect more people to serve. Even if you’re at 45%, are you going to settle for being average?
- Are you tired or burned out? If you feel it, it’s likely that others feel it as well. God didn’t design ministry or leadership to be done alone. As Jethro challenged Moses, “You’re going to wear yourself out—and the people, too. This job is too heavy a burden for you to handle all by yourself” (Exodus 18:18, NLT). If you’re tired, you probably need help.
Are one or more of these symptoms present in you church? If so, we have an opportunity to help you take your next steps. We’re hosting a FREE online event called Get More Volunteers where we’ve interviewed nine leading pastors and church leaders about how they’ve built healthy, thriving volunteer ministries.
You’ll learn from Dave Ferguson, Pete Scazzero, Larry Osborne, Ronnie Floyd, Chris Mavity, Dave Gibbons, Carey Nieuwhof, Sue Miller, and Matthew Barnett.
Click the banner below to register now!
