assess

Cleaning Up At the End of the Year

April 29, 2019 by David Carroll

Well, wasn’t that Easter Egg Hunt that your youth sponsored for the children’s ministry just a blast! I hope you had plenty of “Extra Eggs for Empty Baskets.”

I heard of a neighborhood that had an Easter Egg Hunt that was a lot of fun, too – kids running everywhere, prize-filled plastic eggs hidden in all sorts of auspicious and inauspicious places, even older “children” hunting high and low, shouts of glee upon the discovery of hidden egg treasures, the fun of “cascarones” (confetti-filled egg shells that children crack on each others’ heads). What a fun way to celebrate Easter and to highlight this very special day and season …

… and then it was over …

… and there were candy wrappers and confetti and brightly colored eggshells everywhere. And the morning dew combined with egg dyes to stain stone and concrete. Made me think of Mike Yaconelli’s infamous episode of staining the “Jones Memorial Carpet” in the church ladies’ parlor.

But that is the way that good ministry often is – many times it can leave a mess. The cost of cleaning up is the price we pay for having the opportunity to do ministry in the first place. Click To Tweet

The end of the program year is a good time for some important cleanup.

Ten Places to Pay Attention at the End of the Year

Evaluate – It’s time to climb up in the balcony for a bird’s eye view of what took place in the last year – all seen through the lens of your stated mission. You should ask questions like, “Did this event really reflect what we were hoping would happen in the lives of our youth?” or “Did Sunday night youth group reflect the values that we had in mind?” You’ll be tempted to look forward, but don’t look ahead until you’ve looked back to evaluate.

Review Policies and Game Plans – Many of these won’t change much, but some will out of necessity, e.g. your communication plan will likely change to reflect new modes of youth communication.

Assess Yourself – What are some of the gaps in your knowledge base or professional skills that need some attention? You should be able to address some of those needs through continuing education plans in the coming year.

Evaluate Your Team of Staff and Volunteers – They might need some spiffing up too in the way of training or simply in team building activity.

Financial Accountability – Take a look at how your ministry performed on the bottom line and how accountable you were to the budget under which you were operating. Too many youth ministries make a fiscal mess that calls for a “cleanup on Aisle 7.”

Tighten Up the Rolls – The end of the year gives you a chance to clean up the youth directory and to make contact with MIA youth before they get away for the summer or, worse yet, for good.

Collect Major Event Notebooks – If you’ve done a good job of providing planning information for major event coordinators, it’s time to make sure that all that good information (with new notes included) gets back to the youth office. You can then prepare that valuable information for next year’s coordinator.

Say “Thank You” – Too often we roll right through the year and make a mess of saying, “Thank you.” The end of the program year presents a good opportunity to stop, gather your folks, and give your volunteers a big bear hug by honoring them with a dinner or worship recognition moment.

Redeem relationships – Sometimes the mess is our own, and we’ve left a broken relationship in the wake of a busy year. It’s time to do what you can to bring healing where there is brokenness and to offer a heartfelt “I’m sorry.”

THEN it’s time to look ahead …

Conclusion

When the Easter Egg Hunt, or whatever it is, has absolutely worn you out,

cleaning up is just about the last thing that you want to do. But it’s part of the price we pay, a price that we pay willingly, because paying the price just might give us the chance to do it all again. Click To Tweet

If you want to explore more about what to do when you’ve “stained the Jones Memorial Carpet,” email me at david.carroll@ministryarchitects.com. I’d love to spend some time helping you to clean up the mess, because I want you to have another opportunity to bless the lives of young people.

Searching for Success

April 22, 2019 by Bryant Johnson

Maybe you’ve noticed, there always seems to be one child during an Easter egg hunt who, unsure of what to do, sits down in the middle of the church yard with their Easter basket beside them. Setting their basket out, they appear to wait for the eggs to come and hop into their basket, and walk away, certain they will have all the eggs they hoped for.

Although it can make for a cute approach to an Easter egg hunt, it’s an unsuccessful method for the church in searching for the next person to the join its staff. Yet, this is often the style that unprepared search committees tend to take.

A posting is drafted with the job description and minor details about the position, it’s posted on the church website, and then the waiting begins. And it continues, and the team is left wondering, “What’s wrong with the church if no one will apply?”

In addition, tensions tend to rise about the vacant position and the size of the shoes that now need to be filled. Questions can be heard throughout worship on Sunday morning. “When will we find the right person?” “How will the next person do the job like Jill?” “Do we have someone else already to fill the position? I know they just announced it this morning.” The list of hopes, dreams, and expectations grows larger and larger.

For many churches, the search process can be fueled with worry and anxiety and often results in hurried and rushed search. Although there are stories (maybe legends) of how the hurry up offense resulted in a great hire, it’s more likely that the results of a rushed hiring process are jeopardizing what might be best for the ministry, creating unmet expectations, and settling for the first person who provides a good interview.

What if there was a way to ensure better results from the search? What if the only unknown variable in the search process was the person that will be hired? What needs to be done to find the best fit? Click To Tweet

In order to conduct the best search, there are three crucial components to consider.

The search work always starts in-house.

Assessing what is and what isn’t currently working in the ministry is the first step. What people love about the ministry and what they hope for in the future can be key in making a successful hire. Reviewing the current mission and vision of the church and outlining how this position fits into those goals will set the new hire up for success. What new season is the church entering and how will that impact the job description and responsibilities? These are big questions that take time to answer. The answers though are the foundation of all the work the search team is expected to do.

Form a clear process and timeframe.

Creating clarity about the different stages of the search and setting time frames for each help to keep the work on track. Consider a six-month timeframe when thinking about next steps. How long do you intend to review and assess the ministry? How long will resumes be collected? When will phone interviews begin and when do we intend to move toward in-person interviews? When do we expect to be done? Not only do the answers to these questions help the search team stay on track, but it provides a communication map to be shared with church members, too. Often, having a clear and unified response from the team is enough to turn the tide of anxiety toward patient anticipation.

Be prepared to do your homework.

Avoid the tendency to post the position and sit back and wait for resumes to appear. This is a search and requires some hard work from the team. Create an elevator pitch and social media posts the church members can share. Shape the interview questions to match the type of experience you’re looking for. Take time to discover how the candidates previous work matches up with the newly fine-tuned job description. Follow-up with references to hear more about their previous work and experience. Does that reflect what the ministry needs now and in the future? As a team, agree to wait for the right candidate.

The search process can feel overwhelming with no plan in place. But a diligent, thoughtful, intentional plan for conducting the search process will set up the church and ministry for the type of results you are hoping for. Click To Tweet

So, pick up the Easter egg basket, peek behind the trees, look under the branches, and search until you find the person who will help to lead you in the direction God is calling you to go.

Ministry Challenges

July 18, 2018 by Bryant Johnson

As you peruse Facebook, you’re bound to see the list challenges that appear with titles like, “Top 50 Books Everyone Should Read, How Many Have You Read?” Or, “The Bucket List Challenge, How Many of the Activities Have You Completed?” While it’s not popped up on my feed, I can imagine the list of items on the church challenge list.

Handed out last week’s bulletins for worship
Led a mission project with fewer volunteers than it required
Crashed the church van
Left the microphone on while in the restroom
Prayed with the wrong person in the hospital
Had an infant spit up on my stoles
Angered an entire committee during my first week
Called a church member by the wrong name

This list of challenges that you may face in the church is endless. The truth is that your church is either resolving a challenge or creating one. With God at work in your church, it’s a constant ebb and flow of challenges in the life of the church. While many of us face the next challenge with anxiety, we should be anticipating the next challenge with joy.

To do so, let’s consider the approach that is taken. Often, we take the next good idea from the top of the stack on our desk and move to implementing that latest and greatest idea. Sometimes, this will work for a season, but it rarely addresses the underlying problems. You may hear that new visitors don’t return to your church because they went unnoticed during their visit. Rather than reviewing how they are greeted or welcomed, the church might move straight to develop a new member class that build connections with church staff and leaders. While that might provide great value, it still has not addressed how visitors are greeted, welcomed, contacted, and followed-up with after their first day at the church. The good idea is… well… good, but it’s really the third step in addressing a challenge.

There are three crucial steps every church should take when addressing the challenges, the church is facing.

Assess – Take time to ask questions and listen to responses. As James suggests, we move quickly to listening to those who are impacted by the challenges in the church. We listen for what they love about the church and why this challenge is frustrating to them. It’s in this stage that we truly discover the root of problem we face. Like a doctor would suggest, if your hip hurts the problem may lie in your hip, knee, or ankle.
Blueprint – Using all that you have learned while assessing (listening) the ministry or challenge area, it’s time to draft a new blueprint for the ministry area. You’re building a new plan to achieve new results and speak joy into the ministry. It’s in this phase that new plans are created, new ideas explored, and imagining what it might look like if we moved the ministry in this direction.
Implement – It’s now time to put the next good idea in place. However, only the ideas that help to achieve the new results we desire should be included. If it won’t provide the new results that we want to produce, keep it in your “good idea” stack for another time and focus your energy on the blueprint that’s been designed to achieve those new outcomes from the ministry.

It’s tempting to jump straight to designing a new blueprint or even implementing new ideas without first address the underlying problem. However, it’s unlikely to build the momentum you deeply want to see. Take time to listen to your church, before moving into action.

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Cleaning Up At the End of the Year

Ten Places to Pay Attention at the End of the Year

Conclusion

Searching for Success

The search work always starts in-house.

Form a clear process and timeframe.

Be prepared to do your homework.

Ministry Challenges

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Ten Places to Pay Attention at the End of the Year

Conclusion

The search work always starts in-house.

Form a clear process and timeframe.﻿

Be prepared to do your homework.

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