It’s easy for church leaders to assume their volunteer relationships are catching the people falling through the cracks. They hope that small group leaders touch base when a couple stops coming or assume a seasoned volunteer is equipped to train new volunteers. It’s dangerous to mistake relationships for process. Even the best volunteers allow people to slip through the cracks when they don’t have a process in place to support them.
People know you as the office expert, but you know the role goes much deeper. Success for you is about empowering your leaders with the data and administrative support they need to understand how people are being cared for and how God is moving in your ministry.
It’s easy to judge the health of a church by the number of seats filled every Sunday. However, just because a church is large doesn’t necessarily mean it's healthy. I’ve talked with pastors in larger churches who’ve admitted their church wasn’t as healthy as it could be. And I’ve talked with pastors in smaller churches who haven’t ever been in a healthier church environment.
Some critics tell me that I am too business-like. They believe business has no place in the local church. My thought is that the work of the church is too important for us to isolate ourselves from different perspectives. This is what helps us become more effective church leaders. Church goals may be different than business goals, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from each other.
We all know the importance of aligning the suspension on your car. I have this checked no less than once a year. Failing to do so makes it more difficult to keep the car pointed where I want it to go. It also forces me to replace tires much sooner, costing me time and money. If it’s easy to understand the value of alignment for a car, why is it so often undervalued within our churches?