The volunteer nature of local church ministry teams can be challenging on many levels, but people committed to you and the church want the ministry to be effective. Once they truly support you as a leader, they will invest significantly to make the mission a success.
Most teamwork is centered around relationships, not institutional titles or structures. Once you connect with the best people for the roles in your ministry, you want to provide them with a great experience of being part of the ministry with you.
Getting your team in place and keeping them engaged in the mission and ministry should be a priority for senior leaders in the church and the church staff in their respective ministry areas.
Here are five thoughts for getting your people involved in the ministry with you as the leader:
Great leaders know how to engage.
Engagement is about getting people’s attention, often by listening to them.
Great leaders enroll people.
Leaders need the same gifts as salespeople. This is essential to enrollment. If you don’t like to “sell,” sharing the vision and inviting people to join you will be challenging. You are continuously selling. Recruiting talent and sharing ideas, proposals, vision, and plans require your ability to persuade others.
Great leaders energize their troops.
They need to have a contagious passion. Low-energy leaders lead low-energy organizations.
Great leaders empower their followers.
Great leaders empower their teams to take responsibility for leading others, themselves, and their ambitions.
Great leaders generate enthusiasm.
Great leaders find ways to make their mission engaging and exciting to their followers.
Your strongest leaders seek effective communication and meaningful challenges. Don’t water down your invitation to join you in the local church ministry’s hard and excellent work. The people you want are those you have to invite — those who will wholeheartedly help take the ministry to new heights.
These ideas came from reading Unusually Excellent by John Hamm.
