Podcast

034 – 6-Step Process to Double the Number of Leaders in the Church

Posted on August 5, 2020December 4, 2023 by Ryan Sparks

What’s in this Episode?

Things would really be great around here if I could just get people off their duff and into the ministry. Have you ever said anything like that? I certainly have. The whole issue of developing volunteers and more importantly, developing leaders, is absolutely critical to the growth of your church. We’re going to talk about the 6-step process to increase church leaders in this particular episode.

Read the Transcript

Dick Hardy 0:25
The church that gets more volunteers will grow. Wow, that seems pretty bold. I was talking to a buddy of mine here a couple years ago, Chris, and he had just written the book, “Your Volunteers“, great book to pick up very short, easy read. But he made this bold statement, “if you get more volunteers, you will grow.” Not you might grow. Not you could grow, but you will grow. And I’m just telling you, I’ve taken that one. I mean, I’ve been in ministry for years and when I heard that, I thought that is so right. If you’ll get more volunteers, you will grow. Now, some of you may watch this and listen to this and say, “well, yeah, great, Dick. How do we do this?” Well, yeah, there’s all sorts of things that need to be done. And we’re not going to cover it all here in a little 10 minute podcast. But I want to tell you, if you’ll pay attention to the six things we are going to talk about today. You’re going to be well on your way to doubling the number of volunteers that you have.

Jonathan Hardy 1:24
Well, and specifically, leaders.

Dick Hardy 1:27
Leaders. Exactly. Yeah.

Jonathan Hardy 1:28
You got to start there before you can solicit.

Dick Hardy 1:31
Exactly, going through, that’s exactly where you’re going to start. So now these are six, very simple things you can do that will help you double the number of leaders. Now, I’m not giving that to you as an absolute guarantee, but I’m giving that to you as something to set your sights on. Because you as the leader, need to take the action to be able to develop and grow more and more leaders. So Jonathan, get us started on exactly what we started.

Step #1: Set Your Sights on a Specific Number of Leaders That You Desire

Jonathan Hardy 1:57
Yeah. So the first thing we have to do is we have to set your sights on a specific number of leaders that you desire. So you got to figure that out. You have to take a little time, probably do a little reflection, kind of look at your current leadership structure. And we recognize here when, I’m saying this, I’m referring to people who are volunteering their time, we’re not talking about these paid staff members. Most people don’t have that. So when we’re talking about this, that’s what we’re talking about. So you look at your church, how many volunteers do you have leading different ministries? And then figure out what you want to get to. So maybe you want to double, maybe you want to go from 8 to 16, or from 15 to 30. Or maybe it’s not a full double, but maybe it’s, you know, go 50% increase and 8 to 12, or something. But the idea is, the more people you have leading, the more effective you’re going to be able to carry out the ministry. I mean, it goes back to the Jethro principle of Exodus 17. He was doing it all then he solicits these others to help him make the judgments and the decisions for all the things going on, and that multiplied his ability to help more people. The same thing is true for us, we have to get more people leading. And so we have to constantly say, what is the number I need? And what do I need to do to get there. So we’re gonna talk about some things to get there.

Dick Hardy 3:14
And that point is, you’ve got to set your sights on a number. You can’t just sit and say, “oh I want to get more.” Well, get a number. And once you do that, you’re going to see yourself get way closer to hitting that number.

Jonathan Hardy 3:27
Otherwise, if you don’t have a target to aim at, then you’re gonna…

Dick Hardy 3:30
You’re gonna hit it every time.

Step #2: Clarify the Mission and the Vision

Jonathan Hardy 3:30
Yep. So okay. Second thing is you want to clarify the mission and the vision of why you’re wanting to do all this, because here’s the thing, once you’ve established what you’re aiming at, then you need to make sure that you have your leaders on board with what you’re trying to do. So you want to be able to paint that picture for them. Give them the vision, cast to them the vision that you have, so that they can get on board and even help you in the process.

Step #3: Enlist Current Leaders to Help You

Jonathan Hardy 3:57
It’s not just the lead pastors job to recruit all the leaders. We need other people helping us recruit. If we’re all in this ministry thing together, if we’re all striving to help reach more people and build the church, then we need people. We need people to come alongside us. We’re linking arms with people. So you want to help paint that picture for the current leaders you have to say, “hey, we have eight leaders, we are shooting to have 16 leaders by the end of this year. And so I’m asking you, my current leaders, here’s some things you can do to help me. Give me a name. Give me some suggestions. Let’s start a journey together of talking about who can we be soliciting help from to take some leadership roles.” But you have to start by clarifying the mission and vision of what you’re trying to accomplish.

Step #4: Expand Leader Opportunities

Dick Hardy 4:40
Exactly, exactly. Okay, so far, we’ve talked about three things. We’ve talked about setting your sights on a very specific number that you want to grow your leadership team to, you want to clarify mission and vision, and you want to enlist current leaders to help you in the process. So the fourth thing is to expand leader opportunities. Now frankly, there are unlimited leadership positions. I mean, you may sit there and think, well, I’ve got, you know, six leadership positions. Don’t think in those terms. As the leader, you’re always responsible to help think how can I expand these leadership opportunities? How can I provide more opportunity for more leaders to step in and actually be fulfilled in the gifts that God has given them. So if you’ll expand leader opportunities, you’re going to get more leaders. Remove the boxes that you put people in, I see this all the time. Okay, this person, this person is a children’s worker, and they’ve been a children’s worker for the last 10 years. Well, okay. And we honor that, but maybe they have the capacity to do something different. So don’t have anybody in a box that says they can only do this. If you’ll remove boxes, you’re going to see people really step up to be able to serve in greater and greater ways.

Step #5: Develop A Comprehensive Leader Training Process

Dick Hardy 5:50
The fifth thing is to develop a comprehensive leader training process. Now, I really want you to check out podcast number 9, 10 and 11. Actually I’m going to give you four of them. 9, 10 and 11. It’s a three part series that we talked about 14 church leadership training ideas, not an exhaustive list, but it gives you a pretty comprehensive set of things that you can do to provide training for these new leaders. You want to increase from some number to another, you got to have training opportunities. And then you want to check out Episode Number 21, where we talk about how to develop leaders at your church. Leadership is everything, your leadership and your leader’s leadership.

Dick Hardy 6:43
Now, when you’re developing leaders, we want to encourage you to be very specific with requirements qualifications and expectations. We watch way too many of these things fail. Because pastors are just trying to fill a slot with a leader and they don’t make their expectations clear.

Dick Hardy 7:01
Another one that maybe seems counterintuitive: demand much. “Oh, man, Dick, I can’t do that. You know, everybody’s really busy.” But you ask little and you’ll get little. Demand much. Ask people largely. Just set the bar high.

Jonathan Hardy 7:19
Well, I was just gonna say, this was a lesson I had to learn when I was on staff at James River. I actually was challenged by one of the other pastors that I was on staff with, and they were just talking about what they were doing, and it just kind of made me feel like oh, wow, I gotta change my mindset. Because I am thinking smaller than I should and I shouldn’t justify or make excuses for why a person wouldn’t necessarily want to step up and lead.

Dick Hardy 7:48
That’s their job.

Jonathan Hardy 7:49
That’s their job to make that decision. Yep.

Step #6: Ask

Dick Hardy 7:52
Good. And make it abundantly clear. And then the sixth point you really have to do is, you have to ask. You know, I’ve seen it with, with organizations where they’ll have somebody who can make all sorts of plans, build charts, build flowcharts, write job descriptions, but they never ask. Now, if you’re a phone resistant type of person, you know, it just drives you nuts to pick up that phone because you’re afraid everybody’s gonna say no to you, you’re gonna have to pray to get over that. Because you’ve got to pick up the phone, you’ve got to meet people at the church, you’ve got to talk to people. This can be painful for some, but if you’re going to lead you have to ask.

Jonathan Hardy 8:35
But I would say this. I mean, if we believe that God is calling people to step up into leadership positions, we don’t need to be afraid. Now I know, naturally, we feel afraid, but we have to get to that point where we say, “you know what, it doesn’t matter what I feel, because if God wants them to do it, and if they’re following God, then they’re going to do it.”

Dick Hardy 8:54
In fact, you’d be a roadblock if you didn’t ask.

Jonathan Hardy 8:57
Right and so whether it’s getting together for lunch or whatever, I like your point of if a phone is hard, well then get together for lunch or coffee or have them come to the office or whatever. But don’t be afraid to ask, because again, it’s not your job to determine whether they’re in or out. It’s them and what God is saying to them.

Dick Hardy 9:15
Yeah, exactly. People will, you know, will overwhelmingly say yes, if you have prayed, if you have thought this through, if you’ve laid out a compelling vision for them. People want to be part of something big and what’s going on at your church is big. So, Jonathan why don’t you recap for us?

Recap:

Jonathan Hardy 9:33
Yeah, let me just recap real quick. We covered a six step process to double the number of leaders in your church. First is to set your sights on a specific number of new leaders that you desire. Second is to clarify the mission and the vision. Third, is to enlist current leaders. Fourth is to expand leader opportunities. Fifth is to develop a comprehensive leader training process. And then sixth, and finally, is to ask. Now the thing is, we’ve got to be developing these leaders, but if we’re going to be developing these leaders and growing these leaders and enlisting more leaders, what do we have to do? We have to be growing as personal leaders. And so that’s why I want to encourage you if you have not yet checked out the Four Secrets Masterclass, it’s the four secrets that helped pastors go to the next level and help you reach more people in your church. This is a masterclass that I put on, it’s less than an hour. And you can simply go to leaders.church/secrets. Again, that’s leaders.church/secrets. Check it out. The replay’s there so you can check it out at your leisure and hopefully that you find it helpful. And then finally, we want to encourage you to rate and review this podcast if you’re listening on one of the podcast platforms. Specifically on Apple podcasts. We had a review from Church 2911 and he or she said, “always a hit. Always a hit. Every time there is something to glean or a challenge to get you over the hump. Thanks, guys for your investments in the church kingdom.” Thank you, Church 2911 for that review, and if you feel like this has been helpful for you, we’d love to have your review. You just may get mentioned here on the episode.

Dick Hardy 11:03
On the Church Tips Podcast!

Jonathan Hardy 11:03
Yeah, so we would love that. And also please subscribe as well, on any podcast platform. Subscribe on YouTube, if you’re watching this on YouTube, and we’ll look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks so much for being with us today. Take care.

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