Every ministry team has the capability of being highly effective at reaching their community for the Kingdom of God. Some need one little tweak, one added member, one subtracted member, or one paradigm shift and they would be a completely different team.
Pastors who want to transform their ministry teams to become highly effective for the Kingdom of God need to follow these 5 powerful steps:
- Assess Performance
- Assess Placement
- Mix Things Up
- Hire and Fire
- Train for Effectiveness
Introduction
If you are a pastor who wants to live the Dream Life in Ministry God has created for you, then you MUST develop a highly effective team around you. Your level of influence in your community will be capped without a highly effective team. You will also serve overwhelmed and living an unhealthy ministry life.
Now, it is easy to say you need to have an effective ministry team, but it is another to actually develop one. The truth is, you may have inherited your team, may have made some mistakes along the way in hiring team members, or you may have mismanaged the team you have and you need a restart button. Allow me to encourage you, no matter where you are with your current team, there is a way forward and a path to developing them to be highly effective. It may not be an easy path, you may have to have some tough conversations, you may have to make some major changes, and you may even have to say goodbye to some dear friends. You are called, empowered, and sent to reach your community. This requires making tough decisions. God is going to walk with you through every step of the process.
In this article, we are going to cover the 5 steps you need to take to transform your ministry team from what they are now to a highly effective team reaching their community.
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Narrative: Jesus Pushing Disciples
First, I want to take us back to when Jesus called his disciples. In Matthew, when Jesus called the men who would follow him for the next three years, he told them, “Come, follow me.” As you know, 12 men answered the call and followed Jesus throughout his ministry.
Now, as you probably know, the disciples were not the cream of the crop of leaders. Most were rejected by the rabbis as disciples during their teenage years. This means that when Jesus calls his 12 disciples, they were rabbinical rejects, most were working in blue-collar jobs, they had chips on their shoulders, and likely had some authority issues. Not really the staff you are looking for to start a church, let alone to change the world. But that is exactly who he chose.
In the end, Jesus knew he could entrust his message into the hands of his disciples because he spent three years of ministry together to transform them into the men they needed to be. Jesus was tough on them, he pushed them, challenged them, and loved them through the most difficult times. He showed love and compassion despite moments of frustration.
Why Transform to a Highly Effective Team
A team is more than just a bunch of individuals who work in the same building together or attend the same staff meetings each week. A team is a “group of people who are interdependent, who share common goals, and who must coordinate their activities to accomplish these goals”.
In our context, we lead pastors, volunteers, and ministry leaders who are working together to accomplish the mission God has given you for the church you serve. Even though they may have their own departments or ministries, in the end, it all has to point to the strategic mission God has given you to reach your community with the Gospel.
Now if you have a high-performing team that already runs on all cylinders to reach your community effectively, then your church is already growing exponentially. It is possible you may not have a need to transform your team.
If that isn’t your current reality, that’s ok. It can be. It will be hard work, but absolutely worth it. Your team is entrusted to you. God expects you to grow them individually and together. Develop them into the best team they can be so they can make the greatest impact possible. This is why we need to understand how we transform them from where they are now to where God wants them to be.
Maximize Team Member Calling
Each member of your ministry team has a calling on their lives. Most of them have specific moments where they remember God calling them into vocational ministry. They have chosen, to give a portion of their lives serving you and the church you minister in. The greatest disservice you can do to them is to allow them to be the same person, at the same skill level, and living at the same spiritual level as they were when they started with you.
While your team is with you, you should do all you can to grow them, challenge them, and push them to maximize the calling the Lord has on their lives. When you step into a role where you manage others, you take on the responsibility of maximizing their calling by transforming them into the members and the team they need to be.
Poor Performance of Team Members
Inevitably, you will have a team member who doesn’t perform at a high level, or even up to their potential. I have watched this scenario too many times. A low-performing pastor is left unchecked because the leader avoids confronting the poor performance.
Time passes and frustration rises. The low-performing staff member is let go and moves to another ministry position. There, the same cycle occurs. In some cases, pastors can go through their whole careers performing below their potential simply because no one over them was brave enough to confront them and help them correct their issues.
You have a team called by God to do great things. Do not tolerate low performance from them. Give grace, patience, and allow them time to develop, but care enough to transform them to perform at a level worthy of their calling.
Team Has Reached Their Capacity
In some cases, your team has reached its collective capacity. The worst thing you can do is pile on expectations and be frustrated with their lack of performance. Once your team has reached capacity, their performance will begin to steadily decline and their morale will be close behind. This is a good indication your team needs a transformation.
How to Transform Into a Highly Effective Team
Even the best teams need to be transformed. If you are not currently living your dream life in ministry, there is a good chance your team is not highly effective and the day for transformation has arrived. If that is where you are, then it is time to take these five steps of transformation.
Assess Performance of Team Members
First, you must assess the performance of your team. Assessing your team begins with having a clear picture of what your expectations are. Do you know what you expect from them collectively and from each individual? “Get all your work done” can not be an expectation of yours. You and I both know that isn’t a realistic expectation for any of us. So, clarify what you expect of your team members so you have a clear bar for assessment.
Once that bar is established, sit down and assess your team’s performance. Do they meet deadlines the way you expect them to? Do they engage members of your congregation the way they should? Are they self-starters effectively managing their areas of ministry? What is their performance level?
Now, remember, if you are just now coming up with these performance expectations, then it is unfair to hold your team accountable for a standard that hasn’t been clearly established and communicated before. But, now is a great time to communicate and establish those standard expectations. Your staff members will surprise you with their response to those expectations. Transformation will begin to take place right away.
Assess Placement of Team Members
Now that you have established and assessed the performance levels of your team members, it is time to assess their placement. Look for members who are not performing well in their areas, not performing as well as they once did in their areas, or members who seem out of sync and unhappy in their areas of ministry. These team members are likely in the wrong positions. It is possible that the youth pastor is waning because he is feeling a transition in his calling out of youth ministry, and his performance is already starting to show signs.
This is often the case if you tend to hire your staff members based on relationship and team chemistry. Sometimes we place them into the position they applied for or we felt they fit because we liked them and wanted them on our team, but there is a disconnect between them and their position. We don’t want to lose them on the team, but a change of some kind needs to happen. It is quite possible they are in the wrong place on your team. Using a metaphor from Jim Collins and his book “Good to Great”, we have the right people on the bus, but they are in the wrong seats. Well, it is time to move them to the right seats.
Mix Things Up on the Team
Now that performance and placement have been assessed, it’s time to take action. This is where being the leader of the team gets real. Unfortunately, part of being the leader is having to make tough decisions, have hard conversations, and even make some people mad at you. What may be comforting to you is the fact that God believes in you enough to place you in the position you are in so you can handle these tough situations. Have faith in yourself, in God, and the process.
After your assessment, for those who are performing at a high level and in the right seats, your action step is to empower them. Increase your level of trust in them, funnel resources in their direction, and simply encourage them in the path they are on. Still challenge them to be better and develop, but have confidence they are right where they should be and doing what they should be doing.
For those who are high-performing but in the wrong seats, you need to consider moving them to a different seat on the team. That may mean you are creating a new position for them, or you are just allocating different responsibilities under their portfolio. However you approach it, do what you can to keep them on the team. Unfortunately, there will be some instances where you simply do not have another seat on the bus for them to sit on, and it is time for you to help them find another church for them to serve in.
If you have a low performer who is in the right seat, your first step is to train them more. Invest in their growth and performance. They may not have had proper training and need someone to invest in their growth. This will help them rise to the level of your expectations. If training doesn’t work, then it may be time to find a replacement for the position.
For low performers in the wrong seat, look for a position that better fits them. It is possible their performance will increase with the change in responsibilities that fit them better. But be prepared. Changing their position will not always increase performance and you will need to replace them eventually.
Hire and Fire Team Members
Transforming your team goes beyond training, coaching, developing, and empowering. In some instances, you will need to hire new members onto the team and let members go from the team.
When firing a team member, do it gently and with as much compassion and grace as possible. Too often we allow personal feelings to get in the way. This opens the door for the departure of a staff member to become a stumbling block within the faith community. Staff pastors are beloved. It can be painful to watch them go because of their heavy integration into the fabric of the church community. Ease the difficulty of transition by paving a way for them to leave and be successful. Allow them to save face and retain respect from those they have served.
When you are looking to hire new members, be sure you are not just assessing skills and performance. You are transforming your team, not hiring an individual. Hire members who will fit your team culture as well as your church culture. Remember, you can always train skills but it is harder to train chemistry.
Train Team for Effectiveness
Finally, now that you have high performers in the right seats, it is time to train them for effectiveness. Remember, the whole goal of this transformation is to develop a highly effective ministry team. You want them to reach your community, grow your church, and provide you margin necessary to live your dream life. This means you have to put in the work to train them so they can be effective. Whether skill development, mindset changes, or philosophy shifts, train your team to be the most effective they can be.
Conclusion
Your ability to transform your team is the secret to making them highly effective. They deserve to be transformed into the greatest team possible. You deserve to serve alongside a team you enjoy and who supports you. This endeavor of transforming your team to be highly effective is worth the hard work, challenge, and difficulty. Because great things lie on the other time for all of you.