One last article on processes for your church or organization. With questions coming in about processes I thought I’d finish this series up with some examples of effective processes. I use the term processes, some use the word systems for the same “how” structure within an organization. A reminder, when I use the term processes I am speaking of; Processes are those repetitive actions you use to accomplish your goals and advance the mission or purpose of your organization.
First, I’ll share of two processes we led a church in Ohio to implement. While serving as Minister of Education one of the first processes we implemented was a monthly training meeting for all Sunday School leaders. I let the leaders choose the day and time to meet and I led the meetings. Each meeting was about strengthening the Sunday School; fruitful teaching, care structure, class structure, community involvement, prayer ministry within the class, evangelism among others. Prior to this, the church had not any structured training to equip their Bible study leaders.
In the same church we moved away from the fill an empty slot with a warm body mentality. The pastor asked when we were going to fill a particular teaching position. My reply, “I’m not. I’m not going to fill the spot with the first person who will say yes.” Let’s face it this is our recruiting method in many churches. Instead we changed our processes to locate the person most gifted by God to fill positions. We looked for people with passion for the task at hand. People will serve out of their passion.
That church grew by an average of ten percent each year while I was there and continued for several years afterward. Why? It was not about me. The church grew because we implemented simple processes that everyone could grasp. Processes that allowed people to grow instead of forcing certain ideas.
Years later, in another state, another group, regional training was lacking. Some churches had not experienced any training for more than twenty years. God gave me an idea to create a training event. I set out to create a one day event that would encompass training for various areas of church life.
The state convention got on board but cautioned that they had never (in twenty years) held or seen any event in that region of the state to have more than 250 participants. We were praying for 400. On the inaugural day we had 520 in attendance. Why? Not because of me. We instituted a process for promoting and recruiting that far exceeded anything the churches in that region had previously witnessed. That event grew from the 520.
In each of the processes shared above two more components that made these successful were prayer (bathed in prayer) and the personal touch. The more personal between the leaders and congregation/constituents the greater success of your process. Your people do not need to hear you telling them what they need to do while you sit in your “ivory tower” as they see it.
It’s not your people, take a look first at your processes and work toward implementing new, effective processes that lead to fruitfulness. Read the other 3 articles on processes. Let me know how I can assist.
George Yates is an Organizational Health Strategist and coach, assisting churches, organizations, and individuals in pursuing God’s purpose for life. Click here to receive this blog in your email inbox each Tuesday.