nccreating and curating a recruiting culture 2 · creating and curating a church or...

006203451

CREATING AND CURATING A RECRUITING

CULTURETODD ADKINS

© 2018 LifeWay Leadership®

LifeWay Christian Resources

One LifeWay Plaza

Nashville, TN 37234

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Christian Standard Bible®,

Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and

CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,

without prior permission of LifeWay Leadership®.

3

Your church is growing, especially with young families.

And with these young families come more kids in your

nursery and preschool rooms during worship services.

Where do you find additional volunteers to care for

these children?

Your church is launching a new campus with limited

downtown parking. You have a strong parking team

leader at your current campus, but the service times at

both campuses overlap. How do you find someone so

both campuses have equipped parking team leaders?

Your children’s minister just found out that she and her

husband are expecting twins. Though she anticipated

putting together her maternity leave plan over the next

few months, her now high-risk pregnancy has placed

her on bedrest. Where do you find someone to lead your

children’s ministry in her absence?

You’ve likely experienced one (or more) of these

situations in your church. What do you do when

you need more volunteers, leaders, coaches, or

ministry directors?

Far too often in our churches, we think it’s the job of

the pastor and paid church staff to recruit volunteers

“CULTURE EATS STRATEGY FOR BREAKFAST, BUT CULTURE GETS ITS APPETITE FROM PURPOSE.”1

4

and leaders when there’s a gap in ministry. This leads

us to focus on leadership placement over leadership

development, and we settle for warm bodies instead of

weekly volunteers. After all, Sunday is coming and we

need someone to fill in the gaps.

What if we instead equipped those under our leadership

to feel confident in recruiting and developing someone

to serve in their ministry role? What if we created a

leadership pipeline that

provides continuity of

leadership when someone

steps out of a role or

when we need more

help in a ministry area?

How do you begin to create this type of environment

that emphasizes the importance of recruiting and

development with all people in your church or ministry?

You start with culture.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE

Creating and curating a church or organization’s distinct

culture is one of the most important, yet difficult,

elements of leadership today. While the information

economy paved the way for leaders to expand their

knowledge and enhance their skills, it has also become

A LEADERSHIP

PIPELINE PROVIDES

CONTINUITY OF

LEADERSHIP.

5

increasingly difficult to create and maintain a distinct

culture in the whirlwind of messages in the modern day.

When it comes right down to it, the most important

function of a leader may be the creation, management,

and, when it becomes necessary, destruction of culture

within a church.

Now, more than ever, we realize leadership and curating

culture are intertwined and difficult to understand

independent of one another. “The only thing of real

importance that leaders do is to create and manage

culture.”2 Edgar Schein made this statement in the early

1980s, well before the Internet redefined the dynamics

of nearly every organization in the world. Remember

the 1980s were also much less transient times when

a person tended to work within one organization their

whole career. Each person is a carrier and conveyor

of culture, which makes it all the more difficult to

manage today.

WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE?

The idea of organizational culture seems obscure and

difficult to define at first glance,

especially in the church world.

A more formal definition of

organizational culture might be

CULTURE IS THE

SHARED VALUES

OF A GROUP.

6

“the underlying assumptions and beliefs shared by a

group of people that operate unconsciously in a church

or organization’s view of itself and its environment.” 3

The deeper level of assumptions should be

distinguished from the “values” and “artifacts” typically

associated with the surface level of culture.4 For the

sake of simplicity, let’s just agree to define culture as the

shared values of a group.

Leaders often reference three layers of culture in a

church or organization. The cultural pyramid provides

an illustration of these three layers: artifacts, stated

values, and underlying assumptions. 5

LOGOS &LANGUAGE

SOCIAL NORMS

VISIBLEARTIFACTS

STATED VALUES

ASSUMPTIONSINVISIBLE

PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR

FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTIONS AND VALUES

7

At the top of the pyramid are the artifacts of the culture.

Artifacts are visible and often recognizable even to

people who are not part of the culture. Common

artifacts include vision statements, taglines, logos,

branding, organizational specific language, acronyms,

and so forth. Artifacts also include things you might not

expect like buildings, physical space, ministry processes,

communication style, and even how people dress. A

person may get an idea of who your organization is but

not fully understand why these artifacts have been

established without looking at the stated values.

In the middle of the pyramid are stated values. These

are the values regularly promoted by the leadership

in a given culture. Stated values may be formalized

and reinforced through the clearly articulated values,

strategy, measures, and so forth. Every church and

organization has stated values. Whether or not the

values have been formalized, they exist and people are

listening. Even if the values aren’t displayed on a wall,

your values can be found in the common language and

stories as well as what is celebrated, measured, and

controlled in your culture. If you have articulated your

values, they must truly resonate and align with the

assumptions or assumed values of people within the

culture in order to be healthy.

8

Notice that as you move from the top of the pyramid

to the bottom, you also move from visible attributes

of culture to invisible attributes of culture. The bottom

layer of the pyramid is your culture’s assumptions.

Assumptions reflect the underlying shared values

within the culture. These values often remain unstated

and are nebulous or self-defined by people within the

culture. The assumptions and espoused values are

possibly not correlated or rooted in the actual values

of the culture. It’s important to recognize that what is

written on the walls is not always actualized in the halls

of the church.

Sometimes a good bit of cultural examination has

to take place to bring these into the light. Consider

the following questions regarding your church’s

current culture.

• What or who is celebrated?

• What is measured?

9

• How is important communication handled?

• How are decisions made?

• What is your church’s most prevalent leadership style?

• What is your church’s cultural personality?

10

THE IMPORTANCE OF A LEADERSHIP PIPELINE

Churches consist of many groups and subgroups

with both formal and informal hierarchical layers.

We must recognize that churches don’t drift toward

simplicity. Churches drift toward complexity over

the course of time,

regardless of size. Two

modern phenomena

add complexities to

churches: the multisite

model and digitization

of modern life.

A multisite church model brings the challenge of

creating and managing church culture through shared

experiences and environments while aligning the

groups and subgroups as they become increasingly

complex and geographically diverse. The digitization of

life means that droves of people are now working from

home, Starbucks, and the next stoplight. Even if they

attend your church every week, they can access the

same number of sermons on their commute as they

might hear from you in a year. People used to come to

church three times a week. Now we are lucky to get

them through the door three times a month.

CHURCHES DON’T

DRIFT TOWARD

SIMPLICITY.

CHURCHES DRIFT

TOWARD COMPLEXITY.

11

What does that mean?

In this daunting new

paradigm, high-level

leaders must constantly

and consistently

create and embed

shared values in their church culture. I will examine

six components that make up a recruiting culture:

Scripture, strategy, structure, systems, skills, and style . 6

LEADERS MUST CREATE

AND EMBED SHARED

VALUES IN THEIR

CHURCH CULTURE.

12

These components correlate with our leadership

pipeline philosophy and framework. 7 Leadership

pipeline does not solely focus on top levels of

leadership or key leaders but is a long-term investment

in the church or organization’s most valuable resource:

people. A leadership pipeline provides a clear process of

development, so each volunteer, leader, coach, ministry

director, or senior leader knows their next step.

SENIOR LEADERSHIP

MINISTRY DIRECTOR

COACH

LEADER

VOLUNTEER

S

D

C

L

V

13

Most people hear “leadership pipeline,” and think vertical

advancement. I want you to understand success in a

leadership pipeline is not always progression. Success in

a leadership pipeline occurs when a person is becoming

who God has created them to be and multiplying

themselves at their current leadership level.

Over the past two years, LifeWay Leadership has had

the privilege of walking over 2,800 church leaders

through our Pipeline process. The number one reason

why they say they attend is because they need more

volunteers, leaders, coaches, and ministry directors.

Whatever level of their church’s leadership pipeline they

oversee, they would say, “I need more people!”

Odds are likely that you feel the same.

Audit your current ministry.

• How many leaders do you have?

14

• How many leaders do you need if:

• You grow by 15%?

• You start another service?

• You want last year’s Easter attendance to be

your church’s average weekly attendance?

Church leaders often look at a diagram that shows

leadership multiplication and think, No way! That diagram is not reality. I would say you can move

from thinking it’s a dream to moving it into your

leadership pipeline and making sure that you are

multiplying yourself.

Consider this diagram. What if you recruited two people

and spent the next year developing them? If you do

that the first year, then in the second year you and the

two people you developed in year one each recruit and

develop two more people, and when the model continues

again the third year, you have quickly moved from it just

being you as a leader to 27 leaders in your ministry.

15

You may say, “That’s not reality. People come and

go. People move away. And some people wash out.”

So maybe it’s not three years. Maybe it takes seven

years. Your number one role as leader is to reproduce

yourself. But consider the growth of your church and

ministry if every volunteer, leader, coach, ministry

director, and senior leader also followed this model to

multiply themselves? The responsibility of recruitment

and development doesn’t lie with you alone. The

responsibility of recruitment and development is part of

everyone’s role, not just the pastor’s.

16

BUILDING A RECRUITING CULTURE

Building a recruiting culture is foundational to

leadership pipeline because it proactively cultivates

development within the church. You have probably

heard me say before that leadership development is

both poetry and plumbing. We will start with the poetry

that provides the “why” and quickly move into the

plumbing that provides the “what, where, and how.”

When I talk about building a leadership pipeline for your

church, I am looking at it holistically in stages from stirring

conviction for development through Scripture and story

to strategy, structure, systems, skills, and style of training.

When these components

are properly implemented

and aligned, you create a

culture that instills shared

values to recruit, develop,

and reproduce leaders

at every level of your

leadership pipeline.

SCRIPTURE

Let’s begin this discussion with Scripture. In the

church, recruiting is simply a fancy word for the Great

Commission. In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus commands

RECRUITMENT AND

DEVELOPMENT IS

PART OF EVERYONE’S

ROLE, NOT JUST

THE PASTOR’S.

17

His followers to go and make disciples, who in turn

make disciples, who in turn make disciples. This

commissioning is not for an elite class of leaders

or pastors. All believers have been called to make

disciples, not just pastors and church staff.

Paul reminds us in Ephesians 2:8-9 that we have been

saved by grace through faith, lest any man should

boast. But Paul doesn’t stop there. In verse 10, he

reminds us that God didn’t just send His Son to save us

from something. He saved us for something. “For we

are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good

works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.”

Paul examines the role of church leaders to be

equippers in Ephesians 4:11-16. “And he himself gave

some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists,

some pastors and teachers, equipping the saints for the

work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we

all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s

Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by

Christ’s fullness. …

From him the whole

body, fitted and knit

together by every

supporting ligament,

promotes the

growth of the body

SCRIPTURE REVEALS

THE DEMOCRATIZATION

OF THE DISCIPLESHIP

AND DEVELOPMENT OF

GOD’S PEOPLE.

18

for building up itself in love by the proper working of

each individual part.”

What these passages promote is the democratization

of the discipleship and development of God’s people.

Our role as church leaders is to equip the body in such

a way that it becomes self-sustaining through ongoing

recruiting and development of each supporting part. A

culture of recruiting and development is foundational

and should be a shared value implicit in every church.

STRATEGY

Building on the firm foundation of Scripture, we’re

ready to take a look at strategy. When we look at the

life of Jesus and examine His methodology, it’s easy

to see that men were His method. We often think of

Jesus spending time among the crowds, preaching, and

healing the sick. But what is striking is how Jesus spent

His time after leaving the masses. More often than not,

Scripture reveals that Jesus took aside His disciples to

further explain what He said to the crowds, especially

with Peter, James, and John. Jesus wasn’t testing them

to see if they could repeat back what He had just said.

Jesus was looking for growth in their character and

competency; He was looking for transformation of the

whole person.

19

Likewise, our strategy of bringing people into our ministry

should not merely focus on onboarding. What many

churches call “training” is primarily an orientation task

to get someone started in a volunteer or leadership role.

That is not development; that is an information dump. A

recruiting culture uses leadership pipeline to develop a

person, not delegate a task.

When a person begins a volunteer role, the first thing

we want them to be

is a learner. They need

to learn the role. As

they gain proficiency in

the role, they become

a leader. Leadership

is the next step, but

that’s not the only step. If you recall our examination of

recruiting in Scripture, we are supposed to disciple and

develop other people. That’s not just the pastor’s job.

That’s not just the ministry director’s job. Development

is everyone’s job.

When we begin to see people multiplying themselves in

their current role, they may be ready for the next level of

your leadership pipeline.

A RECRUITING CULTURE

USES A LEADERSHIP

PIPELINE TO DEVELOP

A PERSON, NOT

DELEGATE A TASK.

20

Implementing a leadership pipeline strategy for recruiting

and development removes guessing from the leadership

game. After a person has displayed proficiency as a

learner, leader, and multiplier, strongly consider bringing

them to the next level of your leadership pipeline. If they

want to stay in their current role, applaud their efforts and

celebrate them in front of their peers.

S

D

C

L

V

MULTIPLIERLEADER

LEARNER

MULTIPLIERLEADER

LEARNER

LEARNER

MULTIPLIERLEADER

LEARNER

MULTIPLIERLEADER

21

Consider your volunteers and leaders.

• Are they learners, leaders, or multipliers?

• Have you emphasized multiplication as a key part of

every role, not just the pastor and church staff?

• How is multiplication modeled at all levels of

leadership in your church?

STRUCTURE

As our LifeWay Leadership team has worked with

over 2,800 church leaders on developing a leadership

pipeline for their specific context, I can tell you it’s

22

fairly easy to get everyone on board with the scriptural

foundation and strategy of leadership pipeline. But now

we’re about to meddle with your day-to-day ministry.

The next two phases are often the most difficult to

implement: structure and systems. These components

don’t seem like that big of a deal at first, but they often

cause the keepers of the status quo to rise with torches

and pitchforks in hand. Let’s take a look at why so often

this is the case.

Odds are likely you have restructured or reorganized a

time or two. For some churches, it seems like an annual

event. Leadership pipeline focuses on bringing clarity

and alignment to the formal and informal elements

within a church or organization. You may reorganize

your formal structure and everything looks great on

paper, but when you get right down to it, the informal

structure is still at play. Individual ministry areas do not

appear as silos on paper, but the reality is often quite

different.

If you don’t believe

me, ask one of your

volunteers or leaders.

Odds are likely that

many people serve

in more than one

ministry at your church

LEADERSHIP PIPELINE

BRINGS CLARITY

AND ALIGNMENT TO

THE FORMAL AND

INFORMAL ELEMENTS

WITHIN YOUR CHURCH.

23

and experience differences in each. These differences

make it difficult to recruit volunteers and leaders

when language, titles, roles, levels of leadership in

the ministry, levels of responsibility, and ratios of

care vary from ministry to ministry. Consider how

confusing these differences may seem to volunteers

and leaders as they attempt to understand where

they are, their specific responsibilities, and their next

step of development.

Take a moment and audit where and when the

following terms are used in your church’s ministries:

• Volunteer

• Leader

• Coach

• Coordinator

• Director

24

Is there clarity and alignment with titles, definitions of

roles, hierarchy of roles, and so forth? If so, how?

Ask 2-3 volunteers or leaders who serve in more than

one ministry to provide feedback on the language

inconsistencies they see between ministry areas. It is most

helpful to find people who have recently started serving

in new roles, as those who have been around awhile likely

have figured it out or come to live with it.

SYSTEMS

Systems are often the least favorite subject for two

different kinds of people: innovators and keepers of the

status quo. To the innovator, systems seem antiquated

and cumbersome, a quagmire of policies and

procedures that will only slow down your church. To the

keepers of the status quo, established systems are the

only thing between the church and self-destruction,

usually at the hands of a rogue staff member. If it ain’t

broke, they don’t fix it.

25

Over time, no church drifts toward simplicity. We have a

tendency to add new processes, new paper trails, new

policies, and so forth without ever taking the time to

call out or kill off what isn’t working. Sometimes things

are working just fine; they’re just working differently

in each ministry leading to inefficiency, duplication of

effort, and confusion. If you want a recruiting culture,

you must address your systems holistically.

I personally began to feel this pressure in leading our

church toward launching multiple campuses. The

stakes were high as we were trying to achieve clarity

for our volunteers, leaders, coaches, and staff. That

meant almost everything we did had to be examined. Is

this process absolutely essential to our mission? Is this

process clear? Is this process easily repeatable? Is this

process scalable? Has this process been documented in

such a way it can be easily transferred to someone else?

One system we had to address was our application and

onboarding process for new volunteers and leaders.

We weren’t just finding weekly volunteers at one

campus. We were identifying, recruiting, and developing

volunteers for a location that hadn’t yet launched. Our

application process had become extremely siloed and

overly complex. We received complaints from people

who were filling out multiple applications, though they

had served our church for years.

26

Not only did each ministry area have its own

application, but each campus had started to create

their own applications as well. When I finally audited

all applications (we stopped counting at 26), I also

discovered that many were also using different

databases. We were not only wasting the time of

our staff, we were also wasting the time of our most

treasured volunteers and leaders.

Did each ministry area want to change its system?

No. Each had a narrow view of their area. If it worked

fine for them, they didn’t want to be slowed down by

everyone else or make concessions. In order to fix this

discrepancy, we had to find real world examples of

how frustrating and confusing these varying systems

were for our volunteers and leaders as they experienced

different onboarding processes in each ministry.

While the process was painful, we eventually developed

one application that covered 80 percent of what

everyone needed and allowed them to ask additional

questions or add an addendum if necessary. We also

created a role description template for everyone to use

that contained core competencies and responsibilities

for each level of our leadership pipeline. As you can

imagine, this greatly increased our ability to recruit

and onboard volunteers and leaders. I could sit down

with a potential volunteer and show one role profile,

27

one application, and what to expect in the onboarding

process, providing clarity and making the experience

much better for everyone.

Consider a couple of your best leaders who are serving

in multiple ministry areas. Make a mental audit of what

this person has experienced in recruiting, applying,

interviewing, onboarding, and training in each

ministry area.

• Was there clarity and alignment across ministry areas

in role profiles, expectations, communications, forms,

and processes?

28

• What ministry areas at your church will have the most

difficulty coming to the table to clarify and align areas

throughout your church?

• What can you do to help the leaders of these areas

see the need for change?

• How will it become painful or compelling enough for

them to make the change?

29

SKILLS

When it comes to recruiting skills and training, we

often focus on transferring knowledge. I would like

to shift that toward a focus on competency and

mastery. Traditional education is concerned with

display of knowledge through testing. Consider how

a person spends years in a specific college major only

to find the real skills they need are gained on the job.

Competency-based learning adds two more elements

to traditional education: experience and coaching. The

overlap of knowledge, experience, and coaching leads

to transformation.8 Throughout the New Testament,

Knowledge Experience

Coaching

30

we see essential qualifications for being a leader in the

church. As part of your church’s leadership pipeline,

you must identify core universal competencies or skills

for each level of leadership to determine if someone is

qualified and competent to serve at that level, regardless

of ministry area. For example, if someone leads a team of

ushers or serves as a small group leader, they should each

be competent in handling conflict. In addition to these

core competencies,

there are, of course,

role-based skills

as well.

Our team spent two years working with senior pastors,

executive pastors, leadership experts, and consultants

to develop a leadership pipeline for the church. The

pipeline provides a framework of universal leadership

competencies vetted by these ministry leaders (See our

Competency Overview chart on pages 38-39). We also

have created training pathways that are specific

to ministry areas. Each pathway contains three

specific levels of learning for volunteers, leaders, and

ministry directors.

We believe people need a map, not a menu, for

their training and development. To best equip the

people God has entrusted to your care, your church

needs a leadership pipeline and each person needs a

PEOPLE NEED A MAP, NOT

A MENU, FOR TRAINING

AND DEVELOPMENT.

31

training pathway. The primary tool for delivery of both

leadership pipeline and training pathways content is

our learning management system, MinistryGrid.

com. Regardless of whether or not you choose to use

the framework or content that we have developed,

shifting the conversation from an information dump to

transformation requires a competency-based approach

to development.

STYLE

In a survey of over 2,000 pastors and church leaders,

four challenges hindered leadership training and

development: they don’t know how, they and their

people don’t have time, they don’t have a framework,

and they don’t have the resources. 9 While we do not

believe you can digitize development, we do recognize

that the greatest barrier to training in churches is that it

only occurs at a specific time and place.

Quite often in the church when we host live training

events, we focus on the lowest common denominator

in the room instead of recognizing that our people

have varying levels of competency. When you attempt

one-size-fits-all live training events, you tend to focus

on onboarding or orientation, leaving out your more

experienced volunteers and leaders. This means you

will likely have low attendance, you have to summarize

32

training for those unable to attend, and then host

even more events each year to make up for the

lower turnout.

We have developed a training philosophy that is

both high-tech and high-touch that involves flipping

the classroom. Think in terms of circles, not rows. In

traditional education, the teacher is the sage on the

stage who delivers a lecture to attendees sitting in rows.

After the lecture, attendees complete homework on

their own.

In the flipped classroom, attendees watch training

videos prior to the group gathering time. Doing so

allows various levels of training on the same subject

to be distributed to attendees, depending on each

person’s level of competence. When they gather,

they sit in circles, not rows, to debrief and discuss the

training they have completed. Each attendee is no

longer a spectator but a participant as the group learns

and grows together. Each participant has a different

level of competence, experience, and knowledge to

offer the other people at the table in their own

personal development.

This type of training helps seasoned leaders engage

in the development of others and positions them to

recruit the right people into higher levels of leadership.

As the leader, you no longer have the pressure of being

33

the sage on stage. You are now the guide on the side

and are available to assist people who may need a little

extra help or who are experiencing difficult issues that

need to be addressed. Doing so embeds recruiting at

all levels of your leadership pipeline as it redistributes

the responsibility of development and creates an

environment that builds biblical community. And, let’s

be honest, that training is much more fun to attend.

CREATING AND CURATING A RECRUITING CULTURE

Let’s take another look at Jesus’ relationship with the

disciples. Jesus modeled not only how recruiting and

development occurs but also how responsibility is

transferred, as He rarely did the work of the ministry

by Himself. Sure, He spent time alone, but when

He ministered to people, His disciples were always

nearby. Early on,

they listened and

watched Jesus,

but soon He asked

them to serve with

Him. Jesus then

flipped the script

and asked them

to serve while He

JESUS DIDN’T SHIRK

HIS RESPONSIBILITY

WHEN HE RECRUITED

AND COMMISSIONED

HIS DISCIPLES. JESUS

SHARED IT.

34

observed and helped. You see, Jesus wasn’t shirking His

responsibility for the mission when He recruited and

commissioned His disciples; He was sharing it.

This diagram illustrates four steps to develop someone

in their ministry role. Like Jesus and the disciples,

gradually a transfer of responsibility must occur. These

four phases allow the developer to relinquish authority

and fully prepare and equip a new leader in their role. 10

First, when you look at the developer’s responsibility,

you see the word “intentional.” Intentional ministry

means that I do, you watch, then we talk about it. In

each of these four steps, there is always a feedback and

coaching component. For example, if I’m a small group

GRADUAL RELEASE OF RESPONSIBILITY

Intentional Ministry

Guided Ministry

Collaborative Ministry

Equipped Ministry

DEVELOPER’S RESPONSIBILITY

LEADER’S RESPONSIBLITY

I do, you watch, we talk.

I do, you help, we talk.

You do, I help, we talk.

You do, I watch, we talk.

35

leader and you’re a small group apprentice, I lead the

group discussion, you observe, then we talk about it.

Maybe we do that for a week or two, then we move

into the second phase: Guided. During this step, I do,

you help, and we talk about it. So I’ve moved from

leading group discussion and you watching to asking

you to come alongside and help me facilitate the

conversation.

Next, we move into collaborative ministry. Here’s where

we flip the script. You do, I help, then we talk. Now

you’re primarily leading group discussion, and I’m there

to jump in and help as needed. When we talk, we have

the opportunity to troubleshoot and discuss what’s

working well and what’s not working well.

Finally, we move into the equipped phase. Now you’re

doing the work. I’m just watching but am still giving

you feedback. I’ve released ministry responsibility

to you and now you’re able to lead your own small

group. These four phases may take weeks or even

months to complete. It really depends on the level of

responsibilities and specifics of that role.

Even though equipped ministry is the last of these four

phases, it doesn’t end here. Now that you’ve walked

through this framework with me, you’re equipped to do

it again, this time as the developer of someone else. You

36

have experienced this model yourself and know what it

takes to raise up another leader, so you can repeat the

process with a new potential leader. Then they can do

the same.

The great thing about this model is that it can be

introduced and replicated at all leadership levels

and in all ministry roles. A seasoned volunteer in the

church nursery can recruit and develop a new nursery

volunteer. An usher can identify and train a new usher.

A youth teacher can recruit and help a teacher launch

a new class.

Jesus and the early church leaders modeled a way of

healthy leadership reproduction that moves past simple

addition to multiplication: recruit, develop, and repeat.

If we model this leadership development method as

church leaders, we will quickly see it take hold and

deeply embed recruiting and development into our

church culture. Remember Ephesians 4 and that as

church leaders, we are all called to that end. Let’s

make sure our legacy is not just about the things we

accomplished but the people we developed.

To watch a video on Four Steps to Recruit Better Volunteers and access additional resources on Ministry Grid, visit bit.ly/cultureofrecruiting or scan this QR code with your camera app.

37

END NOTES

1. John O’Brien and Andrew Cave, The Power of Purpose (United Kingdom: Pearson Education Limited, 2017), 83.

2. Edgar Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership (San Francisco: Josey-Bass Inc., 2004), 11.

3. Adapted from Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 6-11.

4. E. H. Schein, “Coming to a New Awareness of Organizational Culture,” Sloan Management Review, no. 25 (1984): 3-16.

5. Adapted from Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 18.

6. Adapted from Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman, In Search of Excellence (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 9-10.

7. Adapted from Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, and James Noel, The Leadership Pipeline (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001), 8.

8. Eric Geiger and Kevin Peck, Designed to Lead (B&H Publishing Group, 2016), 163.

9. LifeWay Research, “CRD Training Project” (Nashville: LifeWay Christian Resources, 2012).

10. Adapted from Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, Better Learning Through Structured Teaching (Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2014), 3.

25

Pip

eline Level

Leadership

Resp

onsib

ilitySam

ple

Ro

les

Co

re Co

mp

etencies

Discip

leshipV

ision

Strategy

Collaboration

People D

evelopment

Steward

shipM

inistry-Sp

ecific

Co

mp

etencies

Pro

gressio

nD

escriptio

nE

xamp

lesTheo

log

ical and Sp

iritual D

evelop

ment

Preferred Future

Plan o

r M

ethod fo

r the P

referred Future

Ab

ility to W

ork w

ith O

thers

Co

ntributing

to the G

rowth o

f O

thers

Overseeing

Reso

urces W

ithin O

ne’s Care

Uniq

ue Skills W

ithin M

inistry Area

Senior

Leadership

Provid

es visio

n and sets the strateg

ic d

irection fo

r the church as a

who

le

Pasto

r, E

xecutive Team

, Deaco

n, E

lder, B

oard

Mem

ber

Teaches theo

log

y and serves as a C

hrist-like exam

ple

Creates visio

n fo

r the church

Thinks strateg

ically ab

out the

church as a w

hole

Wo

rks throug

h team

leaders

Creates a

develo

pm

ent culture

Faithfully stew

ards

op

po

rtunities w

ith church’s reso

urces

Ministry-

specifi

c co

mp

etencies vary b

ased o

n role and

ministry

area. These co

mp

etencies p

rog

ress from

task executio

n to p

eop

le d

evelop

ment,

to systems

manag

ement

and strategy,

to church and m

inistry oversig

ht.

Ministry

Directo

r

Oversees

a ministry

area with the

respo

nsibility

of lead

ing co

aches and lead

ers

Child

ren’s M

inister, W

orship

Pasto

r, Stud

ent P

astor

Und

erstands

and app

lies system

atic and b

iblical

theolo

gy

and teaches sp

iritual d

isciplines

Co

ntextualizes visio

n for

ministry area

Desig

ns m

inistry strateg

y and im

plem

ents in m

inistry co

ntext

Wo

rks throug

h lead

ers

Creates a

develo

pm

ent p

athway fo

r m

inistry area

Faithfully stew

ards

church’s reso

urces

Leader

Provid

es lead

ership fo

r a ministry

team

Small G

roup

Leader,

Co

mm

ittee C

hair, Teacher

Know

s basic

do

ctrines, p

ractices sp

iritual d

isciplines,

and exhibits

the fruit of

the Spirit

Articulates and im

plem

ents visio

n for

ministry area

Leads o

thers to unite aro

und and execute

ministry

strategy

Wo

rks throug

h o

thersD

evelop

s o

thers

Faithfully stew

ards

gifted

ness of

others

Vo

lunteerServes o

n a m

inistry team

Usher, G

reeter, N

ursery W

orker

Know

s the g

osp

el and takes

respo

nsibility

for p

ersonal

develo

pm

ent

Supp

orts

vision o

f m

inistry area

Serves eff

ectively in m

inistry role

Wo

rks with

others

Disp

lays w

illingness to

be d

evelop

ed

Faithfully stew

ards

their perso

nal g

iftedness

COMPETENCY OVERVIEW

40

GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE

Use the following questions to process Creating and Curating a Recruiting Culture with your staff or ministry team.

Consider the following roles at your church. Circle each role that actively recruits and develops new volunteers and leaders.

• Pastor

• Church Staff

• Ministry Director

• Coach

• Leader

• Volunteer

Review your ministry audit on pages 13-14. How might the total number of roles you circled in the previous activity relate to your church’s current need for more volunteers and leaders? Explain.

41

Answer the questions about your church’s culture on pages 8-9, if you have not already done so. How does your church’s culture emphasize ongoing recruitment and development?

Does your church have an organizational structure such as a leadership pipeline (page 12)? If so, how does it help your people know their next steps in ongoing development? If not, how are you equipping people to serve in their ministry roles?

42

Review the leadership multiplication diagram on page 15. If you began practicing this model and invested in two leaders for the next year, who would be those leaders? What can you do now to begin developing these two people in your ministry?

Answer the questions about learners, leaders, and multipliers on page 21, if you have not already done so. How would a focus on developing people over delegating tasks better equip your people to learn, lead, and multiply in their current ministry roles? Explain.

43

Recall the importance of clarity and alignment in your church’s structure on pages 21-24. Are role titles and levels of leadership consistent in all ministry areas of your church? If so, how does this alignment help when someone serves in more than one ministry? If not, what may be confusing for your volunteers and leaders?

Answer the questions about your church’s onboarding systems on pages 27-28, if you have not already done so. Does each ministry area have a clearly defined process? If so, how are the processes the same? How are the processes different? What may be confusing or frustrating in your current development processes for leaders who serve in more than one ministry?

44

Review the diagram on page 29. If transformation occurs when knowledge, experience, and coaching overlap, then how does your church’s training and development emphasize each component to equip your people? How does the concept of knowledge, experience, and coaching relate to the importance of a person learning, leading, and multiplying? Explain.

Remember that Ephesians 4 calls church leaders to be equippers and not just doers. How can you use the four steps of the gradual release model (p. 34) to establish a culture of recruiting and development in your ministry and church?

45

NOTES

46

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Leadership Pipeline: The philosophy and system behind helping a church member move from a member to a leader who develops other members.

Knowledge, Experience, Coaching: The ideal learning environment where information is received and then applied to create reproducible learning.

Conviction, Culture, Constructs: The foundation blocks for building a Leadership Pipeline in a church. Conviction relates to the heart change that must happen in leaders; Culture refers to the environment of the church that encourages growth; and Constructs are the processes put in place within the church to develop leaders.

Learner, Leader, Multiplier: One example of a Leadership Pipeline. A Learner is the entry point of a leader looking to grow and mature. The Leader is practically applying leadership lessons. The Multiplier is someone who is training other Leaders who will train Leaders.

Leading Self: The ability to take initiative and to learn and implement a skill or task.

Leading Others: Someone who leads a group of people, each of whom is capable of leading themselves. The captain of a team or ministry area that serves the church body in the parking lot or in the nursery.

Leading Leaders: A leader who leads a group of leaders. This leader influences individuals who oversee teams.

Leading Departments: The leader that contextualizes the strategy and vision of the overall organization for a specific area of ministry or department.

Leader of Organizations: This is a leader who sets vision for the entire organization and must work through department leaders to contextualize every arm of the organization or ministry.

Design Team: A team of people who will collect the data and input from all of the ministry areas and departments and implement a Leadership Pipeline that aligns the entire organization.

47

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Todd Adkins is the Director of Leadership at LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, TN. Prior to joining LifeWay, Todd served the local church in student ministry and as a campus and executive pastor. He has a background in launching strategic initiatives and web-based leadership development, and he’s passionate about helping churches create cultures of pipelines, leadership development, and training pathways for every role in the church.

Since joining LifeWay, Todd has spearheaded the development of Ministry Grid, LifeWay’s dynamic leadership development platform, and written Developing Your Leadership Pipeline, a tool to aid church leaders in developing their people. He also hosts the 5 Leadership Questions and New Churches podcasts and tweets #Leadership incessantly at @ToddAdkins.

48

LEAD by DESIGNFor you. For your ministry team. Authors Eric Geiger (author of bestselling Simple Church

and Creature of the Word) and Kevin Peck argue that churches

that consistently produce leaders have a strong conviction to

develop leaders, a healthy culture for leadership development,

and helpful constructs to systematically and intentionally

build leaders. All three are essential for leaders to be formed

through the ministry of a local church.

For you. For your ministry team. Authors Eric Geiger (author of bestselling

and Creature of the Word






Visit DesignedtoLead.com to receive free leadership resources

AVAILABLE NOW

WHAT IF THESOLUTION ISN’T A NEW

MODEL OR A COMPLICATED STRATEGY, BUT A

SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE?

No Silver Bullets explores fi ve micro-shifts that

have the potential to produce macro-changes

in your church. Leaders will discover how to

integrate these micro-shifts into the life of your

church, starting with the way you disciple. You

will fi nish by developing a plan to structure,

communicate, and evaluate these changes to

ensure that they take root and pave the way

for lasting change and kingdom impact.

For more information, please visitdanielim.com/NoSilverBullets

49

LEAD by DESIGNFor you. For your ministry team. Authors Eric Geiger (author of bestselling Simple Church

and Creature of the Word) and Kevin Peck argue that churches






For you. For your ministry team. Authors Eric Geiger (author of bestselling

and Creature of the Word






Visit DesignedtoLead.com to receive free leadership resources

AVAILABLE NOW

WHAT IF THESOLUTION ISN’T A NEW

MODEL OR A COMPLICATED STRATEGY, BUT A

SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE?

No Silver Bullets explores fi ve micro-shifts that

have the potential to produce macro-changes

in your church. Leaders will discover how to

integrate these micro-shifts into the life of your

church, starting with the way you disciple. You

will fi nish by developing a plan to structure,

communicate, and evaluate these changes to

ensure that they take root and pave the way

for lasting change and kingdom impact.

For more information, please visitdanielim.com/NoSilverBullets

50

Training is a vital part of any healthy discipleship

culture. But any church can tell you that training

every leader can be difficult. But it doesn’t have to be.

Ministry Grid makes training simple by providing

training to every volunteer and leader in your church

at the time and place that’s best for them.

Start training your leaders for free at

ministrygrid.com.

HARD WORKWE DO THE

FOR YOU.

51

Join Todd Adkins, Eric Geiger, and Daniel Im each

week as they ask five questions of great leaders.

You’ll be encouraged, equipped, and entertained.

Subscribe at lifeway.com/leadership

006203451

Far too often, churches think it’s the job of the pastor to recruit volunteers and leaders when there’s a gap in ministry. These churches focus on leadership placement over leadership development and settle for warm bodies instead of weekly volunteers.

Instead, what if you focused on leadership development and equipped all your people to feel confident in recruiting and developing someone to serve in their ministry role? How do you do this?

Todd Adkins examines how implementing a leadership pipeline in your church provides a clear process of development for your people. Through Scripture, strategy, structure, systems, skills, and style, you can create a culture of ongoing recruiting and development.

The defining legacy of a leader is not the things you have done but the people you have developed. Build an army, not just an audience.

nccreating and curating a recruiting culture 2 · creating and curating a church or...

Documents