Posts Tagged ‘Gordon and Becky West’
Lead the Leader – Pt 1 April 6th, 2009
Last week I introduced a series of posts based on lessons I learned in a workshop I attended years ago. (apparently it was MANY years ago if you listen to some of those who commented on the post ☺) The workshop was called “Growing the Children’s Ministry You’ve Always Wanted” and it was presented by Gordon and Becky West. The principles I learned there have had a huge impact on my ministry and I wanted to pass them on in hopes that you will find them equally valuable.
First, an illustration. Take your best guess…
How much is an eight-foot piece of rebar worth. You know, plain old steel plugged into a mold and formed into a bar. Of course prices could vary, but usually it costs around $5. What if I took that same amount of steel and refined it a little more and formed it into horseshoes? Now it’s worth around $10.50. Ok, let’s take this a little further. Suppose I take the same amount of steel and form it into needles. If I did that it, it would be worth nearly $5000. Let’s take one final step. What if I took the same amount of steel contained in a $5 piece of rebar and formed it into fine Swiss watch mainsprings. In this case the steel would be worth nearly $250,000. That’s not an exaggeration!
Here’s the principle:
It’s not the material; it’s how the material is used that creates value.
Now a question:
How are you using your volunteers?
Are you investing in your people and doing everything you can to help them reach their full potential, or are you “plugging holes” with your volunteers? In the first five minutes of that workshop I realized why my children’s ministry was failing. It was because I thought I was a children’s minister. I mean, that was my title, right? However, the reality of children’s ministry is that if you want to grow the children’s ministry you’ve always wanted, you can’t be a children’s minister. You must be a volunteer minister.
If you have more than 10 kids in your ministry you’ve already got more kids than you can effectively minister to by yourself. Think about, Jesus chose to disciple only twelve men and He’s God. It would be pretty arrogant of me to think I could effectively disciple twenty, right? This means, if your children’s ministry is going to be effective, you’re going to have to invest most your your time not in working with kids but in developing volunteers.
There’s much more to come so stay tuned. For now, I’ll leave you with this. What are you doing to develop “watch spring” volunteers in your ministry?
Tags: Brookwood Church, Brookwood Kids, Children, Children's Ministry, Conferences, Gordon and Becky West, Leadership, ministry, Ministry 101, Volunteer Minisrty, Volunteers
Posted in Children's Ministry, Leadership, Volunteers | Comments (2)