It’s our job
It can be hard to ask volunteers to help because we feel there are things that only we are supposed to do. Even with the rest of it, we’re the one’s being paid (in some cases anyway) to do the job. We don’t go to our volunteer’s jobs and help them.
While there may be certain things that only a pastor should do… most of what we do can and should be given away. Our job is less about doing ministry and more about training others to do it. The general rule: anything that anyone else can do should be done by someone else.
We want it done exactly how we do it
When we do everything ourselves, we learn to simplify our procedures so that we can quickly move through them and get more done. This means that in actuality, you are probably the best in the church at what you’re doing. It can be very difficult to give away one of your responsibilities because you’ve not only perfected the process… but because you want it done exactly the same way.
Though keeping every responsibility under your direct control will ensure that everything is done exactly how you want… it does limit the amount of things you are able to do. They will not do it exactly the way you would do it… but it will get done and you will be free to do more of what only you can do.
We don’t want to overwhelm volunteers
We’re so happy to get a new volunteer that we don’t want to give them anything to do right away… for fear that we’ll run them off. We know how hard our job is and we are afraid that we’ll lose our help if we give them to big a job. This was me in a nutshell.
Volunteers volunteer because they want to work. In many cases they sacrifice a ‘big church’ service that they enjoyed because they want to serve. It’s almost like they’re paying to be there. It is our job to make sure they’re getting their money’s worth. If we don’t give them something to do, they will wonder why they’re even there… and they will leave. You stand to lose more volunteers by not delegating than by sharing the load.
Our job is to difficult or complicated
In my own case, I was afraid to give away parts of my job because they were very difficult and in some cases high-pressure. I thought I was being noble because I was protecting my staff from the hardest jobs. In reality, with God’s help, I realized that I was actually being prideful. Was I the only one who could handle the tough jobs? Was I somehow better than them? With this realization I was able to look around my ministry with fresh eyes.
I realized that the most dedicated people I had in ministry were in the toughest jobs. Ministry coordinators and bus captains were the most dependable… but I couldn’t keep a person on door security to save my life. So the more stressful and draining a job was potentially, the more the people were endeared to it. So not only was I downplaying their strengths, I was robbing people of an opportunity to serve God like never before.
The other truth here is that once you give a piece of your ministry away, it will not burden them like it did you. We ministers try to carry it all ourselves and so every part can see overblown and overwhelming. But to someone who is carrying only one part, it is not overwhelming to them.
Delegation is hard work… but it’s the only way your ministry will grow larger than yourself. We’ll be talking more about that tomorrow.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Great stuff! Thanks for this article. It's all true, and all things I am struggling with currently. Delegating is my biggest challenge. The above-mentioned reasons are right on target! One more reason I might add for why we (I) don't delegate:
Volunteers aren't always dependable. Sometimes you can't trust them, and they let you down.
Some of them are. Some of my volunteers are amazing, and go above and beyond to do an excellent job! But some of the volunteers have let me down, or dropped the ball, when I was counting on them. It's not always that I feel I will do a job better than them (although I usually do feel that way), but sometimes I'm afraid if I DO delegate, the job won't get done at all…..! This has happened several times, when I was counting on a Sunday School teacher who didn't show up, a Preschool teacher who was unprepared, a VBS leader who just dropped the ball and didn't fulfill the expectations that we talked about and that were agreed upon ahead of time.
Maybe this is when we (Children's Pastors) just need to run a tighter ship, and weed out the volunteers who are undependable. But….we can't always afford to do that. It takes effort to develop responsible and capable leaders, but I do believe it will be worth it when the delegating is done right, and the leaders are really taking responsibility and serving where they're gifted and seeing the impact of their ministry.
Also, sometimes I feel bad, because a job COULD be done by a volunteer, but I feel like it would take me SO MUCH time to explain it all to them, that I would rather just do it myself. When I plan a children's service, I know the drill, but when I'm preparing everything for a sub for when I'm on vacation, it takes SO MUCH more effort to make sure they know everything that needs to be done. But again, it would eventually be worth the effort, I believe, because volunteers would eventually become leaders who would eventually become "duplications" of me, the leader, and then the fruits of the ministry could be greatly multiplied by having more people taking more responsibility to make more difference.
I'm glad we're talking about this, it's an issue I'm working through now. When I entered children's ministry, I was more prepared to lead children than adult volunteers, and this one aspect of delegation takes a lot of effort and learning to master!
{ 1 trackback }