Table of Contents

How Do You Know If You Are Ready for Redevelopment?

by Jim Caprell

Reversing Unwelcoming Welcome Habits

by Peter W. Marty

Renewing a Mainline Congregation Requires More Than Praise Music and Small Groups

by R. Robert Cueni

How to Address the Stress Points in Turnaround Churches

by William M. Easum

Revitalizing the Rural (or Anywhere!) Church

by James A. Shelly

So Tell Me...Interviews with Faithful, Effective, and Innovative Leaders:  Featuring Ron Martoia

by Norman Jameson

Turnaround Congregations Moving from Decline to Health, Growth, Renewed Mission

by Marta Poling-Goldenne

Building the Human Resources Team

by Thomas G. Bandy

The Church That's Continually Opening New Doors

by Dale E. Galloway

Coaching Corner

by Thomas G. Bandy

            St. Rhubarb-on-the-Hill Church is a typical congregation in which 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work. The personnel committee is highly trained to supervise staff and protect the congregation from anything immoral, illegal, too expensive, or really stupid. Every job description has long, clearly defined task lists; prioritized time allocations; and required reporting procedures. Every member is expected to give a small percentage of gross annual income to the church, pray for the success of the institutional agenda, and show up occasionally for worship. The staff are exhausted; the 20 percent of the laity who serve the committees are overwhelmed; and 80 percent of the congregation is out to lunch. What’s wrong with this picture?

The missing piece in the management of most churches is that no one takes responsibility for the identification, nurture, accountability, and deployment of volunteers. Plenty of people—in fact, too many people—get involved in administration. Some people are involved in training, usually pastoral staff who have awakened to the reality that they cannot, and must not, do the ministry themselves. The problem is that nobody is dedicated to the growth and multiplication of volunteers. The church simply expects members to catch fire by spontaneous combustion. Leaders assume that people will volunteer because they “love the church” or are motivated by a “strong sense of duty.” Ask the HR people in any hospital, social service agency, or other nonprofit, and they will tell you that day ended twenty years ago.

            Today, most people are too busy. They have a lot of discretionary income, but almost no discretionary time. They may have money to waste, but they don’t have time to waste. They are not going to volunteer just to fill a committee vacancy. They are not going to surrender precious time just because the pastor says they ought to do so. And they are certainly not going to squander their energy on an institutional agenda that does not benefit them as well. Today volunteers are looking for “win-win” relationships. Sure, they want to do good things that will bless somebody else, but they also want to do good things that will bless themselves also. They want to grow, learn skills, expand awareness, mature as human beings, leverage their way to a college degree or professional career path, transform their own lives. The key to volunteerism today is not self-sacrifice. It is self-affirmation.

            Some denominations have begun renaming the nominations committee. They call it a lay leadership development committee. This is the all-too-familiar strategy of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Call it by another name, but it is still about recruiting poor saps with a strong superego to implement an institutional agenda that never originated in their personal prayer life. These new committees may well implement spiritual gifts inventories, but they never follow up with mentoring to discern personal mission. Instead, they help people discover their spiritual gifts, and then (surprise, surprise!) announce that they have a committee vacancy that perfectly suits their gift. So they co-opt the volunteer for their institutional agenda, never bothering to really help that poor volunteer discover if she/he feels called to do that task in the first place.

            Obviously something more radical is needed. It is not the nominations committee that needs to be re-invented, but the personnel committee.

            To understand the transformation of a personnel committee into a human resources team, let’s step back and look at the internal connection between church systems and the organizational models that deliver them. The personnel committee (some people call it a pastor-parish relations committee) monitors salaried staff. The committee members function primarily as a conflict management group, a complaints department, and a budget preparation committee. Occasionally they may also inquire into the well-being of the salaried staff, but that is always limited in its scope. Why? Because the personnel committee is supposed to maintain a critical distance from the staff so that it can make sure staff are doing the tasks they are supposed to be doing, in the manner the congregation expects those tasks to be done.

            Personnel committees are part of an organization that delivers a specific system of congregational life, namely, a process of membership assimilation. The organization is designed to recruit new members, socialize the newcomers into the expected habits and comfort zones of the longtime members, and then undertake the preservation of their inalienable rights as “members” of the church. Personnel committees, therefore, are not designed to empower the potential of staff members. They are designed to ensure that staff do what befits the expectations of the members. Period. It’s all very nice to inquire whether the pastor, secretary, or custodian feels appreciated and supported, but fundamentally a personnel committee is designed to make sure that staff appreciate and support the members.

            However, what if the system of the church is not supposed to protect membership privileges? What if the system of church life is actually supposed to make disciples of Jesus Christ? In order to do that, a different organizational model is needed. We need an organization that is not designed to fill committee vacancies with dutiful volunteers. We need an organization that is designed to help growing Christians discern, design, implement, and evaluate whatever missions the Holy Spirit elicits from their personal growth. That is a very different goal, and personnel committees are totally incapable of achieving it. They barely consider the role of volunteers in the first place; and when they consider the role of staff, it is all about meeting the needs of the members and not about addressing the yearnings of seekers. An organizational model will only deliver what it is designed to deliver, and nothing else. It is absurd to assume that a personnel committee will grow disciples, because that is not what it is designed to do.

            Enter the human resources team. A human resources team is designed to make disciples . . . and it is not particularly intended to protect membership privileges. In other words, it is designed to help leaders of all kinds (staff or volunteers) discover and develop their hidden potential so that they bless people beyond the church institution.

• Effective HR teams help people discover spiritual gifts, but they never, ever simply slot them into institutional agendas.

• Effective HR teams go the second mile to mentor people to discern their personal call.

• Effective HR teams train people to fulfill their life destiny in ways that bless the world.

• Effective HR teams partner them in mutual support teams to accomplish whatever it is that the Spirit has elicited from their hearts.

Human resources teams create “win/win” opportunities in which the church organization can succeed and the individual volunteer can grow. They create an “equipping culture” in which both paid and unpaid disciples find both freedom and coaching to define personal mission and explore personal potential.

            It should go without saying that the talents that make a good human resources team are different from the talents that make a good personnel committee:

The best personnel committees include experienced, professional church peers and veteran church members. Their collective memory retains the church’s history and maintains continuity with (hopefully) the best of the institutional heritage. The members are usually lawyers, accountants, corporate middle managers, and propertied landowners closely connected to the local and denominational elite that shape municipal affairs. On the other hand, the best human resources teams include experienced cross-sector peers and veteran community volunteers. Their collective memory retains the demographic and lifestyle changes in the community, while maintaining alignment with a clearly shared Christian mission. The members are usually nonprofit CEOs, small business owners and entrepreneurs, senior healthcare or education supervisors, and renters or laborers closely connected with the champions of human rights and the pacesetters for local community growth.

            Let’s revisit St. Rhubarb-on-the-Hill Church, now that it has transformed its personnel committee into a human resources team. In any given worship experience: about 10 percent of the worshipers are members doing administrative tasks; about 40 percent of the worshipers are members involved in ministries; an additional 30 percent are members still discovering gifts and discerning their personal calling; and 20 percent of the worshipers are nonmember seekers who see a good opportunity for personal fulfillment. The staff has shifted from “doing it all” to “equipping most of it.” Financial giving has increased; worship is a lot more interesting; and mission is multiplying. It all happened because the church awakened to the need to intentionally, seriously, and assertively help volunteers go beyond institutional duty and fulfill their lives.

Note: See the “Coaching Corner” article in this issue for related discussion questions.

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