Increasing Your Effectiveness in Asking: Meaningful Engagement Part II
In a previous post, [Meaningful Engagement in the New Year: Questions to Ask] within the list of questions to help you assess your effectiveness in meaningfully engaging people in ministry, I wrote:
Are you asking at least four-six times as many people as you have positions to fill? Each of these conversations is an important touchpoint with an important person in the eyes of God. You WILL have to make a LOT of personal invitations. Fewer if you have spent time praying and thinking through how their gifts and talents and interests fit the position needs.
Instead of becoming overwhelmed about how many calls you need to make and conversations you have to have, take time to do the following:
· Pray. Pray that the Lord would be in this entire process—with you, your team, and the people contacted. Ask others to pray for and with you. Gather them before Sunday services or after a mid-week gathering. Or, if you can’t meet together to pray, email them requests specific to the ministry needs.
· Write the job description. Think about who would be the best fit. What gifts might they need to have—or might you hope they have? Any talents or skills that would be helpful? Do you provide training/orientation? How long of a commitment are you asking for—both in terms of hours per week/month as well as how many years are you expecting them to continue to do this? [Churches are notorious for asking people to step up in some area and then leaving them there for decades—whether or not it is good for the church, the person, or the ministry!] Be sure to include WHY they are a fit and WHY they might want to/benefit from this involvement.
· Brainstorm—with yourself, your team, others on staff, search your church’s database—a list of people who are a close fit for this job. If you ask people who have the spiritual gift of Intercession to serve on a prayer team, you are more likely to get a “yes” than if you take a buckshot approach and ask just anyone. This does require that, over time, you and others are getting to know your people and capturing this data in some searchable form (electronic database).
· Once you have your list of people who fit the need, you can reach out to them to specifically and personally ask them, based on both the job and their alignment with the description. I’d much rather be asked to serve because I have gifts of Exhortation and Hospitality or gifts of Wisdom and Discernment instead of “we just need someone!” Part of your job is to—in a non-coercive way—help them to see where their gifting and interests and calling align with this opportunity to grow while serving.
· Because you have entrusted this process from start to finish to the Lord, you can let go of the hard-press sales pitch and the desperation in your voice/demeanor. You can truthfully say to each person, “I would love for you to prayerfully consider this…and I will follow up with you next week [or whatever timeframe makes sense]. If you’re a ‘yes’, we’d be delighted to welcome you onto the team. If you are a ‘no’, I trust that the Lord is directing you to something else in this season.” You might add “I’d be happy to help you connect elsewhere if you’d like.”
· Viewing all of this through the lens of God at work in and through you and each person with whom you have contact will help you move from a “volunteer” to a “disciple” mindset, also giving you a longer-than-this-urgent-ministry-need perspective.
Important resources:
Take this free spiritual gifts assessment or this free Spanish language spiritual gifts assessment.
Purchase the six-week workbook in English or Spanish:
Downloadable Resources--See Sample List of Interest Areas; Your Spiritual Gifts—A Study Guide; Knowing Your Unique Calling and Purpose Study Guide; Whole-Life Ministry: A Form of Worship, Grace-Giving, and Living into Your Calling.
Shirley Giles Davis, author of God's Affirmations For You: A Book of Encouragement—A 12-Week Devotional Practice, the God. Gifts. You. Your Unique Calling and Design workbook, Your Unique Design Class Guide, Your Unique Design Facilitator Guide, DIOS. DONES. TÚ.: Tu llamado y diseño único (Spanish Edition), and Gifts-Calling-Purpose blog, is a consultant, coach, facilitator who has worked with hundreds of faith-based organizations, nonprofit agencies, and executive leaders in a diversity of fields for four decades. She currently serves as Catalyst for Equipping at her church.
Photo © Shirley Giles Davis.
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