The Fantasy Sports Trade Association is reporting 41.5 million people will be playing fantasy football this year in the United States and Canada. Of this group, 78.1% have a college degree. In other words, serious people take fantasy football seriously.
Here’s one key lesson we have learned about fantasy football: You cannot win games if you do not field a full team. You need a player in every position. If you don’t, you will not score points and win games.
It would be foolish to try to win games without having every position filled. But as crazy as this sounds, it happens just about every Sunday at thousands of churches across the country. The players at churches do not wear pads, but they each still fill critical positions in children’s ministry, guest services, worship and every other ministry associated with our weekend services.
These players are called volunteers. And when their positions are not filled, the church cannot win.
To help you diagnose whether or not this might be an issue in your church, here are some symptoms to keep in mind:
- Are leaders asking to hire more staff? It’s possible you may need staff, but many times this is an indication you need more volunteers instead. On average, churches hire one full-time staff person for every 100 people in attendance. If you already have more staff than that, you probably have a volunteer shortage.
- Are key volunteers overworked? If you have volunteers serving in several different volunteer areas, that could actually be creating a barrier for others to serve. If the same people always respond to help, others will stand by and wait for them to step up. Sometimes we need to focus key volunteers to free up new opportunities for others to serve.
- Do you feel like there’s not enough help? On average, churches get 45% of their adults and students to volunteer at least monthly if not more often. If your percentage of volunteers is smaller than that, you need to connect more people to serve. Even if you’re at 45%, are you going to settle for being average?
- Are you tired or burned out? If you feel it, it’s likely that others feel it as well. God didn’t design ministry or leadership to be done alone. As Jethro challenged Moses, “You’re going to wear yourself out—and the people, too. This job is too heavy a burden for you to handle all by yourself” (Exodus 18:18, NLT). If you’re tired, you probably need help.
Are one or more of these symptoms present in you church? If so, I have an opportunity to help you take your next steps. The Rocket Company hosting a FREE online event called Get More Volunteers where they are interviewing nine leading pastors and church leaders about how they’ve built healthy, thriving volunteer ministries.
You’ll learn from Dave Ferguson, Pete Scazzero, Larry Osborne, Ronnie Floyd, Chris Mavity, Dave Gibbons, Carey Nieuwhof, Sue Miller, and Matthew Barnett.
Click the banner below to register now!