UECF logoUnited Evangelical Christian Fellowship Church (UECF)130 Ferris Pl, Westfield, NJ
Chapter 28 of 40

Today’s Mission

Today’s Mission

smileyDay 26

Architecting a New Culture

Come, let us rebuild . . .

NEHEMIAH 2:17

You can be a victim of the culture of your ministry, or the architect of it. Architecting the culture of your ministry begins with putting in writing, as clearly as possible, what you want to see. But that step is only the beginning—the right beginning, but only a beginning.

Most mission statements fail to set the direction for their ministries. Why? Most mission statements take months to be formulated and weeks to be laminated and hung, but almost no time to fall behind the piano, only to be found years later at the church’s once-a-decade cleaning event. Writing a goal statement about volunteers is not enough to change the culture. A nice goal document combined with a healthy dose of hoping, wishing and praying will, more often than not, leave you still feeling like a victim of a culture you can’t control.

But you have chosen to do it differently. You have spent the last twenty-five days architecting your team, intentionally working the process that will not simply get new volunteers on board but will, ultimately, change the culture of your ministry.

With just a few days of this culture-changing boot camp left, we hope you’re beginning to actually feel something different—a change in you as well as in your ministry.

Today’s Mission

  • Complete the items you’ve assigned yourself to accomplish on this day. If you haven’t scheduled specific items on this day, return to day twenty-three and complete step one.
  • If you haven’t done this already, develop a calendar for how you will spread the viral good news about the strong youth ministry volunteer team in place for the coming year. Consider including the following actions:
    1. Celebrate the new volunteer team in the church newsletter.
    2. Report the names and roles of your new volunteer team to the church’s leadership.
    3. Have a special program for the youth (and their parents) at which the new volunteers are celebrated and introduced.
    4. Commission the volunteer team before the congregation.
    5. Write an article for your church’s website about the new team of volunteers.
    6. Introduce and celebrate your new team of volunteers on the youth ministry’s Facebook page.
  • Continue your recruiting and follow-up work:
    1. With your master recruiting documents (your needs list and your ranked pool list) in front of you, check your email to see if anyone has responded to your invitation and reply to those emails immediately.
    2. For those who have said yes, make sure their names are written in black ink on your master list.
    3. For those who have said maybe, send an email suggesting a meeting time and place for you to talk further about what you’re looking for.
    4. Hold any scheduled meetings with potential volunteers.
    5. For those who have said no,
      1. Move their names to the bottom of the pool list, under the section called “No.”
      2. Beside each name, write what role each person has said no to.
      3. Remove their names from the needs list.
      4. Place new names in the blanks left by those who have said no.
    6. Send your standard invitation email to the people you have added to your master recruiting list.
    7. Send a follow-up message to any potential volunteer who hasn’t responded to your last message in three days or more.
  • Take one more step for each of the five leader documents, either working on the document yourself or providing support to the person responsible to complete the document in the next two days:
    1. youth leader directory
    2. major event calendar
    3. youth directory
    4. child protection and screening forms and policies
    5. job descriptions

    Send a reminder to those working on these documents that you’ll need a draft of what they have done by the end of the day tomorrow.

  • Take a look at the structure document you developed on day nineteen. Using the ranked list of your current volunteers, determine if anyone is in the “wrong seat on the bus.” Make one step today toward moving someone on your current team into a role that will be more life-giving for the volunteer and more impactful for your ministry.

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