Today’s Mission

Day 27

Preparing for the Mess

Life isn’t like a book.

Life isn’t logical or sensible or orderly.

Life is a mess most of the time.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

By now, there is a good chance you have your team in place. You may be breathing a well-deserved sigh of relief as you see the end in sight.

As you head into the new year with your new team, I want you to be prepared for what’s coming. Something will go wrong. Despite your best efforts,

There will be someone (or several someones) who thought they were agreeing to something very different than you did.

There will be those who will do only part of the role they signed on for.

Emergencies will come up that will require one or more of your leaders to bow out prematurely.

Volunteers will get sideways with each other (or with you, with the leadership, with your church, with your denomination or with another person sitting in their pew).

There are two things you can do to prepare for the unexpected:

Confirm expectations in writing with each of the volunteers who have said yes (which you have already done).

Build in several one-on-one follow-up conversations in the first couple months for realignment and troubleshooting with your volunteers (which you will do today).

You’ll seek to deal non-anxiously, non-reactively with each surprise as it comes. You’ll go back to your master recruiting list when you need to; you’ll re-edit job descriptions to meet the “twisted” needs of your team members; you’ll find short-term solutions to work until you can arrive at permanent ones. When the unexpected does happen, you won’t be surprised. In fact, you expected it.

Today’s Mission

Thank God for the leaders who have agreed to serve with you in the coming year.

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.

Continue your recruiting and follow-up work:

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.
For those who have said yes, make sure their names are written in black ink on your master list.
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.
Hold any scheduled meetings with potential volunteers.
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.
Send your standard invitation email to the people you have added to your master recruiting list.
Send a follow-up message to any potential volunteer who hasn’t responded to your last message in three days or more.

Continue working on the five leader documents and collect drafts of these documents from any people who are working on them for you:

youth leader directory
major event calendar
youth directory
child protection and screening forms and policies
job descriptions

Take a look at the structure document from 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.

Build into your calendar the times you will be checking in personally with each of your volunteers over their first month for realignment and troubleshooting.

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