Today’s Mission

Day 5

Progress, Not Perfection

I remember reading that Shakers deliberately introduced

a mistake into the things they made, to show that

man shouldn’t aspire to the perfection of God.

Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.

GRETCHEN RUBIN, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT

One of the great impediments to building a healthy volunteer team is the unrealistic desire to get a perfect team together in the perfect way—immediately. Of course, we don’t actually use the word perfect. Instead we talk about “finding the right fit.” We talk about “not just filling slots!” We talk about waiting until the right time to ask.

I’ve seen youth pastors totally stymied in their recruiting process by the trap of perfectionism.

There’s the youth pastor who feels that every potential volunteer should have completed a spiritual gifts test (or a DISC profile or an Enneagram assessment or a Myers-Briggs survey or a strengths-finder report, or all of the above!).

There’s the youth leader who thinks no one should be qualified to lead until they have had at least twenty hours of training.

There’s the student ministries director at the Blue Hair Memorial Church who believes that only young adults should be youth leaders, and the youth worker at Skinny Jeans Community Church who believes that young adults are too inexperienced to provide real leadership to students.

I’m a fan of spiritual gifts tests. I’m a fan of youth volunteers being trained. I’m a fan of having older adults as youth leaders and having younger adults as youth leaders. These are great priorities, but again and again we’ve seen wonderful teams built without attention to these priorities!

Generally, focusing on getting all the right volunteer systems in place before you build your team almost always results in having little or no team to train. The trap of perfectionism keeps us paralyzed because we know all the things we’d like to do to build a great team of volunteers. Like starting up a hill with a bike in high gear, expecting the perfect recruiting or training processes has a way of stalling the momentum you’ll need to build your team.

The first step of getting a team in place is (dare I say it?) filling the slots, making sure all the positions are filled for the coming year. Yes, we want to get the best possible people in the best possible roles. And the next twenty-four days we’ll be focusing on just that priority.

This year, you will undoubtedly come up with things you’d like to do differently next year. When you do, write them down in a document called “Improving Our Recruiting Process.” But this year, let’s focus on building a gloriously imperfect team—the only kind of team God ever gets to work with.

Today’s Mission

Create a document called “Improving Our Recruiting Process” (either on your computer or in a physical file). As you come across things you’d like to do differently when you start the recruiting process a year from now, include those ideas in this document.

On your potential pool list, write to the left side of each name one of the following letters:

A—This person would be a great addition to your team.

B—This person would be a good addition to your team.

C—This person is a possible addition to your team.

To the right side of the names on your list, identify each person with one of the following letters:

W—This person would be great working with kids.

B—This person would be great working behind the scenes.

E—This person would be great working in either kind of role—with kids or behind the scenes.

Place each name from your pool list into your master needs list (samples at ministryarchitects.com/30-day-change-resources) so that every blank has a single name in it. Each name should only be used once. You’ll want to place the A names first, placing Ws and Es in roles working directly with students and Bs and Es in behind-the-scenes roles.

On your master needs list, include a phone number and email address for every name you have placed in a slot.

↑ Back to top