![]() Having a surplus of volunteers ready to go means you won’t be short-staffed on a regular basis. You’ll find yourself pulling greeter volunteers to help with cleaning a bathroom or getting AV volunteers to also setup fans when the AC is broken. That’s because in a portable environment things go wrong regularly. Instead, you need more volunteers than you think. And then, if you do ask for more volunteers, it’s only after you’re already shorthanded. Most churches tend to get by with just enough volunteers. Have More Volunteers On Call Than You Need They don’t need to be running each of those areas, but they should be present and alert. That means they need to be at staff meetings, facility meetings with the landlord, and have a voice in each volunteer team. Your systems person should have a perspective that lets them see into every area of church life and business. You need someone who’s thinking about schedules for each individual volunteer and how you’re going to pull off training without a midweek facility. We all love a great communicator and faith-filled dreamers, but you need someone on your staff or as a senior volunteer that’s thinking about the nuts-and-bolts. You Need a “Systems Person” on Your Staff Or you could give the hallways a fresh coat of paint each year.Ī little proactive communication and generosity go a long way to make your stay in a portable location less stressful. That may mean buying new AV equipment that’s permanently installed, with the landlord’s blessing, of course. If you want to solidify your relationship, invest improving the space in a way that benefits everyone that uses it. You should be checking in to make sure you’re using the space in a respectful way for whoever else uses the space, like teachers or movie theater employees. ![]() You should be in constant contact with your landlord, if not weekly, then twice a month. ![]() The worst thing you can do is talk to your landlord once a year at contract renewal. Proactively Manage Your Landlord Relationship You’ll find that more families will stay long enough to give you a fighting chance at building a relationship with them. These small changes can reduce stress because you won’t be chasing families that come in for a week or two and then disappear. Maybe even get shirts for your volunteers. Spend the money on a TV for each room, enough pipe-and-drape to make each room feel like a special space, and hallway signage that wasn’t printed on your office printer. A few soft mats on the ground in a classroom isn’t going to cut it. Portable churches have a bad habit of relegating kids’ ministry environments to less-than-stellar experiences. Kids that have fun at church will drag their parents back, too. Always Be Thinking How You Can Make the Kids Experience Better You can take it a step further and pre-train new setup and breakdown volunteers via video training so they show up ready to go. Play some music on a portable sound stereo. You can keep your Sunday Sweat Teams happy with a few small gestures. Sure, they’ll always appreciate someone who makes their job easier, but the difference between a 60-minute setup and a 50-minute setup doesn’t matter much if the team isn’t happy. That’s because the people who show up at 6am on Sundays and leave at 2pm are there because they’re bought in and they like the people they’re serving with. Setup and Breakdown Team Happiness is Vital Whether you’re leading a portable campus of a larger church, a portable location after outgrowing your previous permanent location, or you’re a scrappy church plant with no budget…I hope this post can help you find ways to reduce stress for you, your team, and every volunteer in your church. Many portable churches are established and they’ve chosen to go portable for any of a variety of reasons. Some of that education was hard-fought and some of it was gleaned from good friends at other portable churches.įirst, I want to acknowledge that not all portable churches are young church plants. I’ve learned a thing or two during that decade. I was a worship leader at the first one and I’ve been in multiple roles at my current church. I’ve spent about 10 years in two different portable churches.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |