By JR Horn, Church Coach
If you are like me, you feel a burden to mobilize the people in your church. You walk in every Sunday morning and see the vast number of individuals (maybe not as vast as you want, but that’s for another blog post) that God has blessed you to shepherd. We have all read Eph. 4 and know that our job as ministers and pastors is to “equip his people for works of service….” So how do we do that? How do we go about putting a process in place that will allow us to train and equip God’s people for works of service? To start, we must transition from doing the job to overseeing that the job is done. That is the key to an equipping mindset.
In the last blog, we spent our time talking about the big picture ideas of Mission and Vision and how they motivate our people to serve. We saw the need to inject our people into the vision so that they could see how they are a part of the solution. But how do we make that practical? What are the tangible steps that your church needs to take in order to resource our people for carrying out Kingdom work? I think the answer is pretty simple and clear, we have to create a pipeline.
What is a pipeline?
At its core, it is a developmental plan where a person can step into something simple and progress upwards in their serving ability or capacity. Anyone should be able to enter the pipeline and see their clear next step to grow. Many churches have internal serving pipelines, but in this blog, I want to focus on moving our people into local and global streets. Let’s look at an external serving piepline in the context of one hour, one day, and one week – with the overall goal of taking someone in our church that does not actively serve to a place where they yearly give over a week to serve.
One Hour
Our entry point for this pipeline is one hour. How can an individual serve the Kingdom in your community for one hour? This entry point should be applicable to individuals who are new in their faith or have just recently started attending your church. This is their onramp, so slow down the speed limit and keep things easy.
You probably have many hour-long opportunities within the walls of your church, but what opportunities exist in your community? What partnerships have your formed with local ministries? Here are a few ideas: packing meals at a local meal packaging facility, serving food or handing out basic needs at a homeless shelter, stocking shelves at the local food bank, or separating clothes at the clothing closet.
At Team Expansion, many of our missionaries start their ministries with prayer walking. This could be a fantastic way to get your people onto the streets and interacting with the community specifically for Kingdom purposes.
Any of these efforts could become standing monthly opportunities that an experienced volunteer could coordinate.
One Day
Now that you have a group of people willing to serve for one hour, how can you deepen their engagement? Having a whole day to serve naturally opens up greater service opportunities. Plus, moving someone from step one to step two shows that they are progressing forward in their faith.
If someone connected with their hour-long opportunity, could they go deeper within that ministry? What opportunities could you help create? This could look like a larger construction project, a community outreach event, visiting several nursing homes, etc. These longer service opportunities will often naturally include more interaction with people and hopefully more chances to share their story and God’s story.
One key element to implement here is the addition of volunteer leaders. In order to allow people to progress on their faith journey we must allow leaders to rise up inside the church. How can you equip individuals from your church to lead these service events? This is a great place to begin training up individuals to oversee entire service projects for the church.
One Week
This one is pretty straight forward, what can your church do in order to offer a week of serving to your people? In most cases, this looks like a week-long mission trip. Can you take a week and travel to visit one of the missionaries or organizations that your church supports? Be creative, you are the expert and know your church well. You may not have to travel outside of the city limits to serve for the entire week!
Create your own Pipelines
Now you have an example. I’ve seen this simple pipeline I’ve outlined work time and time again. Your pipeline doesn’t have to be identical to this. Think of the stages of service that best suit your community and brainstorm how you can pastor your people through each step. Can you create a three-tiered service pipeline where an individual can begin at the bottom and progress from one hour to one week in your church? I’d love to hear what you come up with and the impact it makes on service in your church and in your community.
If there is anything I can do to aid in building this pipeline with you for your church, I would be happy to be of service to you.
ABOUT JR HORN
JR served in pastoral ministry for 15+ years in Kentucky and Wisconsin, but his desire to see churches become active participants in fulfilling the Great Commission led him into full-time service with Team Expansion. Today, JR helps churches become strategic and intentional with local and global missions. JR and his wife, Heather, are active foster and adoptive parents and have three kids. In their free time, you’ll find them riding their motorcycles together any chance they can get.
