Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Recruitment
This discussion was born in Chicago and recently was revived because Dave and I were chatting about it recently. How do we effectively recruit new leaders to come alongside us in our ministries and/or prepare them to work with the disabled in another area starting a new disability ministry? It is agreed that this ministry field is widely under served - How can we help in this area? we at one time will have to pass our ministries on to someone else - How can we start doing this now?
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ReplyDeleteDavid D. Hayward has sent you a message.
Date: 3/23/2010
Subject: RE: Discussion invite
Hi folks, David here from Vancouver. I am happy to try to learn whatever system seems to work best. All of this tech stuff is rather new to me.
re. this recruiting leadership question.
I guess in Joy Fellowship we have always filled leadership positions in the past from within the group. God has always raised up leaders from within our volunteer base, and that way we know them, and they know the people, and we can assess their skills and relationships - most of the time this has worked well. We have had a couple of situations where a volunteer who was NOT selected when a position was being filled, became offended and at least once that led to a lasting bitterness against my father and the person he chose, but normally the group also recognizes the ability and the suitability of the person God has brought into leadership. in these cases, 'academic qualifications' have almost never been very important. In fact, our leaders have rarely had special education backgrounds or theological backgrounds. (Joy Gregory was an exception, in the sense that she had a Special Ed degree). Their primary 'qualifications' have been that we have been able to observe their interactions, their ability to speak, or lead worship or a study in a way that seemed appropriate to our congregation.
Recently, for the first time that I can recall, there did not seem to be anyone within the team who was suitable or available to fill a position when we had a need, and so we decided to advertise in a number of our local churches and theological schools, and from the applications that we received, invited two candidate for interviews, and then our Council unanimously agreed to call one of the candidates. She was finishing a Theological studies at Regent College, here, and has been serving with us part-time and seems to be a great fit, not because of specialized training, but because of her personal qualities of gentleness, love, and clear teaching.
I believe that Special Gathering has followed a very different path here, but I guess we don't really have Bible School courses helping to prepare people for this kind of ministry in Canada. At least I'm not aware of any. Joy Gregory might have thought of initiating something like that locally, but I can't see myself as being able to play that kind of role. We have had 'internships' over the past decade, that have led to other ministries like this beginning in various other parts of the world, but I don't think those interns were ever hired to work with Joy Fellowship. I guess we have had some great joy in walking with others who wanted to see things like this started, but have not had much contact with other groups like ours until Richard began to try to pull us together. I am very grateful for this beginning, and pray that we will be able to strengthen and encourage and bless one another as we share what we are learning like this.
I believe it is the responsibility of being a leader to impart what we have to others. We have added 8 other adult, full time, missionaries to our staff over the last 5 years. They have come onboard through entirely different avenues (in house volunteers to those coming in fresh and inexperienced). We do not pay salaries, everyone raises their own support as missionaries. We, as leaders, live the same way, this sets the tone and communicates a commitment that is lived and expected.
ReplyDeleteWe must be intentional in communicating vision, passion, and the celebration of God's move. I believe these three things do more to help others move in their Christian walk than anything else. This is truly the place that is most important in developing new leaders in my mind... that we as leaders, care more about our teams growth individually and as a group, than the ministry we serve in. If I work towards helping someone grow in their walk with God and their relationship with their family, the fruit of that health, is good ministry.
Those who serve with us in the trenches know our hearts, and if our hearts are to build ministries than that slows the building of ministers, which is counter productive to building ministries.
I also believe that relationships outside our own ministry can help our ministries. We have been blessed with relationships such as this through the years which have highly affected those we have on staff. One of our staff members spent many years doing Joni camps before finding us, that was a good relationship. Through Special Force and Special Touch Ministries we have benefitted from good relationships and the interchange of people. The Special Gathering has been very instrumental in my personal growth as well as others on my staff, I believe they have been affected by our ministry too. So my conclusion is that it is relationship that is most important to our futures, our focus should be on growing leaders as opposed to recruiting. Growth comes in part through iron sharpening iron, his type of forum is a incredible place to start!
Sound doctrine, Godly living, local church membership & involvement, Biblically literate, and a sense of mission-mindedness are several qualities that stand out to me. Bethesda, St Coletta, Opportunities Inc and the other big servers of those with disabilities in the Jefferson area... they all started as missions... by local churches, denominations and concerned parents. There is now a revival to go back to these mission-minded roots. This blog is an example of that.
ReplyDeleteA few days ago, I was talking with one of our pastors (really lamenting) about the fact so often disability ministry attracts the "weird and the needy” who want to lead. His response was always looking for excellence and those with good emotional intelligence do not settle for anything less than God's standards. I struggled with this thinking about the type of people I want to see become leaders! I believe the next generation of leaders really needs to be people who are seen as having disabilities by the world’s standards. Yet, these are often the same folks who no one has taken the time to lead. Leadership development takes time; it takes commitment, it takes being vulnerable around those of us we are called to lead.
ReplyDeleteThe other component of this process is inviting people into the process! So when we have events, activities, Sunday school classes, and conferences we need to invite others to come and hang out! People get excited when they see what we are doing.
I agree Laura Lee, I would struggle with this to. Looking for someone to come in who is already leadership quality excellence and has emotional intelligence speaks to a narrow concept of who God uses and how God works in our lives with and through others. Abraham was a liar, Jacob was a deceiver, Moses was a murder with no self-esteem, David was a murdering, lying, adulterer, Peter was a liar. These guys were all weird and needy on some level! It would seem the emotional intelligence of these men was not good yet they were made into great leaders. Leadership development takes growth in the community, great leaders develop great leaders by growing and then helping others grow. The Pastor you spoke with seems to understand exactly how to make an organization grow, but may struggle to grow people. I don't know. I do know throughout history great leaders have been driven from leadership because of the their weakness in surrounding themselves with growing people, who keep them accountable and focused on moving towards God.
ReplyDelete