People Spots
Online
Produced by James W.
Moss, Sr., and Church Consultants
Provided as a service by New Life Ministries
Recruiting Teachers/Group Leaders
Fifth article in a series by James W. Moss, Sr.
See the
first article - Small Groups
See the second article - The
Purpose of Small Groups
See the third article -
Evaluating Group Participation
See the fourth article - Starting
New Groups
I have been a conference staff person since 1977. If you said, “Jim, what question have you been asked the most since you started in this position?,” there is no question what the answer would be: “How do we find teachers/leaders for groups or classes?” Another version of this same question is, “How can we start new groups and classes when we can’t find leaders for the classes and groups we have?”
Here are my suggestions:
Identify potential candidates to be teachers/leaders. Carefully go over the whole list of people in your church. Who has the potential to be a teacher/leader?
Motivate potential candidates to volunteer. I have discovered that quality people don’t want busy work. But they will give time if they believe they will have the potential to impact people’s lives. Explain how as a teacher/leader there is a chance to make a real difference in people’s lives as they influence people to become Christians and then mature in the faith.
Intentionally recruit people to serve as leaders of a group or class. Explain the potential impact the role has. Prepare a job description and use it is a recruiting tool. Recruit for a specified term. Describe the support that will be provided should they serve.
There are four critical mistakes to avoid in recruiting people for teacher/leader roles:
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First, don’t undersell the job. We have become experts at that in the church. |
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Second, don’t ask the recruit in front of another person where a no would be an embarrassment. |
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Third, don’t use the telephone for recruit for serious tasks. |
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Fourth, don’t ask for volunteers. |
Training is essential in recruitment and in satisfaction on the job. Using the strategy of apprentices is a good one. Always employ an apprentice each time a new group is formed. Pick your best teachers/leaders and with them pick and apprentice and assign the apprentice for six months. The teacher/leader will teach how to build a lesson plan. In addition, the apprentice will attend the class for six months. Towards the end of the six months the apprentice will teach in front of the master teacher/leader and be evaluated. Churches ought to offer at least six hours of continuing education for teachers/leaders on site each year. Bring a number of recruits to the formal training. It will make it easier for the recruits to say yes.
Deploy the new teacher/leaders. Put them in the field. I have known of churches that trained new teacher/leaders but never deployed them. Deployment is a key ingredient of recruitment. Recruits need to get into the game.
Celebrate teacher/leaders. Take all your teacher/leaders and their spouses out for a dinner. Have a service of dedication in worship on Sunday morning. Highlight people who have given yeoman’s service in the life of the church. Remember, you generate what you celebrate.
This is the completion of this series on small groups.
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April 5, 2004. Volume 7, Issue 6. People Spots Online is prepared by James W. Moss, Sr., and Church Consultants. It is provided as a service by New Life Ministries, www.NewLifeMinistries-NLM.org. Articles may be duplicated and reproduced in any way with proper credit. A new article is produced about every two weeks. To be added to a list to receive these messages directly by e-mail, send a request to churchconsultants@yahoo.com.