How To Increase Productivity On Your Ministry Team

As a senior leader of a ministry, one of your biggest concerns should be growth and sustainability. Whether measured by clear numbers or more intangible qualities, your ministry team's productivity will have a direct influence on the sustainability of your organization. Here are five thoughts on how I recommend increasing the productivity of your ministry team.

1. Goals - Set clear, concrete, and achievable goals for your ministry team as well as each team member. What is your team working toward? I hope your overarching vision is to see your community follow Jesus, but what are the clear goals your team has set to see your community follow Jesus? Is it developing new ministries that meet the specific needs of your community? Is it increasing the number of people that attend Bible study on a regular basis? If you don't have clear ministry team goals, your church staff will be lost and could be working in opposite directions. This can cause conflict and slow down your efforts in achieving your vision.

2. Priorities - Once your goals are set and clearly understood by each ministry team member, you must help each team member learn how to prioritize their work. If you are a growing ministry, your church staff members most likely have more on their plate than is realistic to achieve. Your staff needs to know how to prioritize their time. As their senior leader, it's your responsibility to communicate which tasks and projects are most important to you so that things don't fall through the cracks.

3. Meetings - I've been a part of teams that meet too much, and I've been a part of teams that don't meet enough. It's vital to the productivity of your ministry team that you find the right balance of meeting frequency and meeting length for your team. Meetings are the lifeblood to vision alignment and goal setting, but too many many meetings can waste time and pull team members away from work. Be sure to only include the necessary team members that need to be included in a meeting. Nothing is more frustrating to a motivated employee than sitting in a meeting about something completely unrelated to their job responsibility.

4. Decision Rights - Red tape and micromanagement have a dampering effect on ministry team productivity because church staff members don't have the right to make timely decisions. Avoid having only one person in the organization that makes every single decision. Communicate to your team members about decisions you feel comfortable allowing them to make without you and which decisions you need to be run by you first. Your time and your team's time will be freed up because decisions will be made more efficiently.

5. Technology - Use technology to your advantage. Does your team have a central online location where your congregation's information is stored? There are several CMS options out there built especially for churches that can help you better engage with your church community. Do you use online tools likeDropbox and Evernote to share files and collaborate? There are many tools out there, but just start with a few basic onilne tools that work for your team. The less paper shuffling your team has to do, the more creative and productive they can be.

Do you agree with these tips on team productivity? What would you add that has made your team more effective?