Silos… The Unspoken Barrier to Ministry

FTDeliverySvcs — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 04:40:00 GMT

My name is Matthew McMaster and I have been a Delivery Manager at Fellowship Technologies since March of 2004. In that time I have implemented over 100 churches. Some of them have been very sophisticated in how they communicate within their ministries but many of them have a real silo issue. When each ministry functions as its own separate entity with little or no regard for the larger entity (The Local Church) as a whole, you have a group of silos; not a unified team. An example of this would be when the Youth Pastor gets their new students to fill out a first time visitor card. This seemingly ordinary process is really masking a silo issue. When you look closer at the first time visitor card you will notice it is missing some very important information. What are the parent’s names? Do they have any siblings and what are their ages? What is the best way to get in touch with the parents? Do they have a church home? Now the Youth pastor might say, “That information isn’t necessary for me to reach that student.” This is a silo mentality. The Youth Pastor is forgetting that the student is part of a larger entity of the family. Each member of the family is a potential soul needing to be reached. Each member of the family is the target market for other ministries at The Local Church.

Another example of a silo that I have seen involves working with multiple ministries trying to coordinate volunteer activities. There really is a best first time visitor with children process and it involves “Super Greeters” that can escort a family from one classroom to another explaining the check in and pick up processes. These “Super Greeters” naturally come from the Greeting team which is a separate ministry from the children’s ministry. I have heard from the leaders in this ministry on many occasions, “Why do I need to staff Greeters in the Children’s Building? That is their responsibility!” This silo mentality is detrimental to the volunteers as well as potential guests.

There are many other types of silos but I think you get my point. So now you must be wondering, “What do I do to break down those silos?” The answer is deceptively simple… Cross functional Teams. In future blogs, I will discuss two specific cross functional teams but you can have many more. The first is the Fellowship One Champion Team and the second is the Data Integrity Team. In my next entry, I will be discussing how the Champion Team functions.

Matthew McMaster
Delivery Manager
Fellowship Technologies.

Student Ministries - Name Tags - Are they worth it? 1 of 3

FTDeliveryTeam — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 22:38:00 GMT

Hello! Mark Lindsley, here, from the Delivery Services Team. As a Delivery Manager, I’ve met with several churches over the last couple of years. I just love getting to see how God is working in all of the different churches and communities. Of course, it’s always fun to meet with the Student Ministries, also known as the Youth Ministry. These are the pastors that have cool hair styles and dress way cooler than I do. They have to… they are building relationships with the truly cool congregants – the Jr. & Sr. High Students.

We always have great conversations about how they want to stay connected with their youth. They want to keep track of attendance to ensure that they know when someone drops off the radar. Inevitably, the conversation will always come around to name tags. Some are receptive and others react as if I just told them they’d have to wear a three piece suit to the Youth Activities. It’s as if, name tags will never work, be accepted, or serve as a valuable tool in their ministry.

First of all, why should you want to use name tags?

1. They help the Adult Leaders get to know the youth through Name – Face recognition. This is really important for us seasoned types that don’t always remember names. Students feel better when addressed by their name. Actually, everyone likes to be called by their name. It makes them feel special.

2. It creates approachability. To learn more about this cool concept, check out www.hellomynameisscott.com. Scott Ginsberg has dedicated his time educating others about the importance of name tags. Of course, a majority of his teachings are for the business world, but it still applies to our youth. This 27 Year Old, Scott Ginsberg, also known as the Name Tag Guy wears a name tag 24/7. A little too much on the cool side for my taste, he actually had the name tag tattooed on his chest.

3. Wearing name tags ensure close to 100% attendance reporting for your youth activities. It’s as simple as seeing the name tag on the student and knowing that their attendance has been posted. The attendance posting was performed at the time they received the name tag. If a student does not have a name tag on, they should be asked to check in.

Of course, this all sounds simple, but we are talking about teenagers, aren’t we? I know that challenging feeling, I’ve got a 13 year old daughter of my own and at times, I feel like we’re talking two different languages. I’m speaking English and she’s speaking IM. However, when I start talking IM or start texting her, I reach her at her level. We connect! I believe the same thing can be done with name tags.

Next week, we’ll talk about the How… How to make name tags cool!

Delivering Change : Student Youth Check-In Name Tags

Silos… The Unspoken Barrier to Ministry

Student Ministries - Name Tags - Are they worth it? 1 of 3