Answering the Call

An Evaluation of Volunteer Opportunities at RockSpringChurch

May, 2009

Committee: Gina Dale, Sara Fitzgerald, Peggy Greenwood, and Donna Moss

This report includes:

  • Introduction
  • Background on Rock Spring’s Organizational Structure
  • Possible Ways to Move Forward
  • Recommendations for Next Steps

Introduction

At the 2009 Rock Spring Annual Meeting, the Nominating Committee requested that the Church Council consider whether the current volunteer structure of the church remains compatible with the volunteer resources available, and if not, to recommend any changes that might encourage a greater harmony between the two. At the February Council Meeting, Council approved the formation of a subcommittee to study the current structure and usage of volunteers in the Church.

In the twelve weeks we had to complete the work, the committee used several methods to explore the issues. (See Appendix A for a list of activities and references.) We learned early in our study that Rock Spring is not alone in trying to address the issue of volunteers. With more time, more research could be done. However, we believe we are presenting enough concepts and ideas for Council to consider and begin the process of solving the problems at hand.

Current Volunteer Issues

At the annual meeting, it was noted by the Nominating Committee that including constitutionally-mandated positions, Sunday School teachers, YORS leaders, Pastoral Guidance Committee, the Audio Team, and the Caring Ministry, there are approximately 180 semi-permanent volunteer positions at Rock Spring. A quick glance at the list of current volunteer jobs at Rock Spring (see Appendix C) shows the breadth and scope of what volunteers do at Rock Spring. A number of issues were raised with the committee:

  • Better aligning church volunteer work with individuals’ gifts of ministry.
  • Finding enough people to fill elected positions.
  • Retaining active members in elected positions. (Some people resign and others become inactive board/committee members.)
  • Finding people to fill the myriad other volunteer positions.
  • Managing the number of activities at Rock Spring so they do not compete with each other for volunteers and participants.
  • Organizing all the events that the various groups do and getting them on the church calendar so that there are no scheduling conflicts.

The committee believes there are three ways the current situation could be addressed.

  1. Establish new practices to make recruitment easier, communication better, and event planning more efficient.
  2. Try and reduce the size of boards and the lengths of terms, and provide boards with greater flexibility on how frequently they meet, and promote the use of additional volunteers for the kinds of assignments that have encouraged some boards to increase their size over time.
  3. Reorganize our church structure using a more flexible model than we currently have. Our research has provided us with some new models for organizing churches, with leadership teams promoting smaller number of key aspects of the church and church life. In a perfect world, the organization would flow out of a period of church self-discovery rather than operating in a vacuum. However, because the church has recently engaged in a congregational survey and is involved with rewriting its profile, we will take the liberty of suggesting a more flexible model that might better address church’s missional and programmatic needs.

Background on Rock Spring’s Organizational Structure

The basic organizational model of Rock Spring dates back to 1948, when the church adopted a Constitution (36 years after it was founded.) Before then, a 20-member Executive Committee had guided decision-making, but as the church entered a period of substantial growth, it was recognized that a new structure was necessary.

Starting in 1948, the church established boards for Deacons, Religious Education, Finance, Music, and Community Activities. (Almost immediately, the Property Board was added.) Boards were expected to meet monthly, preferably before the Council meeting. Since that time, the Constitution has added boards, and increased their membership. No board has been eliminated.

This structure was established when the church had 176 members, a single pastor and a Sunday School superintendent, and at a time when only 23 percent of American women worked. At that time, the church was a Congregational church; the merger that led to the creation of the United Church of Christ was still 10 years away. Today, a much larger percentage of members come from a faith tradition other than the Congregational one, and thus may have a different expectation regarding organizational decision-making. Rock Spring's structure was also put in place before the advent of fax machines, copying machines, conference calls, email, Web sites, and Web-based collaboration tools, when face-to-face meetings provided the best, and possibly only, mechanism for group decision-making.

On a number of occasions, starting in 1974, committees were put in place to consider revisions to the Rock Spring Constitution. Interestingly, that year a committee considered reducing the size of the Board of Deacons from 18 to 12 members, citing the difficulty in filling the board, but that change was not adopted.

In noting that Rock Spring’s constitution was put in place 60 years ago, Rev. Doug Griffin said that on average, the life expectancy of a church, from planting to strength to static and to decline, is now thought to be about 70 years. Experts suggest that churches need to change during that cycle if they are to remain vital.[1]

A more detailed review of changes in Rock Spring's organizational structure is provided in Appendix B.

Possible Ways Forward

Through our study, several themes emerged as important to the overall goal of using volunteers effectively to pursue the ministries of RockSpringChurch and to achieve a better balance between needs and capacity:

  • Be nimble, efficient, effective and flexible.
  • Organize to maximize our strengths.
  • Make use of new ways to communicate.
  • Seek ways to make volunteer work more spiritually fulfilling.
  • Keep abreast of best practices for churches and nonprofit organizations.

Below, are three approaches the church could choose to take, listed in increasing order of complexity.

Strategy 1: Least complex (strongly recommend)

Volunteer Resource Committee (2-3 people) — will be responsible for the following:

  • Time and talent survey: develops an annual survey in conjunction with the annual giving campaign and ensures the information gets into the database and email lists.
  • Database: works with the Staff to keep a volunteer database up-to-date, making sure it reflects members’ and friends’ interests and ministry skills.
  • Volunteer Recruiter(s): assists Boards in finding members interested in one- time tasks or taking on an annual assignment. It is not anticipated that the Volunteer Resource Committee would take over boards’ responsibility to maintain rosters for activities. The committee would also assist the Nominating Committee in its annual search for Board members. The question that should be addressed to members is “what ministries would you like to support?” and “what gifts and skills are you able to share?” rather than “Will you serve on X Board?”
  • “Volunteers Wanted” List: maintains a “Volunteers Wanted” list in the Rock Spring News and other communication vehicles.
  • Email Lists for Cross-board Skills: keeps and updates church-wide email interest lists (e.g., Music Support, Calling All Cooks, Arts & Crafts, Social Action, Memorial Services, Sunday School, THRIVE (formerly Dinner Program for Homeless Women), Landscape, YORS parents, Caring Ministry, JFAL) in conjunction with the appropriate Board, Committee or Staff member. For example, anyone interested in cooking could be on an email list for church dinners, memorial services, Women’s Fellowship solicitations, etc.

Semi-annual Calendar Coordination Meeting — Twice a year, representatives of all groups that anticipate scheduling major events will meet to plan church activities, reconcile the church and community calendar, and encourage joint sponsorship of events. Such calendar coordination meetings would not stifle spontaneous event planning, but will help leaders of such events schedule more effectively.

Efficient Practices — Encourage Boards and Committees to use various electronic channels of communication, such as Yahoo Groups, Wiki sites, email, online church calendar, for planning and executing their duties. This may enable boards and committees to cut down on the number of face-to-face meetings they need to hold.

  • Rock Spring can create training mechanisms to support members who are not familiar with these tools.

Ad Hoc Groups —Review the list of ad hoc groups and decide if every group needs and/or has a home, i.e., a larger group with which to communicate and coordinate.

Emphasize Short-term Opportunities —Emphasize that Board members lead and organize, but should look for help from the congregation in supporting church activities. For example, the Finance Board could seek additional volunteers to count the offering on Sunday mornings on a semi-regular basis. Emphasize task force organization for one-time activities and small committees that work on their own with tasks. Emphasize important annual volunteer opportunities – for example, serving for one year on the Pledge Campaign, or one year as a YORS adult leader.

Comments

The committee believes that these suggestions will encourage task organization, minimize scheduling conflicts, more efficiently plan and staff events, and give assistance to Boards in finding volunteers.

The plan does require two additional meetings, however these sessions should help clergy and lay leaders to more effectively plan the “big picture” of the church year.

Strategy 2: Granting Permission for Boards to Streamline

Each Board Rethinks Itself

  1. Relax Constitutional mandates on size of boards and meeting frequency.
  2. Could lower the number of required board meetings a year (e.g., once per quarter); boards could plan an annual schedule based on their needs.
  3. Retain a mandate that boards try to hold their first meeting of the year within 30 days of the annual meeting.
  4. Boards should review which of their tasks could be performed by volunteers under board direction, with an eye to reducing the size of each board.(Over time, some boards have grown in size because of the board’ workload.) For instance, Deacons are now supported by a large number of liturgists who do not have to be Deacons; the CE Board is supported by a large number of Sunday School teachers who do not have to be CE Board members.
  5. Each board should think about new ways to meet, communicate, and perform duties. For example, boards should be free to designate someone other than the board chair as the board’s representative to Church Council, or to share the chairmanship among two people (some boards have already done this)

Reduce the Term of Board Membership to Two Years with the Option to Renew Two Times

  1. This strategy may entice some people to join a board who are reluctant to commit to three years, thus increasing the pool of volunteers. It may reduce the number of people who leave boards or become inactive members of a board. While we believe that three-year terms provide new members with the chance to “get up to speed” over time and become more effective board members, persons who discover that they enjoy their board work could decide to extend for a second term. Persons who are long-term church members would likely not take as long to get up to speed on a new board assignment.
  2. An alternative approach would be to have every member serve a one-year term, renewable up to a certain number of years, and then each year determine how many seats need to be filled, based on the number of board members who were willing to return.

Merge Stewardship and Social Action into a Renamed Board that Focuses on Mission and Outreach

  1. The committee believes that this would better align the church’s mission activities and benevolences and more effectively use board members’ time. This would create a stronger integration of mission and money. Two or three members could be recruited specifically to oversee the special offerings and propose the annual giving allocations to the whole Board for review, approval and submission to the congregation.
  2. Care should be taken to ensure that the mission of both boards is carried out in the new board.
  3. The new board would be free to organize itself along local, national and international lines if it chooses.

Comments

These strategies reduce the numbers on Boards in favor of more flexible task organization and could reduce the number of members resigning early. They reduce the number of meetings volunteers need to attend and give boards the flexibility to determine how often they meet each year.

For some individuals it may reduce the opportunities for the kind of fellowship that happens at the meetings, but for others it may be more attractive by creating opportunities for that kind of fellowship outside of meetings.

NOTE: The committee had some discussions about the roles of the Personnel Board and the Pastoral Guidance Committee. It came to no conclusion, but believes this may be an area worthy of additional study and recommendations by those involved. The Music Board was also discussed but because it has its own endowment and legal obligations, it would need to be retained in some form, at least for the short term.

Strategy 3: Restructuring Rock Spring in a New Way

One issue that has been raised in recent years is the potential need for a coordinating organization for fellowship activities at Rock Spring.

In discussions with church leaders beyond Rock Spring, the committee learned of at least two churches within the Central Atlantic Conference who have sought, in recent years, to better align their organizational structure with how the church defined its mission, including an increased focus on “congregational care.” For purposes of this discussion, we'll focus on the one, that is more comparable in size and history to Rock Spring. [2]

A few years ago, the church took steps to simplify its structure. It created seven "leadership teams." Four of the teams are organized around the way the congregation defines its goals:

  • Worship (including music);
  • Christian Formation (Christian education and experiential learning);
  • Outreach (social action, benevolences and work with wider UCC and ecumenical organizations)
  • Congregational Life (Fellowship-type activities and what we would now consider the Caring Ministry)

The other three boards are Personnel, Building and Grounds, and Stewardship (whose responsibilities are more akin to those of our Finance Board). The church has reduced the size of its boards, and the number of required meetings.

The church’s Constitution describes the Congregational Life Team this way:

“We are stronger together than we could ever be apart. Our caring for others in our church family is a mutual responsibility and joy. Some of our caring is one-to-one; much of it happens in small group settings; and it is always a component of our life together. The Congregational Life team is entrusted with the dual charges of (1) reaching out to non-members to encourage them to join the church, and (2) insuring that the church is attentive to the needs of all members, including new and long-term members.

The team will help the congregation be a welcoming place and will extend our hospitality through such activities as receptions, shared dinners, caring ministries and coffee hours. It shall encourage and oversee special interest groups. . . . .”

The Congregational Life team has three members and three other representatives of these groups:

  • “Deacons,” who are responsible for connections to church members who do not have children in Sunday School;
  • “Class representatives” of each Sunday School class, responsible for fostering relationships between parents of similarly-aged children;
  • The six-member Membership Committee, responsible for reaching out to potential new members and then integrating them into church life.

The essential difference in this organizational model and Rock Spring’s is putting one group in charge of the worship experience and another group in charge of those responsibilities of the Deacons that are related to congregational care (e.g., Caring ministry, new member outreach and integration, and other fellowship-type activities designed to address the needs of various groups).

There was a time in Rock Spring history when the members of the Board of Deacons were expected to visit every Rock Spring family over the course of a year. Over the years, some new approaches have been tried: neighborhood groups, telephone trees, etc. The Congregational Life Team concept is another approach to try to address the need for better connectedness in a church our size.