WILLOW Magazine, Issue 1, 2005 Reclaiming the Pioneering Spirit by Katie Adams How one church out west is getting back to its roots by increasing its volunteer staff At Calvary Community Church,volunteers do everything from leading churchwide campaigns to cleaning the bathrooms. Pastors, take note: They even help prepare the sermons. Calvary Community Church in Westlake Village, California is growing ... and shrinking all at the same time. More than 4,000 people attend Calvary Community’s weekend services and that number is growing. But as the church grows, there has been a concerted effort to get smaller in one surprising area — the number of paid staff. Senior Pastor Brad Johnson came on staff at Calvary Community Church over a year and a half ago, leaving Saddleback Church to join a church with a long and stable history. Calvary Community has been in existence for 30 years, with Pastor Johnson as just the second senior pastor in the church’s history. Johnson credits the church’s previous leadership and the current executive pastor with positioning volunteerism as a high value. “Prior to me coming on board, our executive pastor, Warren Schuh, had begun to realign staff. And it wasn’t just about moving staff from one spot to another. They also eliminated some paid staff positions because the church leadership felt that we were ‘overstaffed.’ They wanted to increase volunteerism and eliminating some paid staff positions was a catalyst for that,” said Johnson. Staff realignment is one part of the new emphasis at Calvary Community on equipping members for ministry. “Our prevailing theme this year is helping people serve and grow in Christ. We’re dedicated to following the Ephesians 4 model of teachers, pastors, and evangelists equipping the saints so that we all grow up in Christ.” Today Calvary Community has what is considered a “lean” staff. According to Johnson, “a fair rule of thumb is that for churches with an average Sunday attendance of 2,000, 50 percent of the church’s overall budget will be directed to staff and personnel costs.” With more than twice that number of Sunday attendees, Calvary earmarks just 42 percent of its total budget for staff and personnel costs. Dedicating less of its budget for staff costs keeps the church leadership focused on how ministry is created and who is carrying it out. “We don’t have the volunteer thing ‘figured out’ by any means. But it is on our heart and we want to do it right. That’s why we have a laser-like focus on keeping paid staff positions to a minimum,” said Johnson. “That focus creates a climate where we’re constantly asking ourselves ‘what kind of ministry can we get done and not be staff-dependent?’” Keeping paid staff to a minimum isn’t primarily about dollars and cents. Rather, says Johnson, it’s about creating life-change for church members. “I really believe that the biggest impact we can each make in life, and the longest legacy we can leave behind, will be felt by the world when we know what God made us to do and then we figure out a way to do it,” says Johnson. “Sadly, most people spend their whole lives never really knowing that.” The church, he says, needs to help in that process. Johnson says that churches need to “equip and release” Christians for ministry in order for them to realize their life’s purpose. Instead, he’s observed a disheartening pattern in church growth that affects church members’ ability to make an impact and leave a legacy. It’s what fuels the “second drum” Johnson is beating at Calvary Community. “The second drum I’ve been beating is for us to recapture the initial pioneering spirit of this church. You hear amazing stories of people making great sacrifices — of their time, resources, gifting, and passion — in the early days of most churches. People enjoy feeling like they’re part of something new during those exciting first years,” says Johnson. “But then as a church matures, and maybe even prospers, we replace all of that by trying to pay people to do what they were gladly willing to do as a volunteer. I want to reclaim that pioneering zeal and challenge people to give of themselves instead of hiring people to do ministry.” Like most American churches, Johnson looks back over Calvary Community’s history and sees a typical pattern of church growth. A pattern he’s doing his best to break. While things tend to move rapidly in the early years of most churches, “there’s more need than resource. But as that balance tips and resources increase in proportion to ‘perceived need’ those resources start going toward primarily comfort issues, like bringing on additional staff and building a physical building.” Dedicating resources to “comfort issues” can mitigate against a “roll-up-your-sleeves-we’re-building-something-here” mindset that Johnson thinks is imperative for churches to help members become fully devoted followers of Christ. “No church will ever be able to afford enough staff to accomplish all that God has called the local church to accomplish,” said Johnson. “The first church seen in Scripture was not dependent on paid staff so we shouldn’t be now.” One of the keys to creating a culture of volunteer-driven ministry is making sure that the staff owns it as a high value. “Creating a volunteer culture absolutely has to start with the staff,” says Johnson. “How staff see their own role within the church is crucial.If they’re about equipping and releasing, catalyzing and coalescing for members’ spiritual growth and service, that’s great. But if staff is territorial about ministry then it shrinks the church’s capacity to finish her task.” The executive team at Calvary Community intentionally models the value of volunteerism to the staff in some creative ways. For example, one of the church’s elders provides the most touching example of volunteerism Johnson can think of. “This man leads the clean-up bathroom team after our Saturday evening service. He is a businessman by day, but on Saturday evening he grabs a mop and pail and cleans our bathrooms.” That act of service does more than simply eliminate the need to pay someone — it sets a living example of Jesus right in the middle of the congregation. Some people have gone the next step to actually work full- or part-time at the church in an unpaid capacity. One of the executive assistants at Calvary Community is an unpaid, full-time volunteer. And that’s just the beginning. “We have part-time volunteer staff serving in every ministry area,” said Johnson. Currently there are volunteers staffing custodial, missions, children’s, student, and college-age ministry positions at Calvary Community. While it’s hard to pinpoint an exact number, Johnson estimates that “a couple thousand volunteers” make ministry happen at Calvary Community. “Numbers swell in certain areas at certain times,” says Johnson. “For example, we have roughly 700 people volunteering for our Christmas production but a more consistent example would be the 200 people who volunteer with our children’s ministry on a regular basis.” Johnson encourages pastors not to let their weekend attendance numbers drive their volunteer expectations. “The weekend service isn’t going to be the most ready crowd to serve. If you measure against your Sunday service attendance it may appear that not many are serving. A more realistic yardstick is to determine who in your church has crossed the line of faith. Those people are the ones who are ready to be equipped and challenged for service.” Johnson likens it to the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. “That crowd of 5,000 was there to hear Jesus preach, to be healed, and to have lunch ... they weren’t there to serve. There were just 12 disciples and one small boy ready to serve that day. The key is to not look at who is there for lunch, but who is there that you know is following Christ.” The Christ-followers at Calvary Community are making some significant ministry happen. For example, this year 52 all-volunteer “community world teams” will go out locally or internationally to express compassion and the gospel. That number has skyrocketed from just seven teams one year ago. Another example is a small team of just eight volunteers who launched and oversaw the church’s recent “40 Days of Purpose” campaign. “It was by far the biggest all-hands-on-deck event in the life of this church. Thousands of people across every ministry participated in the campaign,” said Johnson. “That campaign re-birthed our small group ministry. We reaped amazing results because eight people discovered how they could serve and dove in head first to do it.” Laughing, Johnson describes a very unique serving opportunity at Calvary Community. “This is one pastors are going to dig: We have 40 volunteer sermon researchers. We put an ad in our weekend bulletin asking for people who love to surf the net, love to ‘Google’ stuff, and like to read.” Johnson had an initial training meeting with the group of potential volunteers. “I finished the meeting by saying there would be no second meeting unless someone in the room stepped up to lead the team. I knew that I couldn’t take 40 individual research submissions on a weekly basis ... I needed someone to distill it, edit it, and pass on the main points.” A man in the group immediately stepped forward to take leadership. Today Johnson gives him the general direction of his sermons several weeks out, and then “the Monday before I’m speaking I receive 50 pages of research for my sermon.” The volunteer sermon research ministry at Calvary Community points to the fact that there are all types of people that God has gifted in less obvious ways that can make a significant contribution to the life of the church. “But you have to look and ask,” says Johnson. “I think about people like graphic artists. They tend to be introverts and like to work alone, but they’re wildly creative. Instead of churches settling for poorly done PowerPoint presentations or cheap clip art downloads, why not ask an artist in your congregation ‘Would you put together a really sharp PowerPoint for my next event? Or redesign the bulletin?’ As paid staff sometimes we forget that there are people who would love to be asked to use their gifts for the church.” When asked what he would say to encourage pastors wanting to create a culture of volunteerism at their church, Johnson says, “If the biggest impact the church can make is helping members discover and do the ministry they were created for, then that’s going to require the biggest investment of our time. While hiring staff can seem like the easy answer, sometimes it’s the hard thing we need to choose instead. Equipping and releasing members for ministry instead of hiring more staff is the only way the church is going to experience true, significant growth.” Pursuing a goal with focus and passion — it’s the way the West was won. And it’s the way that people are being won to Christ and are building His kingdom through Calvary Community Church. Top