Your Ministry Community: Three Groups Connected by the Rope
Your ministry, your response to God's call to service, is like a rope which God has tossed your way. You responded to God’s call by grabbing and taking ownership of the rope.The rope, that is, your ministry, touches and binds three segments of your community: the served, the servants, and the stewards. To foster a rich ministry community, leadership must strengthen the ties to each group bound by the rope.
- One group are the people who need your help, those you serve. They are the ones searching for the rope of support, the served.
- The second group are those doing the work. These servants (staff and volunteers) are the ones who deliver the services; carrying the rope to those crying out for help.
- The third group (and the least visible), are those who lend financial support to the work of your ministry. They are the stewards supplying more rope, mending it, adding to it, repairing it. They are a vital part of your community.
Leaders must connect the entire community
"Advocace partners with Christian nonprofits to help them focus on their entire community connected by a rope: the people they serve, the staff doing the work, and the supporters who power the ministry. At Advocace, we strengthen the rope."
Jerry Grimes
Senior Consultant
Advocace
Your challenge and opportunity as leaders is to make sure each section of your community is firmly attached to the single rope. That means that although most of your resources and time go to the work of ministry, you also recognize that donors are part of your community and deserve and demand attention also. The most important task of building a community of ongoing support is connecting people. Donors must connect leadership and staff; leadership, including the Board, must connect with the staff and with the served. Donors must also connect with those you serve. When people experience the work of your ministry through the live you touch, everyone becomes an owner.
Community: Mark of a Great Nonprofit
By focusing on the whole rope and building a community of ongoing support around your ministry’s cause you can gain two important advantages:
- A community of ongoing support allows you to fund and expand the services your ministry is currently delivering
- A community of ongoing support allows you to plan for growth and adopt management and development systems to make your ministry operate more efficiently, doing more in the same allocation of time.
Advocace can help you build a community of ongoing support by effectively communicating your beliefs and your ministry vision and connecting you to like-minded people who share the same values and beliefs.