The stories may be different, but the result is the same. Parents and volunteers are upset, angry or discouraged. Attendance starts to decline. Elders, deacons and other ministers start asking a lot of questions, holding meetings about your ministry or correcting you in some way. Your ministry is broken and you want to quit before you are fired. Or maybe you were just given a ministry that is badly broken and you have no idea where to start trying to fix it.
If you pay any attention to celebrity news, you may have noticed that they often do things that can “break” their careers. The smart ones hire “fixers” who know how to do damage control so the careers get back on track as quickly as possible. While that can entail manipulation, there are things you can do to help fix a ministry that is broken – whether it was broken on your watch or you inherited it. Doing these things will actually begin repairing your ministry and key relationships without using manipulation.
Needless to say, prayer and even fasting are the best things you can do. But you also need to do some work to help process and heal what has happened and decide what needs to happen next. Here are some of our favorite ideas to get the process started.
- Go on an extensive listening tour. You may think you know what broke the ministry, but many times you only know part of the story. There are lots of ways to conduct listening tours, (we have a free guide on the topic) but you need to convince people you want to know everything – even if they think you don’t want to hear it. Be prepared, because it can feel very personal and hurtful. If you don’t do this, however, people won’t feel heard and you won’t get crucial information. No matter how hard it is to hear, listen carefully and avoid getting defensive. Record the information to analyze later and be sincerely grateful for their help. Try not to leave anyone out of your tour. You don’t know who has key bits of information you need. You are also providing great “customer service” by listening well. In fact, search online for customer service techniques for help in doing a great listening tour with people who are upset.
- Be transparent. Secrets destroy trust – even if they are “good secrets”. When a ministry is broken, trust is already seriously damaged. If people know meetings are happening about the future of the ministry, but they are closed and secretive, trust will be further undermined. While there are personal things that should remain confidential, most of these discussions should either be open to interested parties or regular, thorough reports given of issues discussed and decisions that are made.
- Have godly strategic planning sessions. We have a great how-to guide on our website. Strategic planning takes a lot of time and effort, but it is essential for a broken ministry. It helps you identify goals and priorities for fixing what is broken and assigns tasks and deadlines to make sure corrections are actually made and in a timely fashion.
- Create ways to generate regular feedback. One of the reasons ministries can break is that issues are ignored until they cause serious problems. Having volunteers, parents and students point out issues when they begin can make it easier to correct them before they have a chance to break your ministry again. Plus it makes constituents feel like true partners in your ministry, which can encourage them to take responsibility for correcting problems they see or keeping you informed if something happens between feedback sessions.
Fixing a broken ministry isn’t easy, but doing these things should help your ministry heal and eventually thrive.