Organize Your Church With These Five Systems

What system in your church needs the most work?

I moved to Atlanta in 2006 to start a brand new church, and one of the first conferences I attended as a new church planter was The Drive Conference at Northpoint Community Church.

At that conference, I heard Andy Stanley say it was systems, not just sermons that would often make a church more effective.

As a preacher – someone who talks for a living – I wanted to disagree with Andy’s statement, but I knew he was right. In our young church, it was our volunteer systems, financial systems, discipleship systems and growth systems that were kicking my tail. 

• We had a mission, but nobody was organized.
• We had services, but we didn’t have a strategy.
• We had passion, but we didn’t have a good plan.

Andy went on to say, “The system you have right now is perfectly designed to get the results you are getting.”

Dang.

So a year into our church plant, I shifted my focus from trying to grow through better preaching and we got organized.

We organized ministries and programs. We streamlined processes. And we worked on all the boring stuff.

Then our church started growing.

It’s taken me running around like crazy to realize I couldn’t preach myself out of every problem. Systems, not just sermons, were required to grow.

Here are a five systems to organize your church and keep things running smoothly:

• Financial systems to track spending and encourage generosity.  Raising money makes more ministry happen.
• Ministry systems to help ministry run smooth.  Family ministry, small groups, and special programs need to be organized.
• Worship service systems to help plan services that honor God and inspire people.  Since Sunday happens every 7 days, you might as well streamline the planning.
• Outreach systems to encourage people to invite their friends, neighbor and co-workers. 
• Staffing systems to hire, fire and develop team members.  Your team is your greatest asset but they won’t get better without intentionality.

Systems might not sound sexy, but they are so important to your ministry. That’s why we created The Systems Bundle. Click here to see what you get.