A CHAT WITH OUR MEMBERS

Community Church of Joy (CCOJ) is an Evangelical Lutheran church in Glendale, Arizona, with a unique vision: "To create the most imaginative 21 st-century mission center—bringing Joy to the world.” We had the opportunity to speak with Joyce Pokorny of CCOJ about their lay ministry, which has doubled the level of volunteer involvement in the past 7 years.

Inside Track: Joyce, thanks for taking time with us. What do they call what you do at CCOJ?

Joyce Pokorny: Well, our focus is on equipping the laity, but we’re a seeker church and the people here don’t really know what lay ministers are, so my title is Director of Volunteer Ministry. It’s not the perfect title, but at least people understand it.

IT: Has your church always had an equipping model for your people?

JP: Not at all. Obviously CCOJ had volunteers, but a little over seven years ago, our senior pastor, Walt Kallestad, realized that the volunteer ministry had no real structure. He asked [Inside Track columnist] Marlene Wilson to come to Joy and see what was needed. One of the first things she said was that they needed a point person, which led to me being hired. She helped me put a task force together to get this ministry going.

IT: How long did this take?

JP: The task force spent six months analyzing what we were doing, what was working, and wasn’t, and at the end we put together a three-year strategic plan for getting the ministry going.

IT: So you went into this expecting it to take years to succeed?

JP: Oh, yes. We saw that from the beginning. You can’t say that it’ll take 3-5 years because it keeps going, but it’ll probably take 3 years just to put the structure in place. It’s an ongoing journey! The plan we put together was for 3 years, and we took it to our pastors and staff to buy in on it. They had to want to learn and accept our efforts to equip them.

IT: And that requires the support of the senior pastor, right?

JP: Exactly. Just the fact that Walt had brought Marlene in told the staff something about his heart on this. Walt was very supportive, but the challenge that we still have is casting the vision on a Sunday morning. Any churches that are launching an equipping ministry have to have that regular Sunday vision-casting.

IT: So how did you develop that staff support?

JP: Part of it was getting their involvement in developing the strategic plan. I was brand new to the church, so we did some special gatherings to invite people to see if they’d be interested in the planning and development of our ministry. Initially, we met weekly to try to form our team and build community, have devotions, have fun, and pray together. Beyond that, we began training the staff. Once a month we would have time for staff training on inviting volunteers, planning their service, recognizing them, and so on.

IT: Was it a surprise that you were training them to invite volunteers rather than doing the recruiting for them?

JP: Definitely! At first, I was the dial-a-volunteer. I was going to come and get them as many volunteers as possible for their ministries. But the more I got involved at Joy, the more I realized that that wasn’t my job. My job was to train them on how to invite, motivate, retain, and so on their volunteers. I’m their equipper, not their person-supplier.

IT: That sounds like one of Church Volunteer Central’s core Scriptures, Ephesians 4:12, taken to a higher level. You were equipping the equippers.

JP: Exactly. At the beginning, I was just trying to fill their volunteer slots, but the more we developed, we realized we needed to help those ministries to build those skills themselves. That was a major challenge, because it isn’t what they expected from us. It still happens, so it’s an ongoing reinforcement.

IT: So what’s the process that would lead a newcomer into ministry?

JP: Before the service, people see all kinds of service opportunities on the screens. Newcomers are directed to a table where we give them a gift. I oversee that assimilation ministry now, too, because if you think about it, that’s what it’s all about. As we spent more time with new people, we realized that trying to plug them into a service opportunity might not be the best place to start. Sometimes they need [spiritual] growth opportunities first. If you get them involved in growth, the service will come and vice versa. We’ve got a whole new team now for growth opportunities.

So the first time they come in, they get a packet that has info on seminars that we offer several times a year called Adventure of Joy. It’s not about membership, it’s learning more about Joy and how you can get involved. People feel far more free to come when you’re inviting them to involvement rather than membership. People can get involved without becoming members. We have Adventure Guides who act as table hosts during those seminars, and then follow everyone from their table through the next months of getting involved.

IT: Since you’re encouraging involvement even before membership, what do you do about spiritual-gift determination?

JP: Out first priority is to get them involved. In the new member classes we had a real quick spiritual-gift exploration, but just a skimming at that point. We’re definitely moving toward people experimenting at the beginning rather than trying to force spiritual gift determinations on new believers. We do have a spiritual-gifts assessment on our Web site (http://www.joyonline.org/serve/volunteer.html), and we have a connections team to help people connect people to appropriate opportunities. But as we’ve continued the journey, we realize the emphasis is on connecting, whether it’s for service, growth, or just building relationships. The service will follow.

IT: Then do you have a lot of “easy entry” opportunities for new people?

JP: Our special events team is one of the best places. It’s really easy to get volunteers connected with special events because it’s a one-time, low-commitment deal. But then we try to get them together for a gathering and fellowship to see what we might be able to do for follow-up connections with them to keep them involved. For example, we just had a Rocktoberfest, so we do lots of things to keep people involved.

IT: Seven years later, has it been worth it?

JP: When we got started, less than 25% of our people were involved in some sort of volunteer ministry. Now, more than half of our attenders are involved in some way. Oh yeah, it’s worth it.

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