I have been thinking of staffing for the local church. I have observed the normal pattern in most churches which focuses upon age group ministries relevant to a church's perceived need. I have read books which suggest that staffing should be more functional focused, specifically related to alleviating the load carried by the senior pastor. In both cases, there is a formulaic method to determine how many people in a congregation it takes to support the addition of a staff member.

I want to suggest another model. In this model Ephesians 4:11,12 is recognized as a guiding principle, especially, "to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up."(v.12) The primary focus of this model is to hire a "Volunteer Coordinator" whose role is to facilitate the identification, training and insertion of volunteers into ministry positions within the local congregation. The Volunteer Coordinator seeks to purposefully affect the usually perceived ratio of those who are actively involved in ministry (20% do 80% of the work) by actively getting more people involved in ministry, preferably within their spiritual gifting.

What do you think?