The Y Factor - Christianity Today

Six months ago I realized our church had a problem, so I invited the senior staff to join me in a conference room. I closed the door and announced, “We’re not leaving until God gives us an answer.”

Part of a church leader’s job is to identify and define the reality his or her church is facing. As I thought and prayed about our church’s reality, I came to the distressing realization that we didn’t have the financial resources to meet the growing spiritual need around us.

“Here’s the new reality as I see it,” I said, standing in front of a flip chart. I drew a line ascending from left to right. “This line I’ll call spiritual opportunity. Never in the history of Willow Creek have we known an era of greater spiritual opportunity.

More people are willing to talk about the gospel or let you pray for them—even come to church—than ever before. Not long ago, if we asked our seatmates on an airplane if they ever thought about the spiritual life, they’d roll their eyes as if to say, Two hundred people on the plane and I get seated next to a spiritual wing nut! Today, if you ask that same question, eight out of ten people will say, “Yeah, I’m thinking about the spiritual side of life more than I ever have before.”

Then I drew another line from the same starting point, but level from left to right. “This, however, is our resource line. It’s flatter than it’s been in a decade.” Then I reminded the staff of our recent capital campaign that had stretched our people financially to their eyeballs, even before the stock market crash and 9/11.

“Resources have never been this tight,” I admitted. “But, here’s the deal. I believe that despite the new reality, despite the growing disparity between our opportunities and our resources, God wants Willow Creek Community Church to continue to prevail. I think our best days are ahead of us. This is not the time to circle the wagons and whimper and cry. We have to figure out how to minister in a way that brings God glory even in this new reality.

“Now, does anybody have an idea?”

The men and women in that room were bright, godly people. I love to gather people like that around the table and then watch God work through them to solve problems. But I had no idea how God was going to solve this problem.

2 times Y

One of my colleagues walked to the flip chart, took the pen and wrote X+Y=Z. We all groaned. “We’ve got enough problems,” I said. “Don’t confuse us with algebra.”

“No, listen,” he said. “We still want to give God glory, right? Well, John 15:8 tells us that the way to bring God glory is to bear much fruit. So let’s consider ‘much fruit’ as the end result of the equation, the Z. We have only two variables with which to bear much fruit. Let’s think of the X as paid staff and of the Y as volunteers. Those are the two variables we have to work with. We are going to generate ministry fruit primarily through the efforts of paid staff and volunteers. Are you with me?” The rest of us nodded in agreement.

“Alright,” he continued, “if the new reality is that the resource line is flat, then that dictates no increase in paid staff.” Then he said these prophetic words as he pointed to the Y. “If increasing paid staff is not an option, then the ball game will be won or lost right there.” That was our introduction to “The Y Factor.”

Ephesians 4:11-12 says, “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors and teachers,” in order to “prepare God’s people for works of service.”

From the earliest days of the church, the Holy Spirit called and gifted certain people to equip and inspire others to do the practical works of service necessary for the fulfillment of the redemptive plan.

In most situations a few “equippers” are called to be paid staff, while everyone else is called to offer their acts of service as volunteers. In the dynamic synergy between paid staff and volunteers, massive amounts of fruit can be born, and therefore, much glory given to the Father.

In the Ephesians 4:11-12 equation, everybody wins. The equippers, the paid staff, have the thrill of seeing volunteers that they recruited, loved, trained, and equipped being greatly used by God. What fires up a pastor or a staff member more than that?

As the volunteers become instruments in the hand of God, they experience a level of fulfillment they hope will never end, so they win, too. And the surrounding community wins as it is served by a unified, multi-gifted force for good.

Most importantly, of course, God wins. He is honored as the architect of the plan and the octane behind the whole enterprise.

In the six months since that meeting, our leadership team has been trying to figure out how to live out the challenge of Ephesians 4:11-12 in our current reality, by doubling our volunteer team.

Two times Y. What would it take? How could we reach this goal?

2 much Y?

In the mid-nineties, when our resource line rose at a 45-degree angle to the right, we were having a ball. We learned that you can generate a lot of ministry when you’re free to hire a lot of staff.

At one point, I was invited to address a group of recently hired staff. Most of them I hadn’t yet met, so rather than presenting a prepared talk, I went from person to person and listened to their stories, then fielded questions.

All was going well until a guy in the back row asked, “Bill, do you ever feel guilty when you challenge volunteers? Do you ever feel guilty about laying heavy ministry burdens on already-busy people?” My first thought was, Who hired him? His question proved to me that he and I were on opposite ends of the ministry philosophy spectrum. My second thought was, Bill, don’t sin. Don’t let the intensity of your feelings on this subject lead you to say something you’ll regret later.

Then I said, “My young friend, you’re obviously new here at Willow. So let me describe the people you’re going to meet at our church in the coming month.” I almost added, if you last that long, but I knew that would be sin.

“You’re going to meet some wonderful people who stand at drill presses every day, ten hours a day, five or six days a week. When they go home at night, they are not feeling wildly fulfilled from all the joy and meaning they experienced standing at their drill press. For them, the drill press doesn’t deliver a lot of purpose to their lives.

“And you’re going to meet some people in real estate who show 30 homes a week. Often, not a single one of those potential buyers makes an offer, and I don’t think those real estate agents sit at home on Sunday evenings with a deep sense of satisfaction flowing from their inner being.

“You’re going to meet insurance agents who have been selling policies for 20 years, and for most of them there’s little thrill left in the daily routine. You’re going to meet car dealers and stockbrokers and bankers and bricklayers and police officers and plumbers who work hard day in and day out, and while some of them still get a kick out of what they do, many of them are just trying to put food on the table.

“The best of them are probably doing all they can to give God glory in their workplace, and the most fortunate among them may be blessed to have a significant impact on their coworkers. But few of them derive ultimate satisfaction from their jobs.”

Then I said, “We have been given the unspeakable privilege of inviting people like I just described into what might be the only involvement in their lives that makes them feel like an instrument in the hands of the Almighty, that gives them the thrill of knowing that the Creator God has used them to touch a human life.”

I looked at the guy who had prompted my diatribe. “So in answer to your question, no, I never feel guilty inviting people to become volunteers in our church. Never. In fact, I get letters on a regular basis from veteran volunteers thanking me for inviting them to serve, some of them decades ago. If ever I am tempted to feel guilty, letters like that remind me how desperately people long to play a role in the redemptive work of God.”

But can we double Y?

At Willow, we presently have about 7,000 regularly serving volunteers. How in the world are we going to increase that number to 14,000?

In our initial strategy session for this initiative, I noticed that all eyes were focused on my end of the table. Finally someone said, “Bill, in order to double our Y factor, there is a role that only you can play. As our senior pastor, you’re going to have to cast the vision for volunteers until it’s a white-hot value for everybody.

“Beyond that, you’re going to have to teach message series on subjects like, ‘Every Member Can Be a Minister,’ or ‘What God Can Do Through You.’ And those series are going to have to be good!” (differentiating them from the quality of my normal series, apparently).

I knew that staff member was right. As point leader of our church, I am the one who needs to lead a churchwide initiative of this magnitude. I need to get personally involved. I need to take God’s Word and blowtorch the volunteer value until everyone understands that it’s a really important, biblical, Kingdom value. I need to stay focused on that initiative until we see progress. I need to cheerlead it tirelessly. I need to stay on it for as long as it takes to achieve the goal. And after that, I need to throw a party and thank everybody who helped make it happen.

I’ve led similar charges scores of time throughout the 27 years I’ve been a senior pastor. The gift of leadership was given to me by God so I could help Willow move ever closer toward the goal of becoming the church God wants it to be. Like other major initiatives through the years, upping the Y factor requires heavy lifting from the senior pastor. It isn’t something I can assign to the executive pastor. It isn’t something I can give to a well-meaning layperson and say, “Give it your best shot.” The heavy lifting for many, many months will be lifting that I need to do.

But I know that when significant numbers of volunteers find their place in the kingdom vineyard and when I see all the fruit borne from their efforts, then I’ll know the inner sense of leadership satisfaction that only leaders discover. And that satisfaction is sweet.

Know your Y

As we continued to brainstorm about the Y factor, I asked a couple staff members what they would do to double the Y factor in their particular sub-ministries. Their response? Silence. As the silence became increasingly uncomfortable, I began to realize that we had been in “volunteer retention mode” for so long that we had become very good at it, but when it came to volunteer acquisition, we had become more than a little rusty.

“Umbrella of mercy over the whole room,” I said. “No idea is a bad idea.” Then I pointed to a staff member, “You, what comes to your mind? Where would you start if you wanted to add ten volunteers to your ministry?”

That person responded, “Well, uh, I’d probably wander around our lobby and talk to someone I didn’t know.”

I said, “Yeah, okay we could do that. But let’s keep going. Anybody else got an idea?”

Silence.

“Come on. Somebody.”

Silence.

Finally someone asked, “What would you do, Bill?”

So I made a comparison. “In evangelism, why don’t we just wander around the community and ask people to follow Christ?”

“Because we have more credibility if we have already established a relationship with a person,” someone responded.

“It’s the same thing with volunteer acquisition,” I said. “You have a much higher likelihood of moving someone into service if they know you and trust you.

“I think every one of us knows at least five people who love God and the church but for some reason don’t serve. We ought to develop candidate pools from people we know who fit that description.” People nodded their heads in agreement.

“Then what would you do?” I asked.

One person said, “I’d call them and try to draft them.”

I said, “Wow. Would you really? You’d make a cold call and just say, ‘Hey, I’d like to recruit you. Will you sign up?'”

“Well, Bill, what would you do?”

Casting the Y vision

“I’d invite that person out for a cup of coffee,” I said, “and get reacquainted a bit. Then I’d say, ‘Hey, Fred, you know I work in the Promiseland ministry. The 90 minutes I spend with kids in Promiseland each weekend are the best 90 minutes of my week. When I teach a kid from an unchurched family how to pray, when I tell a kid from a broken home that God loves them, when I take some kid who’s scared and tell him that he doesn’t need to be afraid because God is his friend … well, nothing beats that. I mean it when I say that the best 90 minutes of my week happen Sunday morning at nine o’clock in my Promiseland classroom.’

“Then I’d have every word of the next part carefully planned: ‘Fred, we need some extra helpers in Promiseland. I don’t know if this is something you’d be interested in. But would you be willing to come with me one time to see what God is doing in Promiseland?'”

Telling Fred about the weekly experience in Promiseland casts a positive vision of children’s ministry.

Asking Fred for a one-time visit lowers the fear that he might get permanently roped into something before he even understands what he’s doing. Asking him to come with me assures him that he won’t be left alone in a roomful of pant-leg-clingers.

When our junior high director tries to recruit people for junior high ministry, he doesn’t approach them and say, “I know all junior high kids have a frozen brain for three years. I know they all act weird. But would you sign up to spend every Saturday morning for the rest of your life in a big room with about 1,000 of them?”

Instead, he says something like this: “I want you to know what I’ve committed my life to. I’ve committed my life to serving a group of kids who are caught in an era of confusion and uncertainty, and who are trying to make decisions that will impact the course of their entire lives. I spend every Saturday morning on the front lines of a battle for the hearts and minds of these kids who matter to God. It’s hard work; I won’t pretend otherwise. But I can’t imagine anything that would give me a greater feeling of fulfillment. I’d like to invite you to come to Sonlight Express next Saturday morning and take a look at what God is doing in the lives of our kids.”

No arm-twisting. Just a powerful vision and an open invitation.

Connect the Y’s

Let’s say Fred comes to Promise-land, and afterward he says, “This was the greatest experience of my life. I loved it. I’d like to come back next week.” Well, that was easy, right?

But here’s a more likely scenario: Fred says, “Well, it did feel good to be involved, but the truth is I’m just not that comfortable with kids. I can’t see myself signing up to serve six-year-olds for the rest of my life.”

So Fred would like to be involved, but Promiseland isn’t a bulls-eye fit. So what’s the next step?

To debrief. To ask questions and offer assistance.

“I can understand that, Fred,” you say. “Can I help connect you to a ministry that would fit you better?”

Often the first place I invite people to serve is not the option that best fits their gifts and passions. It’s likely, in fact, that they don’t even know their gifts and passions. So I try to help them discover how and where God has wired them up to serve. Sometimes this process takes a year or more.

It also requires constant debriefing. Does this seem like a better fit? Do you feel more useful or effective here? Are you feeling an increasing sense of God’s pleasure? Are you getting closer to being able to say, “This is what I was born for”?

Recently I was talking to a volunteer who I helped through this process some years ago. He said, “I feel sorry for any volunteer who isn’t me.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Because what I’m doing now is why God put me on planet Earth. It’s a perfect fit with my gifts, my interests, my experience, and my passion. I want to do this wherever God calls me, in whatever church, for the rest of my life.”

That is the experience that every child of God longs to have. Our role, as pastors, is to create a culture in which the value of volunteerism is upheld and where staff members and lay leaders are taught how to move church members into the best possible volunteer niches. At Willow we have a long way to go before we reach our Two Times Y goal. But each volunteer we add means that one more Christ-follower is discovering the thrill of serving, and one more spiritual need is being met.

Bill Hybels is pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois.