Powerful Steps to Equip Ministry Teams for Missional Impact

January 28, 2025•2 min read

According to Deloitte’s 2024 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, 86% of Gen Zs and 89% of Millennials say having a sense of purpose is very or somewhat important to their overall job satisfaction and well-being. People in this post-modern culture place a high value on living a life of purpose and a sense of well-being. When it comes specifically to church ministry, people desire to spend their time and energy in places where they see purpose and impact. This is key in understanding when it comes to identifying what types of ministry to invest in and how to identify, recruit, equip, and deploy people.

Here are some powerful steps to equip ministry teams for vitality and ministry impact:

Help ministry team members understand how their ministry area specifically connects to and impacts the church’s mission, vision, & goals. Identify the role and its importance to the overall vitality of the church’s ministry and community impact.

Thoroughly equip and prepare your ministry teams’ members. Set up expectations of their roles and responsibilities. Share the job description for their ministry team and be sure there is a clear understanding of its role. Equip them for the ministry. Walk alongside them for a period of time to empower them until they build confidence for the role. Provide a permission-giving culture with healthy boundaries so ministry members are not waiting for administrative committees to meet and decide on day-to-day ministry decisions and operations.

Create a culture that routinely and continuously empowers and equips ministry leaders to identify, recruit, equip, and deploy servant leaders for ministry.

Practice accountable leadership to empower, equip, and maintain missional focus. Accountable leadership also includes aligning all ministries with the mission, vision, and goals of the church, has a clear understanding and alignment of each ministry’s purpose and its intended measurable outcome, and includes routine evaluations of the ministries to missional alignment.

Recognize and show appreciation for ministry team members. (see previous blog) Highlight how their participation in the ministry has provided impact in the church and beyond.

These simple yet powerful steps can change the entire culture of church ministry. Understanding the connection of serving in ministry to a person’s need to feel they are making a difference through the ministry’s impact will create their desired sense of purpose fulfillment. Once this practice gains traction, it creates a cycle of excitement for ministry and the desire to invite others to join them in ministry.

Which powerful steps are missing from your church culture? Choose one step today and begin changing the dynamics of your church and its potential for greater impact on your community.

equip leaders connect ministry to mission

Kay Kotan

Kay’s purpose is to Equip and Empower Leaders of Faith Communities How to Engage in More Effective Ministry. Kay Kotan is the founder of You Unlimited (coaching, consulting and training company) and The Greatest Expedition – a collaboration of more than twenty thought leaders providing resources and insights for a congregational journey to develop new MAPS (ministry action plans) to reach new people in your community. Kay also launched Multipliers’ Movement – a gathering of kingdom multipliers for sharing, equipping, and encouraging. She is a CoachU and Advanced CoachU Graduate, an accredited coach (PCC: Professional Certified Coach) with the ICF, International Coaching Federation, a Certified Path 1 Coach, a TQ (Transitional Intelligence) Certified Coach, and once served on the faculty at Coaching4Clergy. As a passionate lay person, she has a banking background and has been a business owner for more than 25 years. Kotan has served as a church developer for conferences and worked with churches, pastors, conferences, and judicatory leaders across the country for more than a decade. She is most proud to be the wife of Bob for over 30 years and the mother of their adult son, Cameron. Kay is the author of multiple books, workbooks, and resources including Gear Up: Nine Essential Processes for the Optimized Church, Cry From the Pew, Full Schedules, Barren Souls, Being the Church in the Post Pandemic World, and Journey Preparation: Surveying Your Church’s Landscape, as well as the co-author of the books titled: IMPACT!: Reclaiming the Call of Lay Ministry, Small Church Check-Up, Insights on Productivity, Renovate or Die – Ten Ways to Focus Your Church on Mission, Ministry 3.0 and Get Their Name , Ten Prescriptions for a Healthy Church, Necessary Nine – Nine Things Effective Pastors Do Differently, Launching Leaders: Taking Leadership Development to New Heights, Strategy Matters: Your Roadmap to Planning a Strategic Ministry Planning Retreat, Voices of Christmas: A Daily Devotional for Advent and Expanding the Expedition Reach Through Marketplace Multipliers. Mission Possible for the Small Church. Inside Out: Everting Ministry Models for the Postmodern Church, and more. Kotan and her co-author Bradford published their third version of the best-seller, Mission Possible: Simple Structure for Missional Effectiveness. Mrs. Kotan spends her time investing in pastors, laity leaders, congregations, and judicatory leaders through equipping, coaching, and creating resources to help them discover and live into their fullest missional potential of effectiveness and fruitfulness to reach people for Jesus Christ. Through her enthusiasm, truth-telling, and passion, she challenges those who encounter her in both their thinking and their doing.

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