Taking Training to the Next Level with Ministry Grid
by Stuart Owens
One of the biggest challenges we face as a church is how to train our people. We believe strongly that our role as pastors is to “equip the saints for the work of the ministry,” but we’ve found it increasingly difficult to get the saints in front of us for a training event. Not only that, but it takes a lot of time and resources to pull off an effective training. Even if we are able to host a great event, invariably 10% or more of our leaders won’t be able to attend due to scheduling conflicts. That means we either have to meet them at a different time or let them go unequipped for their ministry.
What a headache.
To help us solve these issues, we’ve recently begun using Ministry Grid. Ministry Grid is an online training tool that allows us to invest in our people on a digital platform. Using videos, documents, and assessments, we’re able to deliver high-quality content to anyone with an internet connection. With Ministry Grid, we’re able to assign training courses to our leaders and volunteers that they can complete on their own at their own pace. Volunteers simply move through the various steps of the training by watching videos, reading documents, or taking assessments. We as a staff are able to track their progress every step of the way.
There are countless trainings available by some of the best practitioners in their fields. We’ve found trainings for kids ministry, small groups, first impressions, and even our parking lot team. There are also more advanced courses covering things like church planting, ministry strategy, and preaching. In fact, we haven’t found a ministry in our church that Ministry Grid doesn’t offer training for.
Where Ministry Grid really shines is in its flexibility. While we love most of the training courses on the site, we usually want to make some tweaks for them. Our first impressions team, for example, had some information to include that was specific to our particular church. We were able to record a short video and add it to the training course with just a few clicks. We have the freedom to rearrange, add, or subtract elements from all of the trainings offered. If we want, we also have the ability to create our own courses from scratch.
The possibilities, we’re finding, are endless. We’re exploring using Ministry Grid to offer our membership class to those whose schedule prohibits them from attending in person. In the next year, we’ll be requiring all of our small group leaders to work through a curriculum that we’re developing in Ministry Grid.
We’ve found Ministry Grid to be a huge asset to our ministry. It’s enabled us train our volunteers better than we ever have with far less resources.
Stuart Owens is the Pastor of Discipleship at Christ Community Church in Huntersville, NC