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For church team leaders

FIVE JOBS,
NOT ONE.

“Team leader” is usually one title carrying five different jobs — which is why the person holding it is tired and the team still has gaps. Here is the same role, split into five.

The actual problem

MOST CHURCHES ARE SHORT OF LEADERS, NOT OF WILLING PEOPLE

Ask a pastor what they need and they will usually say more volunteers. The numbers point somewhere else. A 2026 survey of more than three hundred churches found that around four in ten adults attending were already serving — but that there was roughly one volunteer leader for every seventeen people attending, and the researchers read that ratio as a development problem rather than a recruitment one.

The bottleneck is not people willing to help. It is that leading a team has been defined as one impossible job, so only unusually capable people can hold it, and there are never enough of those.

Church of the Highlands solved this by giving every serving team five distinct leadership roles instead of one. It is the cheapest structural change available to a church of any size: it makes team leadership doable by ordinary people, and it creates four more development positions per team without a single new appointment.

1 in 17

Attenders per volunteer leader across 300+ churches surveyed in 2026 — and wider in the largest ones.

×5

Named leadership positions per team, once the job is split. Ten teams becomes fifty slots.

1:1

The benchmark for a healthy pipeline: roughly as many people apprenticing as leading.

Quick reference

A ROLE IS NOT A TITLE. IT IS A QUESTION SOMEBODY HAS TO BE ASKING.

  1. RecruiterWho’s next?
  2. TrainerDoes everyone actually know how?
  3. EncouragerIs anybody running on empty?
  4. AdministratorDoes everybody know when and where?
  5. VisionaryWhy does any of this matter?

Recruiter

Who’s next?

Owns the pipeline. This is the person who refuses to let the team run indefinitely on the people it already has. Not a rota-filler — a talent-spotter who is always one or two names ahead of the need.

On a Tuesday

  • Keeps a running list of names in their phone, and adds to it most weeks.
  • Notices the person standing on their own after the service and goes over.
  • Asks people face to face rather than waiting for a notice from the front.
  • Has already thought about who could do this if the current person moved away.

Look for

Somebody who knows everyone’s name and is not embarrassed to ask them for something.

Around four in ten volunteers say they started because a person asked them directly. Announcements tell people a need exists. Being asked by name is what actually starts them. Jesus recruited face to face, one at a time.

Trainer

Does everyone actually know how?

Owns competence. Nobody on this team is quietly guessing. New people are walked through their first Sunday rather than handed a rota and hoped for.

On a Tuesday

  • Sets up the shadow shift before the first solo one.
  • Runs the training session with the team, and does not skip it when things are busy.
  • Explains the same thing twice without making anyone feel slow.
  • Knows which person on the team is bluffing about a piece of equipment.

Look for

Patient, unhurried, remembers what it felt like not to know.

The word behind “equipping” in Ephesians 4:12 is used elsewhere of mending fishing nets and of setting a broken bone. Not making new nets — repairing the ones you already have so they can catch fish again. Equipping is net-mending, not a certificate.

Encourager

Is anybody running on empty?

Owns the people, not the rota. Knows what each person on the team is carrying this month — and notices the week they go quiet, before they disappear.

On a Tuesday

  • Sends the message on a Wednesday, not only when someone is on duty.
  • Knows whose mother is ill and whose job is uncertain.
  • Says thank you specifically — names the thing, not just the person.
  • Tells the team when something they did actually worked.

Look for

The person your team already talks to. They are doing this job unpaid and unnamed. Name it.

A study tracking over a thousand Church of England clergy from 2017 to 2025 found that isolation and a sense of personal ineffectiveness were both more common than exhaustion; forty per cent reported feeling isolated. When somebody is fading, the answer is usually not fewer hours. It is being known, and seeing that it mattered.

Administrator

Does everybody know when and where?

Owns the friction. The rota, the kit, the keys, the message that goes out on Thursday. Their job is to make sure nobody has to guess, chase or improvise.

On a Tuesday

  • The rota is out three weeks ahead, not on Saturday night.
  • Gaps are spotted and filled before anybody else notices them.
  • Everyone knows where the equipment lives and who has the key.
  • Swaps are handled without the team leader being copied into eleven messages.

Look for

Somebody whose own diary runs on time. This is a spiritual gift, not a personality quirk — Romans 12:8 pairs leading with diligence for a reason.

Gallup’s work on congregational engagement puts “I know what is expected of me” at the foundation: nothing above it works until that is true. Most of what looks like a commitment problem on a team turns out to be an information problem. In Acts 6 the church sorted out a distribution rota, and the word of God increased.

Visionary

Why does any of this matter?

Owns the why. Keeps the team from slowly becoming a rota with a WhatsApp group attached. Says out loud, often, what this team is actually for.

On a Tuesday

  • Tells the team the story of the person who came back because of something they did.
  • Connects the small job to the large purpose without making it sound like a speech.
  • Talks about next year, not just next Sunday.
  • Is the reason new people can tell within a month why this team exists.

Look for

The one who keeps talking about the future. Very often the youngest person on the team.

This is the role most often left unfilled, because it looks like the least practical one. It is the antidote to the exact thing that makes people quit — not being able to see that any of it worked. Nehemiah did not say “you build.” He said, “Come, let us build.”

One name changed

WHY THIS LIST SAYS ENCOURAGER, NOT PASTOR

The original version of these five roles calls the third one Pastor. The job is right; the word costs you people. Say “Pastor” and half your team rules itself out on the grounds that they are not ordained and were never asked to be — so the role sits empty, and the most pastoral person on the team keeps doing it without ever being told it is theirs.

Encourager says what the job actually is and leaves the question of ordination out of it. It also has better company. The name Barnabas was a nickname the apostles gave him, and it means son of encouragement. He was not one of the Twelve. He is the man who vouched for Paul when the church in Jerusalem was still frightened of him, and who took Mark back after Mark had walked out on the first missionary journey. No ordination required. Just somebody who kept turning up for people other people had given up on.

If Encourager does not fit your church’s vocabulary, Carer, Care Lead or Shepherd all do the same work. What matters is that the job has a name and a person, and that the name does not accidentally exclude the person you need.

Do this

FIVE NAMES THIS MONTH

  1. 1Take one team and name all five. Not five new people — five jobs. On a team of four, somebody will hold two of them, and that is fine.
  2. 2Say it out loud to the people concerned. An unnamed job is nobody’s job. Most of these roles are already being done informally by somebody who has never been told it is theirs.
  3. 3Give each one their question. That is the whole job description. If they can answer their question every month, they are doing it.
  4. 4Put an apprentice beside each name. A healthy pipeline has roughly as many people learning a role as holding one.
  5. 5Then do the next team. Not all of them at once. One team, one term, and let the others see it work.

Attendance ÷ 17

Roughly the number of volunteer leaders a comparable church has. Most have well under half of it.

Serving ÷ 15

Roughly the number of teams — and therefore team leaders — you are actually running.

Teams × 5

Named leadership positions available to you today, at no extra cost.