How ‘Scaling Up’ Was Used in Ministers Gathering 2024 (and Can Help Your Organization Too!)

A Close-up on Ministers Gathering 2024

How ‘Scaling Up’ Was Used in Ministers Gathering 2024 (and Can Help Your Organization Too!)

Pentecostal leaders in the Alberta & Northwest Territories have been gathering for over forty years at our annual Ministers Gathering. Lately, we have seen compounding growth in the scope of the event, with event attendance increasing by 40%, from around 350 to nearly 600 people. 

Limitations Restrict Growth

One obstacle that can often impede explosive growth in organizations is limited resources. A great vision and growing momentum can easily be blocked by fixed access to time, money, and human resources. The re-arrangement of resources can make the difference between a growing vision or a stagnant one. 

The reality is that one person can only do so much until they reach their maximum capacity. Every person and organization will, at some point, fill their container. 

Using Scalability to Break Through

Scaling up is an important strategy to use once you’ve reached a capacity where room for growth is blocked by an inability to execute. 

When you scale up your operations, you multiply your potential by finding strategies to overcome obstacles. Without scalability, it is difficult to sustain growth.

In the figure below, notice that scalability is the ability to improve outcomes without equally increasing the resources required to execute.  

Scaling Up at Ministers Gathering

Over the past three years, Ministers Gathering has seen record-breaking growth indicators. This remarkable growth has been experienced in attendance, registration trends, marketing reach, volunteer participation, and programming.

In 2022, we reached our capacity in attendance, with 602 attendees onsite plus 18 online registrants. As exciting as this surge in attendance was, we faced limitations of resources.

This year, tickets sold out within 3.5 weeks of registration launch, the first time this has ever happened. We are certainly in a time of exciting growth and momentum.

Considering these markers of growth, we are now implementing scalable structures to make room for growth. These changes in structure have been on an organizational level and within the event programming.

Scaling up: Organizational Change

On an organizational level, we made room for growth by revising our event staffing structure. We clarified job roles, responsibilities, and reporting structure. Staff responsibilities at the event moved away from accomplishing tasks and towards empowering leaders to achieve desired outcomes.

This strategic shift has fostered micro-environments that have helped multiply leadership. Instead of overseeing each administrative detail, our focus has become to empower multi-level teams of leaders to make capable decisions within departments. These decisions are to help support the overall goals of the event.

A Sign of Success

The success of this strategy struck me just days before the launch of the event this year as I was tallying the number of volunteers. Of our nearly 500 adult attendees, 146 were involved in helping make the event a success. That means that over thirty percent of attendees were willing to give of their time and talent. This concerted group effort allowed our event to offer an attendee experience that went way beyond what only a handful of full-time staff could achieve alone. 

“To add growth, lead followers – to multiply, lead leaders.”

— John C. Maxwell

This shift towards leadership multiplication has positively impacted our association and created an event experience that can leave a greater mark of connection and inspiration for everyone present.

Scaling up: Event Programming

In addition to the changes in internal staffing structure, there were also strategic programming changes made at the event. These programming changes aimed to help overcome limitations through new seating zones, volunteer opportunities, and leadership systems.

1. Seating. 

   Obstacle: Limited seating space.

   Scalability: Including a “Family Room” overflow area to include more attendees than the physical structure of the meeting space can allow. 

2. Meetups.

   Obstacle: Limited administrative resources to plan affinity group meetings.

   Scalability: The option for attendees to plan and execute their own meetups to allow for more opportunities for connections by volunteer leaders.

3. Connections. 

   Obstacle: Limited human resources to help newcomers to make positive connections at the event.

   Scalability: Implementing a system of small group leaders to oversee and encourage meaningful connections onsite.

The Interpersonal Benefits of Scaling Up

Effectively empowering people and creating functional community are two of the roles of great leaders. Scalability not only has strategic benefit, but it also benefits people interpersonally, helping people feel empowered and inspired within their team.

Benefit 1: It Builds Your Team - Working towards a goal together and accomplishing that goal is a proven way to create trust.

Benefit 2: It Empowers Your Staff - Empowering people to achieve outcomes leads to more job satisfaction, fresh ideas, staff retention.

Benefit 3: It Helps Develop New Leaders - Scalability creates new opportunities for up-and-coming leaders to work and build rapport within your team.

Benefit 4: It Fuels Personal Growth - A successful leader will bear the fruit of multiplication, which is why mentoring and succession is an important part of leadership.

“Tell me, and I forget; teach me, and I may remember; involve me, and I learn.”

— Benjamin Franklin

How to Scale Up Your Ministry

So far, we’ve covered examples from Ministers Gathering of how scalability might help overcome some of the common obstacles to growth. 

But what does this mean for you? How does this apply to the church context? 

Do you find yourself facing the obstacle of limited resources when considering your goals? Perhaps you’re the edge of your organization could be pushed further by implementing a scalable structure. 

If you would like to begin to explore scalability in your organization, here are some steps to help you move forward in change:

1. Determine Feasibility 

All good planning begins with research. The first step in executing a plan is to look around, consider the facts, and determine feasibility. 

Ask yourself, is there obvious room for growth at this time? When you analyze your key performance indicators, do you see an upward trendline? Do you feel strained by lack of resources? Is now the right time to scale up?

Exercises like the S.W.O.T. analysis can help build a clearer picture of where opportunities within your organization may be.

2. Assess Resources

The next step in scaling up is assessment. You will want to look at the availability of current resources and explore extra tools and resources that are available to you. 

Ask yourself questions like:

• What resources are currently being used?

• What additional resources would be required to grow? 

• What additional resources are available?

Ideas for Assessing Specific Resources

Effectively empowering people and creating functional community are We've mentioned already that common obstacles for growth are staffing, finances, and infrastructure. Below are some examples of questions to help assess both existing and potential resources within these three categories. You don't have to answer all these questions at once, but instead pick and pull the ones that may be helpful in your situation.

RESOURCE 1: Staffing

1. Quantity

• Do you have enough people to achieve what you want to achieve?
• Do your people possess the skillsets needed to achieve what you want to achieve? What are the skill gaps?

2. Skillsets and gaps

• Are there tasks that take you three hours to do, but for the right person, it would only take one hour?
• Are there tasks that are resource-draining to do in-house, but if they were outsourced would they cost less?
• Are there new skills you could learn to help save time? What courses are available to you? (Resources like Udemy and LinkedIn Learning have made training more accessible, or check your local library for online resources, like Gale Courses).

3. Structure

• Are your staff and volunteers well-equipped to make decisions, access resources, and receive feedback?
• What are the lines of communication?
• Are the policies and processes in place necessary? Are they clear? Do they add value?

RESOURCE 2: Finances

1. Limitations

• What are your organization's realistic financial limitations?
• How long have these limitations existed? What are their common factors? When have these limitations been overcome?

2. Opportunities for growth

• In what ways could financial resources be allocated more efficiently? Are you achieving an adequate return on investment?
• What opportunities exist to create more income or revenue streams?
• Who else might have the financial resources and vision to help support your organizational mission? What are their motivating factors?

3 Sustainability

• What are the historical financial trends? What can you forecast for the future?
• What are the risks that may affect financial health? How could you help mitigate these risks?

RESOURCE 3: Infrastructure

1. Technology

• What tools are available to save time and increase outcomes? Think about digitization (ie. Mail vs. E-mail).

2. Systemization

• What repetitive work is being done that could be made into a system? (ie. Putting expense receipts in the same place and writing down the steps to submit them).

3. Automation

• What work is being done that could be done automatically? (ie. Using recurring events on your calendar instead of creating separate instances for monthly events).

3. Create a Plan

This is where you create a goal and write down what you're going to do next to acheive that goal. Ask yourself:

• What changes will be made?

• Where will resources be found?

• Who will be involved? 

• What is each person's role and responsibilities?

• How will this be communicated?

• When will changes be implemented?

A project can be large or small. Sometimes, even just making the smallest changes can have a big impact. Make sure your plan stays realistic. Writing your goal using the S.M.A.R.T. guideline may be helpful.

4. Execute Your Plan

This is the part where you put 'the rubber to the road' and follow the roadmap in your plan. If the scope is large (i.e. High cost, over a long period of time, or requiring excellent quality), you may want to schedule periodic reviews to help keep your plan on track.

Some of the useful planning tools project and event planners use when the scope is large are things like Critical Paths, Organizational Charts, and Gantt Charts. Project management software, such as Asana (they have a free version), can help make the process more efficient. 

5. Evaluate your Plan

The last step in the completion of every project is evaluation. Did you meet your goal? How did your outcomes increase? How were the resources affected? What was the buy-in from those involved? 

Helpful tools for the evaluation of projects can be electronic surveys, one-on-one conversations, in-person forums, and digital analytics to help evaluate your outcomes. 

Write what you find out down in a report and keep record.. Your evaluation should inform what adjustments may be needed going forward.

Benefits of Scalability

Creating scalability within an organization has many benefits. It creates the opportunity to enhance your potential by overcoming obstacles. These limitations may be in human resources, financial resources, or infrastructure. Proper assessment, planning, execution, and evaluation can help you determine how to best move forward in growth.

In the end, scalable structures will help improve team satisfaction and efficiency and sustain growth. Overcoming these barriers and empowering leaders through implementation creates forward motion and positive change. 

Closing

Growth is a value for us at the ABNWT District Resource Centre. Our influence as a network of churches across Alberta & Northwest Territories is growing. We are building a library of growing resources, education, coaching, events, and opportunities.

We are thankful to see pastors and leaders from across Alberta and Northwest Territories involved in Ministers Gathering. This event is meant to equip, refresh, and connect leaders in ministry. The willingness of attendees to help execute the event gives us the ability to achieve exponentially more than otherwise possible.

We hope that you will plan to attend Ministers Gathering next year at Banff Park Lodge on February 10-13, 2025. If you would like to volunteer, let us know. If you would like resources on event planning, feel free to contact me. We look forward to seeing you there!

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