Inside North Point

By Casey Ross, Director of Ministry Services, Browns Bridge Community Church

I spent the first seven years of my full-time ministry working with students. I look back on those years with many great memories and amazement at the great things God was able to accomplish. But I also look back on those years with some frustration. I worked in good churches with talented people and saw exciting results, but I felt like I was hired to fulfill a function. No one invited me to be part of the mission.

Have you ever felt that way? Your ministry is going well. You’re doing your job well and you like what you’re doing. But you feel like something’s missing. You know there is a larger story being told, but you do not get to contribute to it.

“The sad thing is employees are often hired to fulfill a function.
They’re not hired to be part of an organization. They’re not hired
to be part of a dream. They’re hired to be part of a function. Like a
chair. The chair in which you are sitting is fulfilling a function. You
don’t want to be a chair.” - Horst Schulze, founding president and COO
of Ritz-Carlton in a talk to the Buckhead Church staff in 2007

We don’t want people on our teams who are just performing a function. But when we hire, we often focus most on the duties of the job. What will they do each day? What experience do they bring to the job? How will we train them? How do we evaluate their performance? Can we get them to do more?

Of course, to justify any role we want filled, we need to know what functions this person will perform…what skills and experience he or she will bring to the job. Those are easy to observe. This discussion usually revolves around “how.”

We must have people on our teams who are passionate about the mission and see how their roles are vital to accomplishing that mission. We need people who are bought-in and who get “it.” In reality, though, we often hire for function and hope they catch our mission along the way. And we don’t understand why, one day in the future, they are not as passionate about the mission as we are.

It’s more difficult for us to explain the mission than it is to describe the job, because mission engagement is intangible and measured by the heart. In explaining the mission, the conversation usually revolves around “why.” The answers to the “why” questions reveal someone’s heart. Catching a glimpse of someone’s heart will help determine whether he or she is the right person to join you in accomplishing the mission. So, we must become more adept at “selling the mission.”

I’m fortunate to work in an environment now where I am not just fulfilling a function. Yes, I’m doing my job, but I am also part of something much bigger. I’ve been invited locally to help Browns Bridge Community Church lead the people in our community into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. And in a larger sense, I’m part of fulfilling the mission of North Point Ministries . . . to lead people all over the country and the world into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. And I’m becoming intentional about helping my team feel connected in the same way.