184: Breaking Down Ministry Silos: Why Collaboration Matters in Small Churches

In this episode of The Small Church Ministry Podcast, Laurie names something many small churches deal with—but haven’t had the words for: ministry silos. 

You know when two ministries plan events on the same night—and no one realizes it? Or you hear about something great after it already happened? That’s a silo—and it’s more common than we think. 

We’ll talk about why silos form, how they quietly hurt small churches, and—best of all—how to start breaking them down without adding more to your plate.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

1. Signs your church might be stuck in silo-mode
2. Why silos are especially harmful in smaller churches
3. How collaboration can bring momentum and support
4. Practical ways to start building bridges
5. One simple conversation that can spark real change

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Transcript

Laurie Graham: 0:01

Hey, welcome to the small church ministry podcast, where we help volunteers and ministry leaders experience less stress, more joy and greater impact as we share strategies that actually do work in smaller churches. I'm your host. Laurie Graham, let's dive in. You. Laurie, hey, hey, welcome back to the small church ministry Podcast. I'm Laurie, and today we are putting words to something that happens in small churches everywhere. It's not a good thing. A lot of times we know something's going on, but we don't really know what to call it. And I call it ministry silos, like a silo, like a farm silo. Can you picture a silo just kind of standing on its own? And a lot of times there may be a grouping of silos, but they're very, very separate. So ministry silos is when every ministry in the church kind of runs in its own lane, without a lot of collaboration, sometimes not even with a lot of communication. It's when the youth group might pick a date for an event and maybe not realize that the women's ministry already had that date picked for something else, or something's kind of planned as an all church fellowship, but it wasn't really communicated. So the prayer team had something planned at the same time, and now they get bumped from the calendar, or sometimes it's when something really cool is happening, and nobody even knows about it. And the children's ministry, well, they're doing their own entire thing differently anyway. Now this is the exact strategy ministry silos that actually works in many larger churches. Now, I've seen it, you've seen it. Maybe there's a full time kids director who's responsible for their own volunteers, their own team, their own events, their own vision, their own mission, their own strategy. Now, if they're good at what they do, even in a larger church, they are going to coordinate when needed, with other ministry areas or facilities, or maybe have some good connection or collaboration, maybe with the youth ministry, or they work really well with the people who are running the church office, but it's still a silo ministry because it's very much on its own. Now it makes sense that in smaller churches, we try to do it this way. In this episode, we're going to talk about why it makes sense, why it's not good, and what could be better? We're going to talk about making some cultural shifts so that you experience the kind of joy that you want to be experiencing a lot of times. We know there's got to be a better way to do this. Well, today, we're unpacking something that is all too common in many, many small churches that can be completely life changing if we just make some simple shifts. So let's get back to ministry silos. Now, we've often been taught to do ministry this way. We've seen it work in mid sized churches or larger churches. Now sometimes we run our ministries like this because we're just stretched so thin that we might tend to hunker down in our own little corner just trying to get our part done. We want to do our part. We want to contribute. But the mindset of having separate ministries, it creates silos. It creates ministry silos, and it makes ministry feel really disconnected in one church. Worse yet, this is one of those strategies that not only doesn't work in small churches, but it's actually damaging in small churches. It leads to being unhealthy and ineffective and just plain not good. Now the good news is we don't have to keep doing it this way. We're going to talk about how to break the silos down. We're going to talk about building more connection across ministry areas and making collaboration something that actually feels life giving, instead of like another meeting or just one more thing to add to our busy calendars. Now I'm going to also walk through how to start the conversation with your pastor, or if you are the pastor with other ministry leaders or volunteers, or maybe you just have a partner in Sunday school that teaches with you. We're going to talk about what collaboration can look like in small churches to have the amazing ministries that we actually were created to live out. So if you've ever felt like your ministry was doing its thing completely alone, or worse, like you've actually or accidentally even been competing with other ministry areas in your church. This episode is for you. So since this is a word or a term that I've made up, I just want to go back to the definition again. When I refer to a ministry silo, the easiest way to picture it is, is that time when you hear like. I don't know something your church did after it happened, and you're like, I didn't know that was going on. Or again when, like, the the prayer team has something planned and the Men's Ministry has something on the same night, and they didn't realize it until they were both trying to use the fellowship hall. Or, oftentimes, it has more to do with the the larger church sense. Maybe it's the pastor or the event committee putting something on the calendar after your smaller ministry area already did that. So if this has happened to you, that frustration of, I didn't know that was going on, or feel like, wait, I was going to use that volunteer, and now that volunteer is helping somewhere else. That's another place it can happen. These really are symptoms of ministry silos. Sometimes there's a lot of events scattered on your calendar, but there's no real momentum or excitement, like we're just not going in the same direction. We might be keeping busy, right, but we might not be going in the same direction. So that's what I mean when I talk about ministry silos, those invisible walls that keep our church family from knowing and supporting and partnering with each other. Again, in bigger churches, these silos form naturally and also intentionally because of the sheer size and structure of a larger church, it has to be there to be very organized. But in smaller churches, it's a total gift not to have to do that a lot of times. In smaller churches, these silos are born out of a lack of knowing that we should do something different, or that we could the lack of knowing that there's something better, and oftentimes just from exhaustion or lack of communication, or we're tired, or, as I mentioned earlier, we're trying to do our part, but we're keeping in our own little corner. Now here's the thing, we might think we're being efficient, like staying in our own lane, not bothering other ministries or other people who are busy, but in reality, we're missing out on beautiful connection, support and whole church momentum oftentimes that we didn't even know we were missing, because we haven't experienced it in a really long time, and maybe never. But I'm telling you, we see it happen. I've been part of it, and I want to share with you what can work and how it can look different when ministries work in isolation, as I've been mentioning in smaller churches, what happens. And keep these things in mind, because these are things we hate. We don't like this. We want it to be different. So that silo ministry really leads people to burn out faster because they're doing too much, or they're wearing too many hats, or they're working in different spaces, feeling stressed, it leaves teams feeling unsupportive. If you are blessed enough to have a ministry team, to have people surrounding you in your area, oftentimes we don't feel supported by the other ministry areas. It's because of the silos church wide, momentum can stall, as I mentioned, and even the mission of the church can actually get really fragmented. Another term to use for this, or one that can be related, is really ministry competition. Now it's not that we're trying to compete, but when volunteers are asked to serve in different spaces, or different spaces, even at the same time, or we're looking at building and we have limited facilities, and everybody wants to use the best space, or that one space that we have, it really does starting to feel like competition, and it doesn't have to be like that. We don't need to fight for the same space or attention or volunteers or support. Like can you imagine what it would feel like to team up instead of feeling alone in a silo or in competition. That's what we're talking about today. And here is not only the hopeful part, but the beautiful part, the amazing part, the unique part, small churches creating collaboration actually have an advantage. Sometimes we don't think like that because we haven't worked like this, but we totally do. We don't have a dozen departments to coordinate. We're not juggling 10 paid staff schedules. We just have friends, and often the same people wearing multiple hats, but we have friends working together, and this is actually an opportunity. Collaboration is way more possible when you're smaller. We just haven't always been taught to think that way. So let's start you do not need a master calendar app or a monthly ministry leader meeting, you just need a few intentional conversations, sometimes a little change in hearts, and often a little creativity. But I want to get really practical and talk about how to start building bridges between ministries, like, let's just start there. And whether you are pastor. Or a ministry leader or a volunteer, this really is for you. You have influence over whatever circle you are around, no matter what your position, what your role, or if you are paid, or if you are a volunteer, working a full time job like most of us, in small churches. So let me give you a couple things at work. Then I'm going to give you some really specific, fun examples as well, in case you want a little bit of help, kind of imagining some scenarios. So couple things that work. Number one, you always want to start with taking a good look at what's already happening, like what happens annually? Do you have a men's barbecue traditionally? Is there a youth kick off? Is there a prayer night that always happens every year? And maybe it's something that always happens every year, but maybe isn't even always scheduled? Like, maybe you always do something fun in the spring, and it's a last minute thing, but, but it always pops up. So think of all the different ministry areas or even worship events. Like, maybe you celebrate the season of Lent at your church, maybe you have a special service on on Christmas Eve or during the holidays, like a Blue Christmas service. What is happening annually at your church? Just start making a list. And right now, if you're not driving or on a treadmill, like, pull out a notepad, like, right now, just just you could pause the podcast, even make a list of what happens annually in your church. This is the best way to start and then ask this question, How could my ministry area come alongside that or make it even better? Whether you are nursery, children's ministry, Sunday school teacher, small group leader, whether you serve quietly in the kitchen and nobody ever even knows you're there, whether you do landscaping, or you're an elder or maybe you're on the facilities, anything you wrote down, I promise you, there is a beautiful, creative way that you could come alongside and support what's already happening. Now I'm also not telling you to add one more thing to your calendar. We're actually going to talk about doing less, but getting more impact from what we're doing. But just let your brain brainstorm a little. Don't get don't let any negative thoughts creep in, like I don't want one more thing to do, or I don't want to work with that person. Let's just be free and open and really believe that verse in the Bible where it says God can do exceedingly far beyond anything we can imagine. Just put that in your mind and just just think, Okay, another great thing to just to start with, is just having one intentional conversation with one other person, whether it's a ministry leader, maybe a team teacher in Sunday school, maybe it's a friend in the church, and just say, like, what if we planned something together or with that other person or that other teacher? Another great principle is looping in your pastor. If you're not the pastor and you're listening as a volunteer or ministry leader, Luke and your pastor. Now this totally depends on your church structure. Of course, you might need approval, but even if you don't need approval, that's actually not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about building support and vision and letting them know what you're excited about, because when you watch this start happening. It really does change your culture. So if you have a team or somebody who volunteers with you, you can even just start having the conversation like, is there another area of the church, like, maybe there's not a specific event that's standing out to you, but is there another ministry area in the church that we could team up with once this quarter? How could we partner? Another great idea, okay, is to celebrate other ministries publicly or within your ministry, doing recognition for ministries outside your ministry area. Because whether we recognize it or not, we are all connected the people who are working on your facilities, the elders who make big decisions, oftentimes, the people who are serving in the nursery, the people who are running ministries that you don't even see, we all are connected, and we all are supporting each other in the same Church. So how can you cheer people on or celebrate or recognize them? Maybe you're giving an announcement one day for the kids ministry, and during the middle of your announcement, you say, hey, just randomly, I just want to thank the people who are running the sound. We couldn't do it without you. Or maybe at a women's ministry event, you're like, Hey, you guys, we don't talk about this a lot, but let's, let's make some cards for the people who are serving in the kids, in the Kids Nursery. You know, so and so is doing this every week. Or maybe there's two people, they're not here tonight. It has nothing to do with women's ministry. Could we write them a little, a little note of encouragement? Can. You imagine if the kids class one day, maybe there's two kids in the class, you potted a little flower for your pastor, just to say thank you, not even related to pastor Appreciation Day. These are just a couple ways to start building connections, realizing and appreciating each other, so that we can start knocking down the silos. We don't need them, and they don't help us. They actually hurt us. Now, as I'm going to talk a little more about, like, partnering with different events and things, because that's when we can really start, I don't know, building some momentum and having some energy. But before I do that. I just want to say, if you start partnering with other ministries, if you had some red flags going off in your mind going, I can't do one more thing, is she seriously telling me to do something else? I'm not. I'm actually telling you to do less. But I want to let you know how it works. It's not about everybody helping everybody at all the events we are already doing, that would be madness. That would be like adding 10 times the workload to all of us who are already doing a lot of stuff. What we're talking about is doing less, not more, but at the same time having more impact. Now I'm going to give you one random example. I might come up with a few others, but this is, this is the one that popped in my head that I just thought was really, really beautiful when I've seen things like this happen. So let's say you were thinking about, what do you do annually, and there's always a prayer night. Now, whatever prayer night this might be, maybe your your youth, do the 30 Hour Famine, and they stay up all night. Or maybe there's a 24 hour prayer vigil that you do to support your missionaries, and maybe people are actually coming into the church to pray, or maybe they're doing it at home, right? So maybe we have a youth event that's this is happening, or maybe it's the prayer team. Now, if we take the prayer example, I think prayer ministries often our silo ministries, and it's so sad because it doesn't have to be like that. So that's one of the reasons I'm really excited to talk about an example with prayer. So when you start to partner, you can start seeing or start imagining or start asking questions. How could? How could the youth like let's take the 24 hour prayer vigil, or whatever you you would call that. How could the youth have an impactful component at that event? Okay? Or if maybe it's that youth 30 Hour Famine, or they're having a prayer vigil, maybe the men show up to make breakfast at midnight to feed those who are there praying. Or if people are praying like around the clock in their homes, and they signed up for different shifts, maybe a certain ministry area goes, Oh, I know what I could do. We could do door drop offs. Can you imagine everybody who signed up to pray for an hour? You know, over the course of 24 they get a little care package by their door, maybe right before they start praying. Do you know how impactful that would be, to be supported by another ministry area in an effort like that, the kids ministry could do the drop offs. They could put the packages together. It could even be like a secret thing that nobody knows about until it happens. Do you see how this one event, it doesn't have to be a 24 hour prayer thing. Maybe it's prayer partners. Maybe it's secret sisters. That's done in a women's event. Maybe it is a certain men's event. Maybe you have an outreach event that the outreach team does. We should all be doing outreach. Look at that, and then look at your little area where we've been hunkering down in our corners, and go, How can we partner together? What happens when we do that is that the people who signed up already know about it, the people who didn't sign up are now involved in a different way, so they're in the loop. And it becomes a church thing. It becomes a church event. It doesn't mean one person had to coordinate all these pieces and it's this big burden. It just means that all these little pieces are getting coordinated, and the synergy of adding together, church momentum, church vision, moving forward, feeling like we're all part of the same team. It is so beautiful. And when that happens, it's not in addition to whatever you had planned that month for your team. It's instead, do you see what I'm saying? I'm not saying add something. I'm saying, like, replace something. Instead of, you know, having your typical maybe you have a small group that meets on Thursdays. Maybe one of those Thursdays they meet, they put together these care packages for the people who are doing the praying. So I'm not. Not talking about adding something more to your calendar. I really want you to hear that I'm talking about being more intentional with the things that we choose. Another way to kind of approach this, getting rid of silos and doing more partnership is actually to have an all church planning party maybe once a year. Reno Anderson, who's been part of our community since we started it. She and her husband, her modeled this at their church up in Saskatchewan, Canada. Over the past couple years, she did it several times, and Reno saw that just this really cool success, especially after they had their second one. I remember her telling me that they were kind of changing the culture, but the ministry leaders came together. I believe it was the ministry leaders who came together, and they would put everything on the calendar for the year, and the planning was better. But there it was almost like they were kind of bringing people back to like being on the same page, like people felt included, the communication was better, and it's changing the church culture. We've seen several churches in our community kind of catch on to the planning party idea that we have taught over the past four years plus in women's ministry and children's ministry in different ministry areas, and they're starting to see so much success that they're putting it into the all church level. So if you are a person of that type of influence in your church, where maybe you could do one type of, some type of, all church kind of planning meeting for the year. Now I I'm pretty anti meetings. I just don't think we should do any more boring meetings. So I always make them parties. I always make them planning parties and make it fun and effective and keep it on pace. We have a lot of resources that really talk about it, but a lot of success with this. Or even easier than an all church planning party, you could just decide one year or one season to partner with one other ministry, maybe the children's ministry, partners with the prayer team or the youth group, partners with the men's the Men's Ministry, and maybe you just get together for one time and bring the youth and the men together say, hey, what can we do together? And plan it together. So then you're not imposing something just as a leader, or this was my idea, but when you have more people involved, there's a lot more buy in and excitement too. And sometimes I just want to say this loud and clear. Sometimes this starts with one relationship. That's it, one person, maybe a person you've been friends with for 10 years. But you take this relationship to a different level by talking about, what can we do together instead of separate? Right? So whatever it is, wherever you're at, start small, think creative. Try stuff like, can we just start trying things? Let's get rid of some of those silos, some of those ministry silos that are keeping us feeling isolated, maybe a bit separated, or even kind of competitive at times. As I start to wrap up this podcast episode, a picture just came into my mind about the children's ministry volunteers who often say, people think we're playing with the kids. I just wish they understood what we really did, we don't play the kids. We're not babysitting. We're raising up little disciples. If that's you. What would happen if, instead of sitting in the silo, I'm not saying find volunteers, I'm saying partner. Hey, women's ministry. What can we do together? How can we support you? How can you support us? It's very different than trying to get somebody to understand what you're doing, or to get the vision behind your ministry, or, you know, even like upper scale, have them come and volunteer, like, if you really supported us, you would volunteer. That's not always true. Sometimes we just need to share the stories. Sometimes we just need to be involved and integrate our lives a little more, which is so very, very possible in small church settings. Let us know what is happening in your church with this. When you try things. You can even post your struggles with it. Join us in the free Facebook community on creative solutions for small churches. We'll make sure to drop the link in the show notes. You can find us so many places. If you have had success at this or you're finding things kind of starting to pop in new directions, we would love to hear that. We would love to know, but let's be real. This is a culture shift for a lot of churches. It's not a scheduling fix. It's about choosing connection and partnership and experiencing a whole lot of ministry joy. It's when we start like realizing. And being the whole church instead of just trying to manage our little corner of it. And if you are listening to this podcast right now, you're exactly the person who can start dripping in things into your church to make that shift happen, and it might be, hey, ministry leader, hey volunteer, hey pastor. Would you listen to this episode? I just heard this on the small church ministry podcast. I want to talk to you about what that might look like, or what do you like about it, or what do you think the challenges would be. I want to discuss this with you. Would you listen to it, and maybe we can, just like, catch a couple minutes after the service on Sunday. What might that do? If you have been stuck in a ministry silo or you see them forming in your church, don't beat yourself up or anybody else. It's pretty normal. It's become a part of a normal church culture. But what's normal is not always what's right, or definitely not always what's best. The first step really is noticing it and then believing that it can be different. So have the courage just to start a conversation this week, maybe even today, maybe the first step is just knocking on the walls of the silo, right? Because silos just do not belong in the body of Christ. We are one church, and when we move together, the impact multiplies. I'm going to say that one more time. We are one church, and when we move together, the impact multiplies beyond anything that we have ever conceived or imagined. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I know there are a myriad of things that are calling for your attention and clamoring for your presence, and I really don't take it lightly that you tuned into this episode. So thank you. Thank you for being here. Thanks for being part of the community. If this episode did spark some ideas or encouragement for you, please share it with somebody at your church, and if you are loving the small church ministry podcast, a quick review, would really mean the world to me. It helps more people find us and join this awesome community. Remember, none of us are doing this alone. When we team up, things get way better, too. All right, until next week, be a light you.