June 11, 2025 • 28 mins
Unlock the secret to effective volunteer placement in your church! In this episode, we dive deep into why getting the right person in the right role—right now—matters, with a special focus on temperament and its impact on ministry effectiveness. Whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting out, you'll discover actionable steps for aligning volunteer strengths with real church needs.
Join hosts A.J. Mathieu and Scott Ball from the Church Revitalization Podcast, brought to you by the Malphurs Group team. With years of hands-on experience in church leadership and revitalization, A.J. and Scott bring clarity, energy, and practical wisdom each week to help church leaders thrive.
What’s Inside This Episode:
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Understanding the difference between temperament and personality—and why it matters [03:30]
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Quick overview of the DISC assessment and how it fits church volunteer roles [11:12]
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Signs of volunteer misalignment and practical solutions for burnout [18:45]
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How to use the new Divine Design Discovery Tool for customized volunteer recruitment [4:27][23:17]
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Building leadership pipelines and aligning teams for greater health [22:14]
Links & Resources:
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Try the Healthy Churches Toolkit free for 7 days: healthychurchestoolkit.com
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Deep dive article & show notes: malphursgroup.com/294
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Connect with us on social media for more weekly insights
Discover how understanding temperament can energize your volunteers and transform your church—listen now and start building your healthiest team yet!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Getting the right person in the right role right now on the
Church Revitalization Podcast. Hello, and welcome to the
Church Revitalization Podcast brought to you by the Malthus
group team, where each week we tackle important, action
(00:26):
of Vitalization podcast. My name is Scott Ball. I'm joined by my friend and
cohost, AJ Mathieu. I like what you did in the teaser.
You like that? Three rights. Right? Make No roles.
Three three rights does make a right.
Three rights makes a u-turn. Right person, right role right
now. Let's get into it, Scott. Temperament
(00:49):
matters. Yeah. It does. Yeah. We're talking about
temperament today. So temperament is, I like the
this word rather than personality. I
think personality is maybe a broader
category than what we're talking about.
Okay. I can see that. Yep. You can use them you can use them a
(01:11):
little bit interchangeably. Like, if we're talking
about a shape assessment, the the p in shape is
personality. And I don't think you'd wanna use t there because I'm
not sure what that would spell, but it's probably not something
appropriate. So
personality is fine in that instance, but temperament, I like the word
(01:33):
temperament. And in Aubrey's book,
maximizing your effectiveness for those of you watching on the YouTube.
So you can see the cover of that book right there.
Maximizing your effectiveness, he uses the word temperament,
to describe it, and he is an advocate in the book of
using the DISC as a
(01:56):
framework for understanding temperament, and that's, I also, I think,
a very helpful framework, and we're gonna talk about that today. So,
I don't think that temperament is necessarily something that the average person is
thinking about when it comes to volunteer placement,
unless you're using shape. But I I just don't know that people are
usually thinking about this and how important it is in getting people in the
(02:19):
right spot, and why some people struggle so much in a particular
volunteer role might not have to do with their gifting or their
skill, but just about temperament. So we're gonna be talking about that. That'd be a
great conversation, a riveting conversation. If you want
to, I'm just gonna give a little shout out. Was it a year
ago, Scott? We did the deep dive on the disc It's
(02:40):
2024. Might have been in 2023.
Regardless, in today's show notes, in your
podcast app or on YouTube, I'll put links in there, because
we had done a deep dive on the disc. So we did four weeks
of d I s and c to go really deeper on that. So we'll have
links to that. Very popular. People were
(03:02):
very excited. You just have to trust us on that.
Anyway, yeah, if you wanna go a lot deeper, we're not gonna go deep on
the on the, four types of temperament in the disc today.
We're speaking more about how does this relate to volunteer roles in the church? Why
does it matter that why should you care about it as a
leader so that you can get the right people into the right
(03:25):
place at your church? We're gonna circle back to
this at the end of the episode just to kinda peek ahead, but I wanna
say on the front end for those of you who maybe have short attention spans,
one of the reasons why we're wanting to bring this up and talk about this
today is we have a new resource inside the Healthy Church's
toolkit that is a divine design discovery
(03:45):
tool that includes a simple DISC assessment. And when
people, you you'll have your own custom link for
your kinda connected to your church's account and, that you
can share publicly with the people in your church. And
they will take this assessment, and it will tell them what their DISC type is
and spiritual gifts. And it will make some volunteer role recommendations
(04:08):
based on not just their gifting, but also their temperament,
and then that will be shared with you. You'll get an email notification. You'll
also be able to log in to the toolkit and see a dashboard of everybody
in your church who has taken it. You'll be able to sort. You are able
to sort, all of those results by temperament type. So
who are all the people who are a c on the disc? Who are all
(04:29):
the people in my church who have an s? And depending on what you're looking
for when you're forming a team or a committee or an ad hoc group or
whatever, you can start to build teams around temperament. It's a really
powerful tool, and it's included in the plus all plus
accounts in the Healthy Churches toolkit. So you can try that out free for seven
days if you go to healthychurchestoolkit.com. Sign up free
(04:51):
for seven days. Test it out. Give it to your staff. Give it to your
elders. Give it to, you know, a small team and let them try it out.
I will make one note and say it's, the volunteer
recommendations that it makes are o are
generic because we use it have to use it across the board. It
doesn't account for things like whether what their
(05:12):
passions would be. So it might make a recommendation about kids ministry,
but you might hate kids. Or it might say something about music ministry,
and you can't play an instrument or carry a tune in a bucket. But it
will it gives five recommendations. So out of that five, there might be
one or two that resonate with you based on your temperament and your
gifting. And, also, I would say it
(05:34):
only is going to make recommendations on things that are level one or
level two using leadership pipeline language. It's not going to make
a recommendation for elder or make a recommendation for a
staff position. It's going to focus on lower level
type positions, because that's what it's designed for.
So, it's a really powerful tool. I'm so glad
(05:58):
that we have this inside the toolkit now. So go to
healthychurchestoolkit.com. Try it free for seven days and
take advantage of that. Yep. So we'll talk about that at the end as well.
But, I thought it would be helpful for us to have a
conversation about why temperament is important in light of that
tool. Yep. Alright. Well, let's keep on going.
(06:20):
What is temperament? Why does it matter? Well, as Scott, you are you
already said, I think there's kind of a difference between personality and
temperament. Yeah. And, I mean, the temperament,
I think, maybe is more has some, I think, more
consistency across people and as
sort of a baseline, as to how you
(06:41):
relate to the world and to others. Whereas
maybe personality adds more nuance to it and has
more specificity and probably just a
broader range of reactions and emotions and all kinds of
things. Whereas which I think is why, you know, the disc generally as
four categories pretty much works out okay.
(07:03):
You know, for most people, of course, the dis Mhmm. Sometimes has, like, a dominant
trait and a secondary, that that might be adjacent
to it. But I I think overall, it works pretty well to kinda
just get at a general idea. But these things are
important because I mean, as I mean, from that
perspective that it is sort of like this foundational piece of
(07:25):
how God has has wired us. You can sort of
eliminate things. It helps you to narrow things down.
And Mhmm. You know, when people are thinking about well, from from your
perspective, a leader, hopefully, calling people into action
to serve in the ministry, to find their place in the
kingdom. I mean, this is a very broad ask. Right? I mean, we're
(07:48):
just drawing that out. It's telling everybody, Hey, God has made you,
you know, for service in the kingdom. And and so
like, okay, what is that? You know? Like you're throwing the world at me. So
Yeah. Let's let's try to narrow this down a little bit. And,
you know, having having at least a couple of tools, like, you
know, spiritual gifts and a temperament indicator, can
(08:10):
help to bring this into a little bit closer range that we can
start or start looking at things. So, yeah, I
mean, finding finding the fit is what we're going for.
Yeah. And this is temperament helps to maybe differentiate a little bit between
skill versus fit. I mean, two people can
have a similar skill set, but
(08:32):
the fit might be dependent on,
on temperament. So let's just give a concrete example.
Two people can have a gift of teaching, a teaching
gift, or a teaching skill, have the ability to communicate really well.
But, in a small group environment, you know,
a a more s type, which we're gonna talk about these types here
(08:56):
in just a second, but sort of a a more people oriented,
softer, shepherding type
temperament is maybe a better fit in a small group
environment than a fast,
high charged person who's a d, who's driving,
might be really aggressive in a small group environment and
(09:18):
not necessarily be as effective in that kind of a
role. But they could both be skilled teachers, and so maybe
one is is better up on on a
stage or in a boardroom, you know, or in those kinds of
environments where that teaching skill has to be directed,
and versus a softer
(09:40):
approach, more shepherding, that teaching skill. Same skill,
but different fit based on temperament. So, it's
it's about communication style. It's about pace of work. It's about a
preference for people versus tasks, and all of those things
play a role in helping an of a a person find their
fit and what volunteer role might be most,
(10:03):
most fitting for them. Yeah. I yeah. That's a
great example. I mean, you're kinda speaking to my, you know,
personal personal thing. You know? I mean, I enjoy teaching
adults. Don't so much, enjoy in
the younger gen environment. But
I think that's maybe more passion versus even temperament.
(10:26):
It could be. It could be. But even the example
that you're talking about, I mean, I at a previous
church, I enjoyed teaching. You know, we had sort of a Sunday
school environment. It was more it was it was more
fellowship driven than, like, a a classic Sunday school.
But but I was just one of several teachers in there, and I enjoyed
(10:48):
that. I like conveying information. I like, you know, providing
But it's still a room for encouragement. 40 34 thirty forty
people or twenty twenty, 30 people Yeah. And not
not five people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because
yeah. I I don't really have, you know, I don't I don't have, like, the
shepherding temperament going on. So Right. Yeah. Tell me tell me how
(11:10):
you feel. Yeah. I think we've hinted at this, and I and
I know we're not doing a deep dive on disk because we already
have done that, as you mentioned, and you can get the links in the
description below. But,
I let's do a very fast sort of overview. I think it might be
helpful. And I really love the DISC. I'm I'm I'm a big fan. No one
(11:33):
from from I don't even know if there's a DISC association. If there is
one, I'm not getting paid by them. But I really
like the DISC because it's just four categories, and it's easy to sort of sort
people. It's not perfect, but it doesn't have to be. When we're talking about
volunteer recruitment, we really don't need to account for
every nuance. Everybody is a unique sunflower
(11:55):
and all of that. All of that's true. But when it comes to volunteer
recruitment, we need sort of some quick and dirty
principles to apply and go, okay. What where is this person best going to
fit? And 16 different types or nine different
enneagrams and the wings and I mean, it's just too much. Mhmm.
The disc is easy. It's easy to think about, and it's easy to
(12:18):
sort, which is helpful for volunteer recruitment. So,
do you wanna drive this for task? I
I'll I'll do the run through, and you can jump in with, more detail if
you so desire, Scott Ball. The first one is the d type. So we're just
gonna order the d type. Task oriented, fast paced,
(12:38):
type of people. Thriving in leadership roles,
directing things, problem solving, some of
the areas in the church that they might do well in,
security team leads, event coordination,
yeah, projects, strategic planning. I mean, I'm a D. Again, I
enjoy teaching, but I like teaching adults. I like to be able to, you know,
(13:01):
convey information quickly, maybe handle some challenging questions, that
kind of thing, and and then keep going.
So, yeah. So that's your d types.
Your I type personalities, this is like the influencer type, people
oriented, also fast paced like a d, but
more relational. High energy, good
(13:24):
inviting, at inviting people, drawing people
into something, encouraging hosting. Greeters,
great. In this role, hospitality people,
social yeah. Kid things. I mean,
think social butterfly kind of in the
(13:44):
in in butterfly in the sense that they like to
kind of pop into a conversation, and then they are ready to
hop into another conversation, like going from flower to flower. They
they are not the kind of person who's really good one on
one for a long time. They start to get bored with
that conversation or insecure. You know, lots of times, I
(14:07):
type people are actually they present themselves
as very friendly and very social, but they're actually very guarded,
and don't let a lot of people in close. But they like they like fast
pace. They they are but they also like being around a lot of people and
a lot of movement. These are the people that make kids camp
happen. Oh my gosh. The running on a
(14:29):
5% until one AM, and you're like, where
do they get this energy? They're the ones up there on stage
with shaving cream, you know, in coming out of their
ears and still super heat on it. Yeah. Yeah.
And and not in those environments. They're also good on they're good for
ideas. They usually have a new idea every minute.
(14:51):
Great on a stage. Like, if you wanna get people pumped up about something, put
them up. They they usually are pretty good with words.
Their their temperament exudes energy,
and people are attracted to to that. They wanna be involved
in what that person's doing. They often have that sort of magnetic personalities.
Yeah. The next one, the s type. This is gonna be,
(15:13):
again, people oriented, but more one on one
relational. They really care about people. The s, you could say, is
steady or shepherding. Loyal and
dependable people. They care about other people's feelings.
They they have this a com a very compassionate side to them frequently.
They retriever kind of person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some of these
(15:37):
fits. Yeah. Care team members, they could
be, helping to lead in a small group situation or lead a
small group situation. Yeah. Maybe behind
some could be more behind the scenes roles,
yeah, in the in discipleship spaces. So they're great
people to to have coffee with, talk about what's going on with life.
(16:00):
You can probably less confident on a stage. The they're they can be good
teachers. I mean, a lot of pastors are s types, and they're really good in
the pulpit. You know, they because they've prepared, so they're they kinda know what they're
going to do. But the less less
good if you spring something on them and say, hey.
Will you run up there and tell the people about such and such
(16:22):
thing? Not as good on the fly as they are when they're prepared.
So I don't wanna say that an s type can't be good on a stage,
but they usually not not it's not their
favorite. There's might be some anxiety around that. Yeah. Because
they're often worried about how people perceive them. You know, they don't
wanna stir the pot. They're not big on conflict. They don't wanna hurt anybody's
(16:45):
feelings. And so they don't like being put on the spot and having
to make a decision. They're not really good at making any decisions, actually.
If they never had to make a decision, it would be too soon. Yeah.
And then the finally, the c type people, task
oriented for sure, driven by process. They're
(17:05):
detail focused, back office
people, behind the scenes, people, very
analytical, precise, good with information,
like structure. Your tech and media team,
men and women can do well here. Finance, administration,
(17:26):
yeah. Systems people, they can probably help you design,
maybe a flow of work, but they're not
gonna then get up on stage and explain it to everybody, very
clearly or simply or with much enthusiasm.
So, yeah, this, these are integral
integral for keeping things running well.
(17:48):
Totally. So just so you know, generally
as sort of a breakdown of the population,
the most rare types are the the
pure d's and the pure i's are the most
rare. A lot of people have a blend. They'll they'll be,
like, predominantly a c or predominantly an s and have a blend
(18:12):
if they're an s of an I or if they're a
c, have a blend of d. But the
pure d's and pure i's are the least common types, and
then most common types an s, and then the second most common type
would be a c, and then I think the third after that is an I,
and then the least common is d. I think. That's generally speaking, don't hold me
(18:34):
to that, but that's roughly the the breakdown. So you're gonna have more
s's and c's and and then i's and then your fewest d's, which is
which is why leadership is such a challenge in the church. But, also,
it's a hard thing because it's hard to find a spiritually mature and healthy
d because very often, they got some
toxicity in them, and that takes some time to root root that out.
(18:56):
And you don't wanna a d is a good leader, but
an unprepared d is a is a toxic leader.
So, you gotta be you gotta be on the lookout for those things.
So let's talk about, signs of misalignment. How how can we know if
someone's not in the right role? If the if
(19:16):
someone is burning out, it may be that you've got too
much responsibility on them, and so we need to take a look at your leadership
pipeline and make sure that we're, divvying
up the roles, correctly. It may be that
someone is volunteering too much
or they're they're serving in too many roles. You know, you if you've got people
(19:38):
who are doing three or four different volunteer positions,
they're probably not a great fit for all of those or or it's
just too many. The truth is that when you have somebody
in their right role that aligns with their temperament and
their gifting, it's life giving to serve and
(19:59):
not life draining to serve. They like what they're doing.
They choose to do it. There's a lot of work
that AJ and I do. We we both work for the Malthus group and get
paid for our work, but there's all kinds of work that that he and I
both do that it'd be hard to argue that we get paid
for it. And there there's things
(20:21):
there's extra work that we take on, not just because we're interested
in getting paid for it, but because we love it. It's life giving to do
the work. And there's all kinds of things that he and I both
have done for free because we care and because we
enjoy it. And the same is true for volunteers in your church when
they they're never getting paid because they're volunteers. But when
(20:43):
it's something that they love, it's a joy to
do it. And that's how, you know, when someone's in the right spot. But when
someone wants to quit, they they lack
joy, they're burning out, that is that is a sign,
usually the number one sign that they're in a
wrong role more than that they're necessarily overburdened. Because
(21:06):
people people who are in the right role will voluntarily take on more
responsibility, not be trying to shove it off. Yeah. This is an area that
we really have to be careful of, and I think that's why, you know,
this episode is important. I mean, just having this
tool for you in the toolkit is important, because
so often, Scott, you know, we see people burn out in
(21:28):
volunteer roles. And it is for a variety of reasons, and certainly could be
a temperament mismatch for sure. So having this awareness
for you as a leader is really important,
so that you don't you well, you want people in the right place. First of
all, they're gonna perform best. They're gonna be happiest in the right role.
And and it is possible to burn out somebody that is in the right role.
(21:51):
I mean, I've certainly seen that before as well. Totally. Yeah. Which
it is possible. Yeah. Yeah. It leads into other areas of leadership
pipeline design that we have to have right to make sure that that doesn't
happen as well. But, yeah, I I think this
just, reinforces how important
temperament is in getting it right, having a at least a basic understanding
(22:13):
of it. Yeah. Alright. Let's,
wrap this up by talking about helping people find their fit.
I'm going to reiterate what I said at the beginning, which is
you need a tool to help with this. You need
you need a system for this, and then you need tools to
help facilitate that system. This is maybe one of the most
(22:36):
common questions that we get is around volunteer
recruitment is how can we vol how can we recruit more volunteers?
And the the number one tip that we give churches is
you need to help people understand how
God has designed them, their what is their divine design,
and then how does that apply to the real world? What positions
(23:00):
best fit with that design?
And it's you can do you don't need the Healthy Church's toolkit to do
this. We've been equipping churches to do this for years
before we had this tool. But this makes it way
easier, way easier. Cuts down on a lot of the manual work that
churches were having to do. And so I would really encourage you to to
(23:23):
give this a shot. Go go to healthychurchestoolkit.com
and try it for yourself. See if it works. See if it makes
recommendations. I've been really encouraged. I've had a lot of people, take
it and people who I know and people who are in ministry, they maybe are
a staff person, but I'm reading the description, of
them and the recommendations made for them. And and there's usually at
(23:45):
least one or two things I go, that describes them perfectly. And if they were
a new volunteer, it really would line up with their with
their skills and with their abilities and with the way that god has designed them.
And we've even built this in a way where it's not just static stuff. There
there are static components, but it also generates a
custom message to that person to encourage them and to to help
(24:07):
move them along. So, I I it's just
so helpful, I think, to have a tool,
to help you get people connected. We it doesn't do all the
work. You still have to follow-up with those people, but at least now you can
have a conversation based on some piece of data and go,
hey. You took this assessment, and it said this. What resonated
(24:30):
with you? What did you think of what got it got right? What did you
think was maybe a little bit off? What's something about you that you maybe didn't
even know about yourself? And what would you like to
do next? And that is that is the key thing, empowering people
with the next step of, well, let me test drive
this role and give people that freedom to try out a
(24:51):
position without having to commit to it for a lifetime. Time. Yeah. Absolutely.
This is an area that when implemented, you're just gonna see huge
benefits come back. This is gonna bear a lot of ministry
fruit in your church, and could really I
mean, I think could be a significant game changer, especially if you're
have felt kind of maybe stuck. Your church might be, you
(25:14):
know, feeling plateaued or you could even be declining.
Helping to realign your in your volunteer roles,
can really be life giving in the church, on an
individual basis and to the church as a whole. And then hopefully, we
do see that manifest outwardly also. So,
yeah, I think this is this is a great area to work in. Get your
(25:37):
greatest, see people, at work on this. Make
sure you get a subaccount for them, if you're not gonna be the one that
would take this on. But, this is gonna be worth the
investment for sure. This plays into,
like, a a bigger this is a piece into the bigger
leadership pipeline design that Scott mentioned earlier as
(26:00):
well. And so, yeah, if you're kinda feeling maybe
this is, you're this is resonating with you, but you're also feeling like, Ali, we
just we don't even have a really good idea of what's going on with our
volunteers. It feels like we never have enough people. We're not
sure what to do next. That, is is a great time to
be looking at leadership pipeline design. So reach out to us if you'd like to
(26:22):
talk to me. In the toolkit as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a
lot of resources for that, and we work with a lot of churches, constantly
doing that work. So, yeah, we are here to help you with this. It really
is something that will be transformational. Or if from
last month, you started going through, the course the build groups
course, and, you know, there's there's a whole section in
(26:45):
there about recruiting volunteer, recruiting
more leaders. If you were to put bunch of people in your church
through this, you could start to identify people who would be good,
based on temperament and go, who who are all the people who have an s
type or an I type temperament who'd be good group leaders? You know? Or if
you have your Sunday school model, who are all people who have more of, like,
(27:06):
a a d or an I type who have a teaching gift or you know?
You you you can that can help you make your
list because you know who are the people who have that that gifting and
skill. Yeah. Man, absolutely. This is
yeah. Scott, I love everything about this. This is a great episode. This is
a this is an essential building block to a healthy church, So I hope that,
(27:27):
that you'll you'll really think about this and and wanna jump into it.
And okay. Yeah. There's gonna be lots of links below, for the
for the deep dive that we did on the disc, to get into the toolkit,
and other resources. So be sure and check that out. We sure
are glad you are with us. We're gonna talk a little bit more about divine
(27:47):
design next week as well. So stay tuned for that, and we'll see you
over there then.
Getting the right person in the right role right now on the
Church Revitalization Podcast. Hello, and welcome to the
Church Revitalization Podcast brought to you by the Malthus
group team, where each week we tackle important, action
(00:26):
of Vitalization podcast. My name is Scott Ball. I'm joined by my friend and
cohost, AJ Mathieu. I like what you did in the teaser.
You like that? Three rights. Right? Make No roles.
Three three rights does make a right.
Three rights makes a u-turn. Right person, right role right
now. Let's get into it, Scott. Temperament
(00:49):
matters. Yeah. It does. Yeah. We're talking about
temperament today. So temperament is, I like the
this word rather than personality. I
think personality is maybe a broader
category than what we're talking about.
Okay. I can see that. Yep. You can use them you can use them a
(01:11):
little bit interchangeably. Like, if we're talking
about a shape assessment, the the p in shape is
personality. And I don't think you'd wanna use t there because I'm
not sure what that would spell, but it's probably not something
appropriate. So
personality is fine in that instance, but temperament, I like the word
(01:33):
temperament. And in Aubrey's book,
maximizing your effectiveness for those of you watching on the YouTube.
So you can see the cover of that book right there.
Maximizing your effectiveness, he uses the word temperament,
to describe it, and he is an advocate in the book of
using the DISC as a
(01:56):
framework for understanding temperament, and that's, I also, I think,
a very helpful framework, and we're gonna talk about that today. So,
I don't think that temperament is necessarily something that the average person is
thinking about when it comes to volunteer placement,
unless you're using shape. But I I just don't know that people are
usually thinking about this and how important it is in getting people in the
(02:19):
right spot, and why some people struggle so much in a particular
volunteer role might not have to do with their gifting or their
skill, but just about temperament. So we're gonna be talking about that. That'd be a
great conversation, a riveting conversation. If you want
to, I'm just gonna give a little shout out. Was it a year
ago, Scott? We did the deep dive on the disc It's
(02:40):
2024. Might have been in 2023.
Regardless, in today's show notes, in your
podcast app or on YouTube, I'll put links in there, because
we had done a deep dive on the disc. So we did four weeks
of d I s and c to go really deeper on that. So we'll have
links to that. Very popular. People were
(03:02):
very excited. You just have to trust us on that.
Anyway, yeah, if you wanna go a lot deeper, we're not gonna go deep on
the on the, four types of temperament in the disc today.
We're speaking more about how does this relate to volunteer roles in the church? Why
does it matter that why should you care about it as a
leader so that you can get the right people into the right
(03:25):
place at your church? We're gonna circle back to
this at the end of the episode just to kinda peek ahead, but I wanna
say on the front end for those of you who maybe have short attention spans,
one of the reasons why we're wanting to bring this up and talk about this
today is we have a new resource inside the Healthy Church's
toolkit that is a divine design discovery
(03:45):
tool that includes a simple DISC assessment. And when
people, you you'll have your own custom link for
your kinda connected to your church's account and, that you
can share publicly with the people in your church. And
they will take this assessment, and it will tell them what their DISC type is
and spiritual gifts. And it will make some volunteer role recommendations
(04:08):
based on not just their gifting, but also their temperament,
and then that will be shared with you. You'll get an email notification. You'll
also be able to log in to the toolkit and see a dashboard of everybody
in your church who has taken it. You'll be able to sort. You are able
to sort, all of those results by temperament type. So
who are all the people who are a c on the disc? Who are all
(04:29):
the people in my church who have an s? And depending on what you're looking
for when you're forming a team or a committee or an ad hoc group or
whatever, you can start to build teams around temperament. It's a really
powerful tool, and it's included in the plus all plus
accounts in the Healthy Churches toolkit. So you can try that out free for seven
days if you go to healthychurchestoolkit.com. Sign up free
(04:51):
for seven days. Test it out. Give it to your staff. Give it to your
elders. Give it to, you know, a small team and let them try it out.
I will make one note and say it's, the volunteer
recommendations that it makes are o are
generic because we use it have to use it across the board. It
doesn't account for things like whether what their
(05:12):
passions would be. So it might make a recommendation about kids ministry,
but you might hate kids. Or it might say something about music ministry,
and you can't play an instrument or carry a tune in a bucket. But it
will it gives five recommendations. So out of that five, there might be
one or two that resonate with you based on your temperament and your
gifting. And, also, I would say it
(05:34):
only is going to make recommendations on things that are level one or
level two using leadership pipeline language. It's not going to make
a recommendation for elder or make a recommendation for a
staff position. It's going to focus on lower level
type positions, because that's what it's designed for.
So, it's a really powerful tool. I'm so glad
(05:58):
that we have this inside the toolkit now. So go to
healthychurchestoolkit.com. Try it free for seven days and
take advantage of that. Yep. So we'll talk about that at the end as well.
But, I thought it would be helpful for us to have a
conversation about why temperament is important in light of that
tool. Yep. Alright. Well, let's keep on going.
(06:20):
What is temperament? Why does it matter? Well, as Scott, you are you
already said, I think there's kind of a difference between personality and
temperament. Yeah. And, I mean, the temperament,
I think, maybe is more has some, I think, more
consistency across people and as
sort of a baseline, as to how you
(06:41):
relate to the world and to others. Whereas
maybe personality adds more nuance to it and has
more specificity and probably just a
broader range of reactions and emotions and all kinds of
things. Whereas which I think is why, you know, the disc generally as
four categories pretty much works out okay.
(07:03):
You know, for most people, of course, the dis Mhmm. Sometimes has, like, a dominant
trait and a secondary, that that might be adjacent
to it. But I I think overall, it works pretty well to kinda
just get at a general idea. But these things are
important because I mean, as I mean, from that
perspective that it is sort of like this foundational piece of
(07:25):
how God has has wired us. You can sort of
eliminate things. It helps you to narrow things down.
And Mhmm. You know, when people are thinking about well, from from your
perspective, a leader, hopefully, calling people into action
to serve in the ministry, to find their place in the
kingdom. I mean, this is a very broad ask. Right? I mean, we're
(07:48):
just drawing that out. It's telling everybody, Hey, God has made you,
you know, for service in the kingdom. And and so
like, okay, what is that? You know? Like you're throwing the world at me. So
Yeah. Let's let's try to narrow this down a little bit. And,
you know, having having at least a couple of tools, like, you
know, spiritual gifts and a temperament indicator, can
(08:10):
help to bring this into a little bit closer range that we can
start or start looking at things. So, yeah, I
mean, finding finding the fit is what we're going for.
Yeah. And this is temperament helps to maybe differentiate a little bit between
skill versus fit. I mean, two people can
have a similar skill set, but
(08:32):
the fit might be dependent on,
on temperament. So let's just give a concrete example.
Two people can have a gift of teaching, a teaching
gift, or a teaching skill, have the ability to communicate really well.
But, in a small group environment, you know,
a a more s type, which we're gonna talk about these types here
(08:56):
in just a second, but sort of a a more people oriented,
softer, shepherding type
temperament is maybe a better fit in a small group
environment than a fast,
high charged person who's a d, who's driving,
might be really aggressive in a small group environment and
(09:18):
not necessarily be as effective in that kind of a
role. But they could both be skilled teachers, and so maybe
one is is better up on on a
stage or in a boardroom, you know, or in those kinds of
environments where that teaching skill has to be directed,
and versus a softer
(09:40):
approach, more shepherding, that teaching skill. Same skill,
but different fit based on temperament. So, it's
it's about communication style. It's about pace of work. It's about a
preference for people versus tasks, and all of those things
play a role in helping an of a a person find their
fit and what volunteer role might be most,
(10:03):
most fitting for them. Yeah. I yeah. That's a
great example. I mean, you're kinda speaking to my, you know,
personal personal thing. You know? I mean, I enjoy teaching
adults. Don't so much, enjoy in
the younger gen environment. But
I think that's maybe more passion versus even temperament.
(10:26):
It could be. It could be. But even the example
that you're talking about, I mean, I at a previous
church, I enjoyed teaching. You know, we had sort of a Sunday
school environment. It was more it was it was more
fellowship driven than, like, a a classic Sunday school.
But but I was just one of several teachers in there, and I enjoyed
(10:48):
that. I like conveying information. I like, you know, providing
But it's still a room for encouragement. 40 34 thirty forty
people or twenty twenty, 30 people Yeah. And not
not five people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because
yeah. I I don't really have, you know, I don't I don't have, like, the
shepherding temperament going on. So Right. Yeah. Tell me tell me how
(11:10):
you feel. Yeah. I think we've hinted at this, and I and
I know we're not doing a deep dive on disk because we already
have done that, as you mentioned, and you can get the links in the
description below. But,
I let's do a very fast sort of overview. I think it might be
helpful. And I really love the DISC. I'm I'm I'm a big fan. No one
(11:33):
from from I don't even know if there's a DISC association. If there is
one, I'm not getting paid by them. But I really
like the DISC because it's just four categories, and it's easy to sort of sort
people. It's not perfect, but it doesn't have to be. When we're talking about
volunteer recruitment, we really don't need to account for
every nuance. Everybody is a unique sunflower
(11:55):
and all of that. All of that's true. But when it comes to volunteer
recruitment, we need sort of some quick and dirty
principles to apply and go, okay. What where is this person best going to
fit? And 16 different types or nine different
enneagrams and the wings and I mean, it's just too much. Mhmm.
The disc is easy. It's easy to think about, and it's easy to
(12:18):
sort, which is helpful for volunteer recruitment. So,
do you wanna drive this for task? I
I'll I'll do the run through, and you can jump in with, more detail if
you so desire, Scott Ball. The first one is the d type. So we're just
gonna order the d type. Task oriented, fast paced,
(12:38):
type of people. Thriving in leadership roles,
directing things, problem solving, some of
the areas in the church that they might do well in,
security team leads, event coordination,
yeah, projects, strategic planning. I mean, I'm a D. Again, I
enjoy teaching, but I like teaching adults. I like to be able to, you know,
(13:01):
convey information quickly, maybe handle some challenging questions, that
kind of thing, and and then keep going.
So, yeah. So that's your d types.
Your I type personalities, this is like the influencer type, people
oriented, also fast paced like a d, but
more relational. High energy, good
(13:24):
inviting, at inviting people, drawing people
into something, encouraging hosting. Greeters,
great. In this role, hospitality people,
social yeah. Kid things. I mean,
think social butterfly kind of in the
(13:44):
in in butterfly in the sense that they like to
kind of pop into a conversation, and then they are ready to
hop into another conversation, like going from flower to flower. They
they are not the kind of person who's really good one on
one for a long time. They start to get bored with
that conversation or insecure. You know, lots of times, I
(14:07):
type people are actually they present themselves
as very friendly and very social, but they're actually very guarded,
and don't let a lot of people in close. But they like they like fast
pace. They they are but they also like being around a lot of people and
a lot of movement. These are the people that make kids camp
happen. Oh my gosh. The running on a
(14:29):
5% until one AM, and you're like, where
do they get this energy? They're the ones up there on stage
with shaving cream, you know, in coming out of their
ears and still super heat on it. Yeah. Yeah.
And and not in those environments. They're also good on they're good for
ideas. They usually have a new idea every minute.
(14:51):
Great on a stage. Like, if you wanna get people pumped up about something, put
them up. They they usually are pretty good with words.
Their their temperament exudes energy,
and people are attracted to to that. They wanna be involved
in what that person's doing. They often have that sort of magnetic personalities.
Yeah. The next one, the s type. This is gonna be,
(15:13):
again, people oriented, but more one on one
relational. They really care about people. The s, you could say, is
steady or shepherding. Loyal and
dependable people. They care about other people's feelings.
They they have this a com a very compassionate side to them frequently.
They retriever kind of person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some of these
(15:37):
fits. Yeah. Care team members, they could
be, helping to lead in a small group situation or lead a
small group situation. Yeah. Maybe behind
some could be more behind the scenes roles,
yeah, in the in discipleship spaces. So they're great
people to to have coffee with, talk about what's going on with life.
(16:00):
You can probably less confident on a stage. The they're they can be good
teachers. I mean, a lot of pastors are s types, and they're really good in
the pulpit. You know, they because they've prepared, so they're they kinda know what they're
going to do. But the less less
good if you spring something on them and say, hey.
Will you run up there and tell the people about such and such
(16:22):
thing? Not as good on the fly as they are when they're prepared.
So I don't wanna say that an s type can't be good on a stage,
but they usually not not it's not their
favorite. There's might be some anxiety around that. Yeah. Because
they're often worried about how people perceive them. You know, they don't
wanna stir the pot. They're not big on conflict. They don't wanna hurt anybody's
(16:45):
feelings. And so they don't like being put on the spot and having
to make a decision. They're not really good at making any decisions, actually.
If they never had to make a decision, it would be too soon. Yeah.
And then the finally, the c type people, task
oriented for sure, driven by process. They're
(17:05):
detail focused, back office
people, behind the scenes, people, very
analytical, precise, good with information,
like structure. Your tech and media team,
men and women can do well here. Finance, administration,
(17:26):
yeah. Systems people, they can probably help you design,
maybe a flow of work, but they're not
gonna then get up on stage and explain it to everybody, very
clearly or simply or with much enthusiasm.
So, yeah, this, these are integral
integral for keeping things running well.
(17:48):
Totally. So just so you know, generally
as sort of a breakdown of the population,
the most rare types are the the
pure d's and the pure i's are the most
rare. A lot of people have a blend. They'll they'll be,
like, predominantly a c or predominantly an s and have a blend
(18:12):
if they're an s of an I or if they're a
c, have a blend of d. But the
pure d's and pure i's are the least common types, and
then most common types an s, and then the second most common type
would be a c, and then I think the third after that is an I,
and then the least common is d. I think. That's generally speaking, don't hold me
(18:34):
to that, but that's roughly the the breakdown. So you're gonna have more
s's and c's and and then i's and then your fewest d's, which is
which is why leadership is such a challenge in the church. But, also,
it's a hard thing because it's hard to find a spiritually mature and healthy
d because very often, they got some
toxicity in them, and that takes some time to root root that out.
(18:56):
And you don't wanna a d is a good leader, but
an unprepared d is a is a toxic leader.
So, you gotta be you gotta be on the lookout for those things.
So let's talk about, signs of misalignment. How how can we know if
someone's not in the right role? If the if
(19:16):
someone is burning out, it may be that you've got too
much responsibility on them, and so we need to take a look at your leadership
pipeline and make sure that we're, divvying
up the roles, correctly. It may be that
someone is volunteering too much
or they're they're serving in too many roles. You know, you if you've got people
(19:38):
who are doing three or four different volunteer positions,
they're probably not a great fit for all of those or or it's
just too many. The truth is that when you have somebody
in their right role that aligns with their temperament and
their gifting, it's life giving to serve and
(19:59):
not life draining to serve. They like what they're doing.
They choose to do it. There's a lot of work
that AJ and I do. We we both work for the Malthus group and get
paid for our work, but there's all kinds of work that that he and I
both do that it'd be hard to argue that we get paid
for it. And there there's things
(20:21):
there's extra work that we take on, not just because we're interested
in getting paid for it, but because we love it. It's life giving to do
the work. And there's all kinds of things that he and I both
have done for free because we care and because we
enjoy it. And the same is true for volunteers in your church when
they they're never getting paid because they're volunteers. But when
(20:43):
it's something that they love, it's a joy to
do it. And that's how, you know, when someone's in the right spot. But when
someone wants to quit, they they lack
joy, they're burning out, that is that is a sign,
usually the number one sign that they're in a
wrong role more than that they're necessarily overburdened. Because
(21:06):
people people who are in the right role will voluntarily take on more
responsibility, not be trying to shove it off. Yeah. This is an area that
we really have to be careful of, and I think that's why, you know,
this episode is important. I mean, just having this
tool for you in the toolkit is important, because
so often, Scott, you know, we see people burn out in
(21:28):
volunteer roles. And it is for a variety of reasons, and certainly could be
a temperament mismatch for sure. So having this awareness
for you as a leader is really important,
so that you don't you well, you want people in the right place. First of
all, they're gonna perform best. They're gonna be happiest in the right role.
And and it is possible to burn out somebody that is in the right role.
(21:51):
I mean, I've certainly seen that before as well. Totally. Yeah. Which
it is possible. Yeah. Yeah. It leads into other areas of leadership
pipeline design that we have to have right to make sure that that doesn't
happen as well. But, yeah, I I think this
just, reinforces how important
temperament is in getting it right, having a at least a basic understanding
(22:13):
of it. Yeah. Alright. Let's,
wrap this up by talking about helping people find their fit.
I'm going to reiterate what I said at the beginning, which is
you need a tool to help with this. You need
you need a system for this, and then you need tools to
help facilitate that system. This is maybe one of the most
(22:36):
common questions that we get is around volunteer
recruitment is how can we vol how can we recruit more volunteers?
And the the number one tip that we give churches is
you need to help people understand how
God has designed them, their what is their divine design,
and then how does that apply to the real world? What positions
(23:00):
best fit with that design?
And it's you can do you don't need the Healthy Church's toolkit to do
this. We've been equipping churches to do this for years
before we had this tool. But this makes it way
easier, way easier. Cuts down on a lot of the manual work that
churches were having to do. And so I would really encourage you to to
(23:23):
give this a shot. Go go to healthychurchestoolkit.com
and try it for yourself. See if it works. See if it makes
recommendations. I've been really encouraged. I've had a lot of people, take
it and people who I know and people who are in ministry, they maybe are
a staff person, but I'm reading the description, of
them and the recommendations made for them. And and there's usually at
(23:45):
least one or two things I go, that describes them perfectly. And if they were
a new volunteer, it really would line up with their with
their skills and with their abilities and with the way that god has designed them.
And we've even built this in a way where it's not just static stuff. There
there are static components, but it also generates a
custom message to that person to encourage them and to to help
(24:07):
move them along. So, I I it's just
so helpful, I think, to have a tool,
to help you get people connected. We it doesn't do all the
work. You still have to follow-up with those people, but at least now you can
have a conversation based on some piece of data and go,
hey. You took this assessment, and it said this. What resonated
(24:30):
with you? What did you think of what got it got right? What did you
think was maybe a little bit off? What's something about you that you maybe didn't
even know about yourself? And what would you like to
do next? And that is that is the key thing, empowering people
with the next step of, well, let me test drive
this role and give people that freedom to try out a
(24:51):
position without having to commit to it for a lifetime. Time. Yeah. Absolutely.
This is an area that when implemented, you're just gonna see huge
benefits come back. This is gonna bear a lot of ministry
fruit in your church, and could really I
mean, I think could be a significant game changer, especially if you're
have felt kind of maybe stuck. Your church might be, you
(25:14):
know, feeling plateaued or you could even be declining.
Helping to realign your in your volunteer roles,
can really be life giving in the church, on an
individual basis and to the church as a whole. And then hopefully, we
do see that manifest outwardly also. So,
yeah, I think this is this is a great area to work in. Get your
(25:37):
greatest, see people, at work on this. Make
sure you get a subaccount for them, if you're not gonna be the one that
would take this on. But, this is gonna be worth the
investment for sure. This plays into,
like, a a bigger this is a piece into the bigger
leadership pipeline design that Scott mentioned earlier as
(26:00):
well. And so, yeah, if you're kinda feeling maybe
this is, you're this is resonating with you, but you're also feeling like, Ali, we
just we don't even have a really good idea of what's going on with our
volunteers. It feels like we never have enough people. We're not
sure what to do next. That, is is a great time to
be looking at leadership pipeline design. So reach out to us if you'd like to
(26:22):
talk to me. In the toolkit as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a
lot of resources for that, and we work with a lot of churches, constantly
doing that work. So, yeah, we are here to help you with this. It really
is something that will be transformational. Or if from
last month, you started going through, the course the build groups
course, and, you know, there's there's a whole section in
(26:45):
there about recruiting volunteer, recruiting
more leaders. If you were to put bunch of people in your church
through this, you could start to identify people who would be good,
based on temperament and go, who who are all the people who have an s
type or an I type temperament who'd be good group leaders? You know? Or if
you have your Sunday school model, who are all people who have more of, like,
(27:06):
a a d or an I type who have a teaching gift or you know?
You you you can that can help you make your
list because you know who are the people who have that that gifting and
skill. Yeah. Man, absolutely. This is
yeah. Scott, I love everything about this. This is a great episode. This is
a this is an essential building block to a healthy church, So I hope that,
(27:27):
that you'll you'll really think about this and and wanna jump into it.
And okay. Yeah. There's gonna be lots of links below, for the
for the deep dive that we did on the disc, to get into the toolkit,
and other resources. So be sure and check that out. We sure
are glad you are with us. We're gonna talk a little bit more about divine
(27:47):
design next week as well. So stay tuned for that, and we'll see you
over there then.
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