In my pastoral management class yesterday we talked about five kinds of people you will likely encounter in any church setting (this was actually a tangent but helpful) being the following:
1. VRP (Very Resourceful Person) - These are the people that you go to when there is a need. They are people with resources, connections, influence to get things done that need to get done.
2. VIP (Very Important Person) - These are more of the influencers, those that are already leading in some context. Could be staff, elders, pastors, etc.
3. VTP (Very Trainable Person) - These are the people that could become the VIP's. They are the future leaders who are teachable and have a desire to learn and grow. It is crucial that these people get the majority of our time.
4. VNP (Very Nice Person) - These are people that are fun to be around, people like them, they're a blast to have around the church, but they will never really step up like you wish they would. They're just nice people.
5. VDP (Very Dependent Person) - And, our favorite people. Those who cannot and will not do anything on their own. They will not take responsibility for anything, but will want the pastors and leaders to do EVERYTHING. They are usually those that complain the most and desire the most time out of the pastor but are willing to give little to nothing to make church better.
This obviously could become simplistic when you only think of people in these categories especially when we do not take into consideration that God's grace is enough to make a VDP a VIP! But regardless, I find this helpful while processing the question, "who should get the most time on our calendars?" Time is limited and we have to be wise when we choose who to spend it with as a pastor.
A constant problem is that the VDP's will try to suck up all your time but the result of that time will be little to no progress. Plus if we spend all our time on the VDP's we will miss out on training those who are trainable and these are the people that need most of our time.
Anyway, I hope you find this helpful as well as you consider who needs your time.
4 comments:
Maybe VDPs should form a support group. ;)
if they formed something, they wouldn't be VDP's! Hahaha.
The more I'm thinking about this idea overall, the more I'm realizing how it could take a negative judgmental term so I really want to be careful with it. Or on the other hand, have people thinking in the future, "does he or she think I'm a VDP or a VTP or whatever?"
I would be interested in what more people have to say about this. I can imagine many people reacting negatively to this idea. I'd love to hear it!
and i'm pretty sure my friend Agent B will HATE this post!
Post a Comment