Stewarding God’s Resources

Improving processes to empower people

Susan, a campus missionary, strolled to her car. Earlier that day she had huddled over the Bible for 45 minutes helping four freshmen women understand Christ’s love for them. She also invested another hour helping three seniors develop plans for leading ministries on their college campus.

Process Predicaments

Now Susan had an hour to steward. She could connect with students by phone or complete needed administrative tasks. Although she wanted to focus on the students, she decided to request an honorarium payment for a recent speaker at her ministry’s weekly meeting. She established a phone hotspot and logged into her mission agency finance website on her laptop.

Thirty-five minutes later, after referring to her copious notes on the process, rewatching a video provided by the home office, and consulting an even more administratively minded friend, she finally completed the task, successfully sending a small honorarium payment to the speaker.

Susan is organized, comfortable with technology, and has completed this task numerous times before. Yet she struggled and felt defeated. The online process was supposed to make her job easier, but Susan found it more difficult.

Pete, a men’s small group leader in his church, had been asked to take attendance at Bible study. He kept forgetting. He’d heard there was an attendance app for his phone, but he couldn’t remember the name of it. Pete prefers to use his energy to prepare the study and build relationships with the guys instead of figuring out this detail.

Processes Limiting People

The problem is that the process is not guiding people to the correct outcome.

Those who serve in ministry operational roles may wonder why Pete doesn’t ask for help or why Susan doesn’t remember the process better. Those in operational roles may feel frustrated when people struggle to complete administrative tasks, but the problem is not the person. The problem is that the process is not guiding people to the correct outcome.

Every day, employees, volunteers, and constituents of our ministries interact with processes we have created to do things like pay vendors, note attendance, contribute donations, or request a room. Each interaction is an opportunity to steward people, their time, strengths, impact, and gifts.

However, a difficult process means less effective stewardship. As the father of modern process improvement, W. Edwards Deming, once said, “A bad system [process] will beat a good person every time. People are already doing their best; the problems are with the system.”

Processes Serving People

In an operational role, we can take the initiative to evaluate our ministry processes to determine how to better serve people.

Is the process stewarding our people’s time, strengths, and impact?

Start with the heart. Remember that the process exists to serve others. Is the process stewarding our people’s time, strengths, and impact? Second, cultivate humility. Are you ready to learn, without defensiveness, how others experience the process? Finally, be ready to work. Are you willing to give the time and effort necessary to improve the process?

With our heart prepared, we can learn how others go through our process. We must approach the process as curious, humble learners to confirm that we understand how others navigate and interact with our systems.

If the process involves software, record a person going through the process without coaching or help. Ask them to explain what they are thinking as they complete the task. This helps to empathetically identify areas they find difficult. The book Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug can be a helpful guide.

If the process involves multiple teams or people, consider creating a visual representation (or ‘map’) of the process. Interview each person involved in the process to determine what actions they take and what decisions they make. Ask where they experience pain or difficulty. Then create a process map. Finally, humbly ask them if the map accurately expresses their experience.

Process Improvements to Steward Team Strengths

Now that you correctly understand the process, you can improve it! How might you reduce the pain you’ve identified? How might you change your process to guide your good people to a better result? Your process may be an overlooked means to steward the time, strengths, and impact of your employees, volunteers, and constituents.

When we improve the honorarium payment process for Susan, not only will she be able to request a payment, but she can also use the extra time to encourage another student. When Pete can easily get the app, he is better able to track attendance. Working alongside our people, we can steward their hours to influence others for Jesus.

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Nate Miller has served thirty years with Cru. He now leads Cru’s Transformation Center of Excellence seeking to bring rest to Cru staff by improving time, cost, and quality. Connect on LinkedIn or nate.miller@cru.org.

Nate Miller will lead a workshop entitled “Effectively Stewarding God’s Resources” at The Outcomes Conference 2026 in Dallas, April 28 – 30. Learn More and Register >>