My toddler son is very into trains, so I read a lot of books about trains. Recently, I learned something that has stuck with me: train tracks were invented by accident. Back in the days of horse and ox-drawn carts, the most well-trodden paths would eventually develop grooves in the ground from the carts. The grooves made it easier for carts to travel the path, and each cart that rode along those grooves made them deeper and more pronounced. Over times, visible, permanent tracks emerged. These are considered the first “tracks.” 

This was generally a convenience for people and animals pulling carts, it made for easier travels, and the ease of travel made it more and more likely that was the path that people would travel, further reinforcing the tracks. Many of the first intentional train tracks were built along these grooves, and the vehicles were adapted to ride along them more easily. Eventually, the idea of going any way other than the tracks begins to seem too difficult. What was once the path chosen as the best option, then becomes the default option, even if it is no longer the best one, because it seems too difficult to go any other way. What was once a totally open landscape of possibilities becomes only a few well-trodden tracks. 

It makes me wonder – where in our leadership have we dug ourselves into the grooves? Stopped seeing all the possibilities because it has become so much easier to follow the path that we’ve followed so many times before? 

A friend of mine at Ministry Architects was telling me about a software they offer called Volunteer Accelerator. It has this promise associated with it for more volunteers. I was skeptical – where are they pulling people from? How can they promise that volunteers will just arrive? He explained what should have been pretty obvious to me: they can guarantee new volunteers without recruiting any new people to the community, because the tool doesn’t pull people in, it helps leaders actually see all of the people they already have. He told me that leaders often return to the same few volunteers over and over again because its who they know, its who’s comfortable, its the path with the grooves carved in.

Their tool uses congregational questionnaires to help those interested in volunteering to find the right fit, and church leaders to see all the called, enthusiastic people they may have missed because it wasn’t the path they were used to. It reminds leaders that there are actually a lot of other paths they can follow, especially if the one that they’re used to doesn’t meet their needs. 

We need to be agile in this day and age of ministry, we need to be willing to forge new paths, make new connections, and not dig ourselves deeper and deeper into the same grooves. This week, consider:

• What grooves did I inherit when I began leading this community?
• What grooves have I dug myself?
• What well-trodden path is no longer serving us the way it once did?
• What would it look like to go some other direction?

Check out the Volunteer Accelerator, get a demo, and if you’re interested, you can get a 15% discount between now and August 31, 2025.