MSP User Spotlight: The Rev. Dr. Marshall A. Jolly

Krista Kutz

Growth & Impact Manager

Rev. Marshall A. Jolly The Rev. Dr. Marshall A. Jolly, Rector of St. Thaddeus Episcopal Church in Aiken, SC, has led the parish since 2023 and also serves as President of Mead Hall Episcopal School. A graduate of Transylvania University and Emory University's Candler School of Theology, he has ministered in the Episcopal Dioceses of Western North Carolina, Lexington, and Atlanta.

Q: Please describe the community at St. Thaddeus Episcopal Church.

Rev. Marshall: St. Thaddeus Episcopal Church is the oldest structure in Aiken, dating back to 1842. It's surrounded on all sides by a historic graveyard. The parish itself is very diverse in terms of worship style and age. We worship between 200 to 250 people on Sundays. Sundays are not our biggest day for worship, however, because we have a parish day school that is Pre-K through 12th grade, and Wednesday Chapel is when all 400 of our students come and worship.

Q: How did you discover Ministry Scheduler Pro and what drew you to try it?

Rev. Marshall: I actually learned about Ministry Scheduler Pro while I was serving another parish in Western North Carolina about seven years ago. And I remember vividly, sitting at my desk…with half a dozen different schedules for different things going on. And I remember seeing people serving Coffee Hour and being a Lector and being an Acolyte and being a Eucharistic Minister and being an Usher, all scheduled on the same day because no two people wrote the same schedule. They weren't communicating with each other. And I was sitting there thinking, how in the world is this going to work?

And then my parish administrator at the time walked into my office and said, "Here's the mail," which is a rare thing. She never brought me the mail. But on that day, she chose to set it on my desk. And on top was a flier from Ministry Scheduler Pro… I thought, this is "manna from heaven"! I read the flier, and MSP was really, literally dealing with the issues that I was having. They were asking, Are you overwhelmed by scheduling? Are people not communicating? Is this really inefficient? Is this a waste of your time? Yes, and yes.

And so seven years and two congregations later, I am an enthusiastic banner waiver for Ministry Scheduler Pro!

Rev. Marshall: One thing, we had different ministries scheduling different ways. So some people would schedule with paper and pencil, come into the office, make copies, and send those schedules out via snail mail so that by the time it got to you, you'd already missed your first Sunday trying to be on the schedule. We had about six people in my first parish doing different schedules, and they weren't communicating with each other, and there was no sort of method to their scheduling at all. And people would just get overwhelmed and frustrated and not show up. These volunteers, whose hearts were in the right place, thought they were taking work away from our parish admin, were actually making it harder, because when they don't show up, whose job is it to find replacements? The clergy. When they are overscheduled, whose job is it to figure that out? The parish staff. And so MSP gave us a central place where we could do all of this at once, and all the ministries were communicating with each other. And the great thing, at least back when I started with MSP in 2017 was even for people who were just stalwarts that they're not going to learn, it gives you a workaround so that they continue receiving their schedule in the mail as if nothing ever changed. But from an administrative perspective, it just made everything lightyears easier.

When we started using MSP, I told the parish, "If you can order a pair of socks on Amazon, you can use this program. If you can update your Facebook profile picture, you can use this program."

Q: What are some general best practices for managing and scheduling volunteers in worship ministries, regardless of what tools that you use?

Rev. Marshall: We schedule in two month increments so that people can have a little bit more realistic expectation for knowing when they're available and when they're not. For us, we schedule just about everything through MSP, including pop-up services like funerals, and we'll build the service and then send an email saying, "This person has passed away, the funeral's going to be on this day, and if interested, go on to your schedule and sign up." That way, while we're working with the family and planning for the service in that short window of time, MSP's working behind the scenes to get volunteers.

Once we drop the schedule, watching people make swaps and subs, you go through and you count…there are eight or ten swaps here or there. That was at least two dozen phone calls that we didn't have to make and emails that we didn't have to send!

Q: In your experience, how has MSP impacted volunteer engagement and participation in your church's worship ministries?

Rev. Marshall: It has greatly decreased the number of missed services by volunteers. And that really is due to how the system goes out of its way to not only remind you, but gives you the ability to be reminded in the way that is best for you. So some people want to be reminded the morning of, some people want to be reminded three days before. They can set those things up themselves.

Rev. Marshall: Yes. I think that one of the things that MSP does that I was afraid to use at first, and then I started using it, was like, why did I not always use this? It gives you the ability to mark those people who have not shown up. And send them a gentle, loving reminder that part of being an adult is taking responsibility for your own learning. And when you send that one time to an individual, it's transformative. They're like, oh, yeah, I'm going to take responsibility. Or they'll say, I need to pull back or something like that.

So I think the feature that I like the best in terms of creating a culture of service and fellowship is that, you know, gentle corrective of "We missed you. Hope everything's OK. Remember, here's Ministry Scheduler Pro. Here's how it works. Here's where you can get a guidebook if you have questions, that sort of thing." That almost always opens up a pastoral conversation with someone.

Q: How do you keep your volunteers motivated and engaged to serve, especially during a busy or challenging liturgical season or time of year?

Rev. Marshall: One of the things that we do, we have a host of people who will do a ministry, but they want to be substitutes. So they don't want to be doing it every week because they're also really committed to Sunday School, or another thing. We ask them to step up during those busy seasons and be scheduled for those special services. And what we find is, they have missed it! They really enjoy serving. And it also gives a little bit of relief to those who are regularly scheduled for those services.

Take Holy Week, for example, or Midnight Mass. We tend to let the auto-scheduler run for those things. And what we find is, people who normally wouldn't go to that service, if they get scheduled, they come and they fall in love with it. And they say, next year, I really want to do this again! For some of the smaller services, like for Holy Week, we have a service Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday night before the Triduum begins on Thursday. We don't schedule those. We tell people, there they are. If you would like to schedule, go schedule. And people will sign up on their own.

Rev. Marshall: The feedback that we've gotten has been really tremendous. I mean, what we find is we started this program by only using it to schedule Acolytes and our Eucharistic Ministers. And then the next term, we scheduled more ministries. And what we found is we had ministries coming to us saying, "Hey, we see what you do for all of these other ministries. We think our ministry would really benefit from being on Ministry Scheduler Pro!" So now our Altar Guild's on there, our Flower Guild, our Nursery. We have recently, we just added our Coffee Ministry.

Q: Which feature do you find the most beneficial for managing the unique needs of Episcopal worship services?

Rev. Marshall: Hardwired into Ministry Scheduler Pro is the ability to use the Episcopal liturgical calendar. I think that is great so that the schedule actually names the services correctly so that when you're looking at it, you're like, "Oh, wow, this is a Feast Day!" So we need to maybe schedule a thurifer, more crucifers, that sort of thing. And I also think it's helpful to have that request sub option and a way to connect families. Those are helpful features from the administrative side.

Q: What advice would you give to other Episcopal churches considering adopting MSP for their worship ministry scheduling?

Rev. Marshall: Do it. Just do it. It will pay for itself in terms of the administration.

Watch our full workshop and conversation with the Rev. Dr. Marshall A. Jolly.

Painless Ministry Scheduling for Episcopal Churches

Episcopal churches across the country are leveraging Ministry Scheduler Pro to streamline volunteer scheduling and boost ministry participation. Want to do the same for your congregation? Explore MSP with a free trial today!