There was a time in my life when I was responsible for “recruiting” a sufficient number of teachers in order for the Sunday School program to run smoothly. As time went on, however, I began to realize the importance of “calling” the right people into teaching ministry as a way of helping them discover, develop and deploy their gifts for God’s glory.
When you invite people into ministry, do you do so through the lens of one’s vocation? Do you look at it as a vehicle for bringing out the best in others? As a training opportunity to develop their gifts?
Inviting people into ministry is not about filling slots but rather about helping people live into their sweet spot while serving others in the name of Christ. What are your motivations for inviting volunteers into ministry? What are your plans for developing their areas of giftedness? In what ways would your inviting process be different if you invited volunteers to serve based on fulfilling their vocation rather than fulfilling the needs of your program?
Volunteers are grown. Invite people in. Take the SCARY out of volunteering. Be honest and up front. Share with them all aspects of what is being asked of them. “Mini” trainings/workshops are helpful and benefical to help ease the volunteers and give them an opportunity to ask questions. Make if fun. Use their gifts and abilities. If you have a round hole, you use a round peg. If you try to use a square peg in a round hole it ends in disaster.
I believe proper training is the first step to ensuring that people are placed into their calling/vocation from God. I feel like Jim’s blog stated we are to easily distracted with getting just the right number people to fill the number of “open” spots in all ministry areas. Patrick is right on when he used the “80/20″ example. I have been made to feel guilty for saying no to certain calls to volunteer in certain capacities in the congregation I worship. I seems like some congregations have their “go to people” that they call to serve in any open spot, even if it is not that person calling/vocation. So, I believe one has to be invited into serving out their calling.
We’re still stuck in the mode of having to offer all of our activities from the early 1990′s, when we had plentiful numbers of volunteers and children. Now, we have plentiful numbers of children and youth, but a shrinking volunteer population due to age, and large families (Most have 3+ children in our congregation.) I’m striving to find quality volunteers hidden in our churches woodwork, but am often forced to settle with the right number of people instead of the right fit. This year I’ve been blessed with plentiful numbers of awesome volunteers in our Wednesday night line up, but have continued to struggle with Sundays. Two weeks prior to chruch, no one had volunteered to help with Sunday School. Our church often waits until the last moment to respond to multiple face to face invitations, as well as email and phone reminders.
One of my “aha” moments in Cert school was when we talked about Corine Ware’s “discover your spiritual type.” I was in a church that is writing their own curriculum for rotation. People came up with great lessons which, I discovered when going through this exercise, often had no one in the congregation willing and able or called to teach – they were not written with the available volunteers in mind.
Cert school also led me to create curriculum (I wrote the current year’s) to include more cross+generational opportunities. The hope is two-fold: 1. help create the relationships for a AAA congregation and 2. help create volunteers – more adults get to know the children, learn how the program works and are then more comfortable to volunteer.
I agree, Leah. We started a new curriculum this year, which is the second new curriculum since I have been here. The first two years of the curriculum is always positive, but by the time the third year comes around, we loose momentum. This year, I have more volunteers than I have ever had before, so the question is, how do I keep this excitement past the first year?
I think we have to keep paying attention to what speaks to the kids and what interests the adults and uses their gifts. Then we have to make sure the curriculum fits or is revamped to those criteria. Groups and leaders change over time so it isn’t a one size fits all. I also think that changing curriculum too often can have a negative influence. People start to feel that nothing is worthwhile and why come or they “liked” the previous one and not the current curriculum. And we need to make sure that volunteers have all the tools necessary to do a good job because if they don’t feel successful curriculum doesn’t matter.
Until recently, I’ve never been in a position within a congregation where it was my duty to recruit volunteers. At a previous congregation where I volunteered with youth ministry, I know that both the youth pastor and Christian education director had to really put effort into finding and retaining volunteers. Also, having served as head of the PTO at my daughters’ school, I learned that getting people to help out and/or take lead with certain events was like pulling teeth. Usually the minority of parents (the 80/20 rule) who volunteered for other endeavors (i.e., Girl Scouts, Red Cross blood drive, etc.) would be the ones to volunteer for PTO events. As the Lord directs me to develop a youth ministry plan for the community and congregation where I now worship, I’ll soon find out how easy/difficult it is to recruit folks to help with various youth ministry endeavors which could simultaneously help each volunteer grow in his/her faith.
I love this! This is the first year that I didn’t panic as I was looking for my teachers, as well as youth leaders. By simple conversations, I would pick up on something that was “thrown out there” and would follow up with a question like “WOW! I didn’t know that about you. How would you see that fitting into the Sunday school/Youth program? Have you ever thought about teaching/leading?” Guess what! It created new teachers and new leaders almost every time! For the first time since I started 5 years ago, we have all of our teachers for Sunday school, (20-4 for each grade level) and 7 youth leaders! We have never had such a blessing. Besides that, these leaders are EXCITED!! By fitting their passions and gifts with the ministry of the church, it feeds them like nothing they have had before! And guess who wins-everyone! I consider this to be a working of the Holy Spirit, and that is what I want-not me, but thee! Thank you for this chance for me to look at what happened this summer, as I don’t think I realized it until now.
“Inviting” people into ministry is only the FIRST STEP when recruiting and growing serving volunteers and leaders! What is being done to sustain those people? If we are lucky enough to find the right people, with the necessary vocations and they trustingly accept the invitation to serve, is there a plan in place to continue supporting and growing those individuals? Or, are they left to fend and figure it out for themselves? Being on the receiving end of those invitations, I have found that the support can quickly diminish once the invitation to serve has been accepted leaving a feeling of loneliness and overwhelming responsibility. Those people that are asking new volunteers to accept leadership roles need to be alongside them as they grow and become comfortable in their new position. I would suggest more frequent checking in with the individual volunteers both pre and post serving to see how they are doing and what support is needed. I would also suggest pointed team development time when individuals are serving as part of a team. How can we expect a team to function most effectively when there is NO TIME spent on team development and cohesion? Sure we can make it, but are we really at our best? In this day of electronic communication, it is far to easy to leave out the face-to-face relationship building opportunities!
I have not been in my position very long so knowing the gifts of the congregations and matching them to our program needs has been difficult. Lately because we have been lacking volunteers we have been recruiting just to fill needs. We did initially start with those that we thought could match their skills to our programs needs.
I think if we got back on track inviting volunteers to come to fill their vocation our program would be better matched with fun caring teachers and mentors.
Getting them in the door is my hurdle….
Concerning the equipping of volunteers, I’ve found that I can accomplish a lot in providing 15-minute training modules that I often do as part of a meeting, or part of Sunday morning or Wednesday night activities. I’m curious about what kind of training you’d like to provide to better support your leaders.
Amen!
My first motivation for inviting volunteers into ministry is so I can get members of the congregation involved with the youth of our community. Our youth are so amazing and have so much to offer. I want others to see them as I do. I also recruit because I need to have a team of people that work together and can bounce ideas, areas of concern, and can share dreams with each other. I also think it is very important for a team of people to be praying for our youth on a regular basis.
I haven’t been able to find a great leadership training tool that I can share with my adult leaders. I have tried reading books with them, holding training sessions, but they always seem a little too formal. I find that debriefing after any youth night, event, or trip is the best way to answer questions, discuss what we can work on, and affirm why they are there.
If I looked at recruiting from a perspective of helping the volunteer fulfilling their vocation, I think I would spend more time asking them what they expect to get out of volunteering, and less about what I expect out of them. I don’t think I have ever asked someone to volunteer unless I thought they are gifted for that particular ministry.
Finding, asking, & recruiting volunteers can be a daunting task. I got an idea from one of my youth when she made a comment during one of our Bible Studies, she said; “You don’t have to spend time with Jesus, you GET TOO spend time with Jesus.
I have begun to say something similar to people I think would be great volunteers for youth ministry. I tell them; “You don’t have to spent time with the youth, you GET TOO. Maybe too simple but it has struck some chords here.
This is a fantastic post! I can’t tell you how close this strikes to home! I am the Director of Youth and Children’s Ministry and My wife is on Church Council as the Christian Education representative. We have had many discussions about how to get adults to help with teaching Sunday School. I have actually voiced the lament that “we are not getting volunteers but gathering recruits”. We have been looking at this all wrong! I am going to change our approach to more of an invitation to grow ones personal ministry rather than to simply fill a chair. Really, this changes everything. Thank you.