Church services are a lot of work to pull off. It doesn't matter if you attend a mega-church with a disneyland like children's ministry and performing monkeys onstage or a rural church of 100 people. Unless you attend a house church in your own home with no other families with kids, you will probably be confronted with the need at some point to recruit people to help you pull everything together for a church gathering.
When I came on board with The Journey in 2006, I was immediately hit with the need to recruit enough volunteers to staff a new service (we were, at that point, moving from three to four services). I had a leadership team I was already developing - but I needed around 40 warm, caring, entertaining, and energetic bodies - and I needed them quickly. The problem was compounded by the fact that I didn't even have enough people to cover all the needs at the other services.
So, I put in a request to God. I asked him, if he wouldn't mind, slowing down the growth of the church for a little while so I could get my feet on the ground and be prepared for the next wave of newcomers. Not surprisingly, God completely ignored my reasonable requests.
This is the reality of ministry - especially in a place where the gospel is moving forward with power. Growth outpaces systems. Needs outnumber current workers. Demands are urgent and solutions difficult.
I obviously can't give you a fool-proof system for recruiting new volunteers (and this is because I am a big enough fool that I have found the flaw in every system I have tried). But I do believe I can give you some principles that will prove to be helpful in developing a culture of recruitment and longterm commitment.
So, here we go.
First - Don't spend all your time fishing in the shallow end.
What does that mean? When leaders get hammered - which happens a lot - they tend to look for the fastest, easiest solution. This is why so many pastor's wives run the children's ministry. This is why my wife has spent countless hours serving in areas I have been leading. She was available. She knew my needs and how busy I was. She was sympathetic and wanted me (and the ministry) to succeed. So, I confess, there were times I used her as a volunteer because I was too strapped or too lazy to paddle out to the deep end of the lake and reel in someone else who wasn't so obviously available.
See, the down side of depending on family and friends to bail you out is that you burn them out and get in the way of God's calling on their lives. My wife loves kids - but she is a gifted leader, counselor, and developer of other women. As long as I am depending on her to cover my gaps in children's ministry, I am hindering her from experiencing and growing in the gifts God has given her.
So, I came to the point where I made a rule - for myself and my leadership team. We would not come to our family and friends first when I was confronted with ministry needs. If I didn't have enough people to staff a need (say, the 4 and 5 year old room), I would close the room - or recruit parents as they dropped off their kids. Did this make me popular? Um, no - not with certain people. But it did make me more popular with the people God has directly commissioned me to lead and protect - my family.
So, that doesn't sound very helpful. My first point is that you need to fish in deeper waters for volunteers you can't see and don't know if they are there.
Yup. But, if you don't - you will never recruit the people your organization needs because you will never grow beyond the limits of your own circle of friends and family.
So this leads to #2.
Second, develop a culture of recruitment.
You already know you can't do it all. That is why you are looking for volunteers. So why do you think you can recruit all the volunteers you need on your own? You need a force multiplier. Colin Powell says that leaders must be aware of their environment - always looking for force-multipliers. What are those things in your environment that can *increase* the effort you are already expending?
I am sure there are quite a few that just need to be discovered - but an obviously one are the volunteers you have already recruited.
You need to recruit your volunteers as recruiters. There are many creative ways to do this - but the first and most basic is simply to explain to the people on your team that they must replace themselves - and they need to do it before they leave the team. Be fun. Be creative. Model how to be assertive. I used to have a prayer time with my team before services. I set out donuts. One or two would take one and I would have a dozen left over. So I started giving each person a donut as they came in. I would walk up, with a smile, and say, Here, have a donut. Some smiled and turned me down. Some smiled and took it. And then I would explain - that is how I want you to invite people to join our team. Hi, I serve on Journey Kids. It is fun. Come serve with us. I showed them you can be assertive without being pushy. I also pointed out that, like them with the donuts, most people would really like to serve in a meaningful way, but they need to be asked.
Some of my team members didn't recruit anyone. Some replaced themselves. That was awesome. But some - it was like Shazzam! A light was turned on and they turned into recruitment machines.
You need to develop a culture of recruitment.
That leads to my final point. (Whew!)
Lastly, don't recruit. Envision.
How did you respond as a kid when you came home and your mom grabbed you and said, "I have a job for you"? You probably didn't eagerly respond with joy. Why? There aren't too many people that are just looking for a job to do - especially at church. We are busy people - we work a lot. Why would we want to work on Sunday too?
Because - it isn't just a job. Its a mission. People come to church because they heard the gospel - that God served them by sending his Son to die in their place. Even now, after the resurrection, he lives to serve them as their intercessor. And he didn't leave us here twiddling our thumbs just waiting for him to come back. He entrusted us with the message of the gospel - and we have, say, 80 short years to live that message and share it with others.
When we serve in children's ministry - or on the set up and tear down crew - or on the media team - or wherever - we aren't just doing a job. We are advancing the gospel. We are partnering with all the believers of all time to move the power of the gospel forward into the lives of hurt and broken people. That is a big deal. It is exciting - and energizing - and will motivate people to sacrifice in ways a "job" never could.
That is why I never apologize for asking people to help. I don't approach like a homeless man begging for a hand out. I approach as a leader in God's kingdom - a leader who has a spot open on my team. It is a privilege to be used by God to advance his kingdom, and I am inviting others to join me in that. And I have found that people can get pretty fired up about that - they get excited and don't just do the job. They end up owning it and doing it in ways that far exceed any job description I would have given them.
So that is it. Don't fish at the shallow end. Develop a culture of recruitment. Don't recruit, envision. That is stage one in leading volunteers - that is how you get them on the team... but how do you keep them? How do you make sure your back door is smaller than your front? That is stage two - and a blog for next time.
When I came on board with The Journey in 2006, I was immediately hit with the need to recruit enough volunteers to staff a new service (we were, at that point, moving from three to four services). I had a leadership team I was already developing - but I needed around 40 warm, caring, entertaining, and energetic bodies - and I needed them quickly. The problem was compounded by the fact that I didn't even have enough people to cover all the needs at the other services.
So, I put in a request to God. I asked him, if he wouldn't mind, slowing down the growth of the church for a little while so I could get my feet on the ground and be prepared for the next wave of newcomers. Not surprisingly, God completely ignored my reasonable requests.
This is the reality of ministry - especially in a place where the gospel is moving forward with power. Growth outpaces systems. Needs outnumber current workers. Demands are urgent and solutions difficult.
I obviously can't give you a fool-proof system for recruiting new volunteers (and this is because I am a big enough fool that I have found the flaw in every system I have tried). But I do believe I can give you some principles that will prove to be helpful in developing a culture of recruitment and longterm commitment.
So, here we go.
First - Don't spend all your time fishing in the shallow end.
What does that mean? When leaders get hammered - which happens a lot - they tend to look for the fastest, easiest solution. This is why so many pastor's wives run the children's ministry. This is why my wife has spent countless hours serving in areas I have been leading. She was available. She knew my needs and how busy I was. She was sympathetic and wanted me (and the ministry) to succeed. So, I confess, there were times I used her as a volunteer because I was too strapped or too lazy to paddle out to the deep end of the lake and reel in someone else who wasn't so obviously available.
See, the down side of depending on family and friends to bail you out is that you burn them out and get in the way of God's calling on their lives. My wife loves kids - but she is a gifted leader, counselor, and developer of other women. As long as I am depending on her to cover my gaps in children's ministry, I am hindering her from experiencing and growing in the gifts God has given her.
So, I came to the point where I made a rule - for myself and my leadership team. We would not come to our family and friends first when I was confronted with ministry needs. If I didn't have enough people to staff a need (say, the 4 and 5 year old room), I would close the room - or recruit parents as they dropped off their kids. Did this make me popular? Um, no - not with certain people. But it did make me more popular with the people God has directly commissioned me to lead and protect - my family.
So, that doesn't sound very helpful. My first point is that you need to fish in deeper waters for volunteers you can't see and don't know if they are there.
Yup. But, if you don't - you will never recruit the people your organization needs because you will never grow beyond the limits of your own circle of friends and family.
So this leads to #2.
Second, develop a culture of recruitment.
You already know you can't do it all. That is why you are looking for volunteers. So why do you think you can recruit all the volunteers you need on your own? You need a force multiplier. Colin Powell says that leaders must be aware of their environment - always looking for force-multipliers. What are those things in your environment that can *increase* the effort you are already expending?
I am sure there are quite a few that just need to be discovered - but an obviously one are the volunteers you have already recruited.
You need to recruit your volunteers as recruiters. There are many creative ways to do this - but the first and most basic is simply to explain to the people on your team that they must replace themselves - and they need to do it before they leave the team. Be fun. Be creative. Model how to be assertive. I used to have a prayer time with my team before services. I set out donuts. One or two would take one and I would have a dozen left over. So I started giving each person a donut as they came in. I would walk up, with a smile, and say, Here, have a donut. Some smiled and turned me down. Some smiled and took it. And then I would explain - that is how I want you to invite people to join our team. Hi, I serve on Journey Kids. It is fun. Come serve with us. I showed them you can be assertive without being pushy. I also pointed out that, like them with the donuts, most people would really like to serve in a meaningful way, but they need to be asked.
Some of my team members didn't recruit anyone. Some replaced themselves. That was awesome. But some - it was like Shazzam! A light was turned on and they turned into recruitment machines.
You need to develop a culture of recruitment.
That leads to my final point. (Whew!)
Lastly, don't recruit. Envision.
How did you respond as a kid when you came home and your mom grabbed you and said, "I have a job for you"? You probably didn't eagerly respond with joy. Why? There aren't too many people that are just looking for a job to do - especially at church. We are busy people - we work a lot. Why would we want to work on Sunday too?
Because - it isn't just a job. Its a mission. People come to church because they heard the gospel - that God served them by sending his Son to die in their place. Even now, after the resurrection, he lives to serve them as their intercessor. And he didn't leave us here twiddling our thumbs just waiting for him to come back. He entrusted us with the message of the gospel - and we have, say, 80 short years to live that message and share it with others.
When we serve in children's ministry - or on the set up and tear down crew - or on the media team - or wherever - we aren't just doing a job. We are advancing the gospel. We are partnering with all the believers of all time to move the power of the gospel forward into the lives of hurt and broken people. That is a big deal. It is exciting - and energizing - and will motivate people to sacrifice in ways a "job" never could.
That is why I never apologize for asking people to help. I don't approach like a homeless man begging for a hand out. I approach as a leader in God's kingdom - a leader who has a spot open on my team. It is a privilege to be used by God to advance his kingdom, and I am inviting others to join me in that. And I have found that people can get pretty fired up about that - they get excited and don't just do the job. They end up owning it and doing it in ways that far exceed any job description I would have given them.
So that is it. Don't fish at the shallow end. Develop a culture of recruitment. Don't recruit, envision. That is stage one in leading volunteers - that is how you get them on the team... but how do you keep them? How do you make sure your back door is smaller than your front? That is stage two - and a blog for next time.
Comments
I feel the same applies to giving financially to missions, organizations, churches, etc. We have an opportunity to partner with God in His work.