Volunteer Leadership

In production leadership, and ministry in general, it’s not uncommon to fear not having enough volunteers. In fact, you may have already noticed something: we’ll never have enough volunteers.

At least not enough to make us comfortable.

Confident, yes.
Effective, yes.
Comfortable, probably not.

So what do we do? We set the bar low and beg anyone we can to help. It’s a natural reaction. We can’t find enough high-capacity, passionate volunteers to help us with our ministry so we lower our expectations and beg people to help us. And while this may make us fully staffed, it doesn’t make us good. In fact, it is a recipe for disaster. Here are 3 common problems and their solutions.

Problem #1: People will only go so far to help US.
They’ll only help US so much as we have relational credit with them. This works with just a few volunteers because we can easily build additional credit. Unfortunately, when we have many volunteers we cannot build credit fast enough. The result is volunteer burnout every time.

Solution: People will do almost anything for a cause they believe in.
This is all about vision – and it’s our job to provide it. If we can’t explain to someone why volunteering in a church matters, we shouldn’t be asking someone to do it. Changing diapers, running a camera, serving food, seating people – all of it is for a greater purpose. Our challenge is to connect the mundane to the sublime.

Problem #2: People will rise or fall to our level of expectation.
If we set the bar low, can you guess what people will give us? We’ll have a bunch of worker ants with no passion or desire to grow further in our organization or ministry. Most people WILL strive to reach what we’ve asked of them, especially if we’ve solved Problem #1.

Solution: Set the bar high, and develop people to attain it.
People will respect our ministry and us if we care about the quality of it. It’s hard to get respect for something when we aren’t passionate about the quality. No one will give extra time or commitment for junk. Our passion turns into their effort. Set the bar high. Evaluate when and why we miss it and discuss this with the volunteers. They won’t run. They’ll actually stick more because they have something to work towards – and because it’s fun to serve with passionate leaders. It’s contagious!

Problem #3: People want real responsibility.
Our best and brightest volunteers will want real responsibility. Just like the best athletes want the ball in their hands when the game is on the line, our best volunteers want real responsibility when the mission is at hand. If we hold on to everything and require every decision come through us, we’ll lose them – plain and simple. Who can blame them?

Solution: Give them real responsibility.
If the best want the ball, give them the ball. Celebrate when they succeed and coach them when they slip up. Volunteers who don’t want to be coached probably don’t have the right heart in the first place. Identify those that do and give them responsibility. It’s the only way the ministry is going to grow. We can’t do it all ourselves – we have to utilize the best players. It’s why God gave them to us.

I would rather have a team of 20 fully committed, fully empowered volunteers than a team of 25 passive workers.

You’re the coach. It’s your job to take them there.