4 Tips for Leaders Needing Volunteers

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If you’re anything like me, sitting in an office alone isn’t always part of what you thought you were going to be doing in ministry. So, you spend a good amount of time sitting in your favorite coffee shop. I’m an extrovert so eventually I get to know the regulars and the baristas who make the nourishing blend of bean water that provides the so often needed liquid focus.

I love coffee shops. Especially the ones where the employees take ownership in what they’re doing and where the business is going. Love them or hate them, that’s one thing that Starbucks did really well. They don’t call their employees “employees.” They’re “partners.” It evokes a different sense of business structure and community.

An employee says, “I work for you.”

A partner says, “We work together.”

It’s not a new concept. Paul wrote about it in Romans 12.

Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. (3-8, NLT)

I know I’m not the first person to use this passage in the context of volunteering. That’s because there’s good stuff here.

So, a few things about better volunteers:

#1. Everyone has a “best fit” role.

In 2007, I helped plant a church in the north suburbs of Indianapolis called Crosspoint. We were a huge coffee culture church. So, it wasn’t surprising then that we took the Schultz-ian (of then CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz) approach of taking on partners instead of volunteers. We did everything we could to help volunteers connect with teams on which they would thrive when they served. Rarely was it an “all call” like, “Hey, we need help in the nursery next week.” Instead, we did surveys and met with people to help them get connected where they had interest and skills. Sure, we sought people out, but we also tried to be inviting instead of begging. But we knew that everyone has a “best fit” role for volunteering. I would not be good working in an elementary class (and let’s not talk about that time I tried working in youth ministry), but I can play guitar and make art. So, those are a much better fit than leading a small group of fifth grade boys for me. I once heard someone say, “Your gift works everywhere, but works best somewhere.”

There’s big insight there. I can play guitar anywhere, but I have discovered that I’m best in the context of worship leading because that’s the call that God has put in my life.

Finding the right place for someone to serve is key. But, I want to go one step further here… I think we as leaders tend to think of this passage as a “that’s about them” passage and we put ourselves in the wrong context. Particularly, because of part of verse 8 that says, “If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously.” I think in our humanness, we tend to take that part of the passage, as leaders, and put ourselves above volunteers… and negate verse 3 entirely.

2. Serve your team.

I think leaders too easily make the jump to saying “I’m the head of this ministry” and that volunteers are “here to get things done.” I would propose that we need to think of ourselves just as much the hands and feet of the body as we do our volunteers. We can lead while we serve. And we should serve while we lead. Maybe that means getting our hands dirty digging trenches with volunteers. Maybe that means taking extra time to provide comfort or be a listening ear to someone on your team. Serving our teams is way more than providing instructions on how to best accomplish a goal. And, it will likely look different for every leader, every team and every volunteer.

I get pretty passionate about volunteers because I’ve seen the cycle of burnout happen far too often. I’ve caused it even. And that’s hard to come to grips with. Volunteers give a gift of time and service to accomplish something every time they show up. They’re choosing to serve. That’s partnership. And, it should be humbling to us that they’re showing up to work with us (keyword “with”). So, if we start to think that we’re above doing the tasks, we’re not going to be able to lead well.

We’ve all heard it before: “You can’t lead where you’re not willing to go.” If you’re leading a service project that rallies tons of volunteers and they see you sit back and drink lemonade while they’re sweating their rears off, you can bet that they won’t show up next time. We have to build into our teams. Serving them like Jesus served his disciples.

3. Value your volunteers.

I am not a gift giver. My love language is not giving gifts. But it is my wife’s. Grabbing her favorite candy bar from the grocery speaks volumes to her that words don’t always communicate. It says, “I was thinking about you in the boring, mundane task of doing the grocery shopping and I wasn’t even complaining because I love you more than life itself.” All from a 99 cent candy bar! Seriously though, you better believe that I try to find ways to speak that to her. Because I value her.

Volunteers aren’t that different. We need to find ways to value our volunteers. Not just in the passing, “hey, thanks” type of way. Find ways to encourage and thank them for specific ways they serve. Take them to lunch just to say thanks. Throw a party. Give awards. Do something. Anything. It tells them you notice.

BTW - Gifts don’t hurt either. A specialized coffee mug for a team, a batch of gift cards… that kind of stuff can also speak volumes. But, so does serving your team like I mentioned before… Because it all comes down to relationships.

4. Build relationships.

I love baseball. For lots of reasons. When you spend 162 regular season games in the dugout together, you get to know your team. When you watch any group of people you can tell if they like being together. It’s in their body language. Teams that like to be together accomplish more. Do your teams enjoy being together? If they do, you’re doing something right. If there’s tension, it’s harder to connect on a real level. Teams help each other achieve more and unless you know your teammates, you can’t help them build.

If you’re hitting 300 in baseball, that means you’re a GREAT hitter. But you’re also failing 70% of the time and your team helps make up that difference. It’s not possible for anyone to be Bugs Bunny playing all the positions at once and hitting home runs every time we’re at the plate. So, we have others coming up behind us and filling out the rest of the field… in their “best fit” role.

And since we’re talking about baseball, watch the reactions in the dugout. If there’s a bad call, the whole team gets upset. If someone makes a clutch play, everyone goes nuts! And when a fight breaks out, you better believe that everyone is off the bench to stand up for their guy. It’s how good teams work. They’re connected. They’re invested. It becomes more about the team than about winning. The best teams in business, sports, music, churches, whatever… they like being together. Because relationships matter.

4 Questions to wrap up:

Are you helping your volunteers find best fit roles?
How can you serve your volunteers individually?
When was the last time you showed your volunteers that you valued them?
Would you come off the bench for someone on your team?

If you only take away one thing from this post, let it be this:

Building real relationships is key for volunteer engagement…

because people won’t follow you if they don’t trust you…

and they won’t trust you if you’re only trying to get something out of them.

So, my challenge, for each of us is that we get alongside our volunteers in real partnership for the glory of the kingdom. Because “In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.”

If we start to see volunteers on that kind of level, I think our teams win.

And, the kingdom wins.

PJ Towle

PJ Towle felt called to ministry in the middle of a concert at the age of 16, graduated from Anderson University in 2004 with a major in Vocational Christian Ministries and was ordained in 2009. He has spent most of his ministry on staff in worship departments at churches in Indianapolis. Currently PJ runs a creative design and consulting business called forty:three creative helping resource churches to better visually and creatively tell their stories. He leads worship as part of a band or worship leaders called All The Astronauts promoting exploration of faith in honest ways that honor the past and look toward the future together in the Kingdom of God. He’s a husband, adoptive father of 2 and survives on coffee, gets lost in baseball and loves tacos.

June 11, 2018 | View: 1447 | Categories: Church