3 Ways to Help Volunteers Serve in Their Purpose
My last post was 6 places you’re losing your volunteers. That’s a lot of places, but there is one key thing you can do to hold onto your volunteers no matter how long they’ve been serving with you. And that is to provide a place for them to live out their purpose.
Ephesians 2:10 says,
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Our job as leaders and ministers is to facilitate them discovering and living out the work that God has prepared for them. It’s us living out the mandate in Ephesians 4:11-12
“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up…” (emphasis mine)
But how do we do that exactly? After leading volunteers for years, I’ve learned there are 3 things to keep in mind to provide this environment.
1. Discover their gifts and passions
I’m not going to quote the verses, but Paul clearly laid out in Ephesians 4, Romans 12, and 1 Corinthians 12 that we all have spiritual gifts to accomplish God’s purpose. There are a lot of ways to discover their spiritual gifts, but my personal favorite is to use Church of the Highlands’ spiritual gift assessment from their Growth Track. It has 72 questions and helps identify 25 different spiritual gifts a person may have.
No tool is perfect, but over the years it has helped me identify strengths and weaknesses in potential volunteers. It also gets them plugged into ministry positions where they can serve in their purpose. I even used it for one of my annual volunteer training meetings.
But gifts are just one thing. You also need to identify their passion. One of my spiritual gifts is teaching. And as much as I love to teach, I don’t like to teach everyone or to every age group. For years, my passion lay in teaching kids about Jesus. I still get excited about that, but over the years, my passion changed to teaching adults as a lead pastor. And that’s ok.
My point is two people can have the same gift but different passions and live out their purpose in a completely different place. So, after you help them discover their gifts, ask your volunteers about what gets them excited. If they could do anything, what is one job they’d love to do? Some volunteers will know exactly what that is, others will waffle. For the ones that are uncertain, plug them in somewhere but then check back. Which leads me to the next point.
2. Check-in REgularly
Just because a volunteer started serving in the nursery with 2-year-olds doesn’t mean they want to do that for the rest of their lives. Their passions can change. Their interests can change. Their life circumstances may change. As I talk about in this post, there are some volunteers who will be with you forever, and others just for a season.
The key is to regularly connect with your volunteers to see how they’re doing. It can be as simple as asking them how their Sunday went. But if you have the time, sitting down over a cup of coffee with each one will let you dive deeper. You can ask about how the serving is going. If they have everything they need. If there is somewhere else that interests them. If they’re still passionate about where they’re serving.
At one church my team was pretty large, and I was a one-man show. So, while I still tried to connect with my team, I asked every volunteer to recommit every 6 months. It was scary at first because I thought everyone was going to quit. And I did have a few move on. But during the recommitment time, my team actually grew! Because prospective volunteers knew they weren’t making a permanent commitment they were much more likely to say yes to serving in kidmin. In addition, the volunteers who stayed were more committed than ever because they knew they had an out if they needed one in just a few months.
Bottom line, check in with your volunteers regularly and hold them with an open hand. If they want to move to a different job or even a different ministry, let them. You are just a steward of what God gave you. They were never going to be your volunteer forever. Checking in with them will help that transition go much more smoothly.
3. Be flexible
Earlier I said you need to hold your volunteers with an open hand. But that’s hard for me because I love for things to fit into nice neat little boxes. You should see how I schedule my volunteers. But over time, I learned that people don’t fit in boxes. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some will serve every week. Some will serve once in a blue moon. Some will do just one job, and others will take your place when you leave. Some will do the jobs you’ve listed out in your org chart, but sometimes they don’t fit there. They can be overqualified, underqualified, or just passionate about something you didn’t know you needed.
I’ve written before about how much I hate crafts. As a kids pastor it’s shocking, I know. I blame my kindergarten teacher and those rusty left-handed scissors she gave me when I had to cut along the dotted line. I couldn’t do it well into adulthood until I found these beauties.
But in kidmin you need to do crafts. Moms want them for Mother’s Day. And then there’s Father’s Day, Easter, Christmas, Arbor Day, National Donut Day… the list goes on and on. And if you wanted you could do a craft every week.
So, one Sunday I had one of my Small Group Leaders ask what craft we were doing for an upcoming holiday. I hadn’t even considered it. She already had 5 ideas. Before long she was my craft coordinator and serving on my lead team. But before she asked, there was no “Craft Coordinator” on my org chart. I had to make one.
Sometimes you’ll need to make positions to help your volunteers live out their purpose. I always tell my people if you’re passionate about something and it fits within our vision, then I’ll do everything I can to resource you so you can be successful. That flexibility allows my volunteers to really find their passion and serve within it. So, if a volunteer asks to help you with something, let them. You may find the greatest volunteer you've ever had.
Providing a place for your volunteers to serve in their purpose is essential to a vital volunteer culture. It’s more than just getting warm bodies in a room so you can meet a room ratio. It’s helping the people placed under your care to live out their God-given purpose. And let me tell you there’s little better than when you see someone blossom in their gifts and passions. It’s one of my favorite parts of leadership and ministry.
My last post was 6 places you’re losing your volunteers. That’s a lot of places, but there is one key thing you can do to hold onto your volunteers no matter how long they’ve been serving with you. And that is to provide a place for them to live out their purpose.