A church volunteer leader wearing a blue shirt with the word "Volunteer" on the back, standing in front of children. The image reflects the post's focus on ministry recruitment.

One of the problems any ministry faces, especially kidmin, is recruiting. There always seems to be a lack of volunteers. What’s worse, if you don’t actively recruit regularly, you’ll find yourself doing ministry all alone.

Jim Wideman once told me that every week you don’t recruit is another week you’re falling behind. Since he’s the guru for volunteer recruitment, I tend to think he’s right.

So how do you recruit? How do you get people to join your team regularly? How do you find these people?

Before I dive into three steps to get you there, let’s talk about mindset. I find so many leaders complaining that there’s no one out there. No one wants to serve. They feel like they’re all alone. Sometimes they’ll go so far as to compete with other ministries in the church. They get angry because a volunteer moves teams.

This is a scarcity mindset. Yes, there are a finite number of people at your church, but that number is always changing. It’s going up and down. A scarcity mindset says you’re losing people regularly, so you have to focus on keeping your own as long as possible.

The key to fight against this mindset is to focus on what you can do. You pray for workers. You pray that God will send you the people you need. And then you get to work.

This is a growth mindset. A person with this mindset cares for the people they have but also goes out to bring more. They hold the people they have with an open hand and trust that God will provide.

Put simply, a scarcity mindset looks inward at all the problems with no solutions. A growth mindset looks outward to all the people who can help them solve their problems.

If you want to build a great team, a great ministry, and reach more people for Jesus, you need a growth mindset.

With this mindset, let’s look at 4 steps to recruit your volunteers for success.

1. Set your structure

One of the first questions a prospective volunteer will ask you is “What do you want me to do?” You need to have a clear answer for that. And no, serving with 3-year-olds is not good enough.

I wrote extensively about your volunteer structure in this post. But here is a summary. You need to sit down and imagine your ministry at twice the size it currently is. Twice the kids, twice the rooms, twice the volunteers.

Don’t panic. That anxiety you’re feeling is based on what you don’t know. So, figure it out.

What you need to do is make a flowchart. List out all the volunteer positions you need for your ministry. Envision what you would need if you added another service.

What would you need if double the kids showed up and never left.

What would you need if your church decided to go multi-site and you’re leading in both places.

Just pick one of those that fits your context.

After laying out all the positions start filling in names. For every position that doesn’t have a name, put yours or leave it blank.

This is now your recruitment strategy. You know where you need to look for people and you’re starting to answer the question, “What do you want me to do?”

2. Define the jobs

Now that you know where people are going, you need to define what the job is. That’s why I’m a big advocate of volunteer job descriptions. I write about how to create your own here.

The job description tells the volunteer what’s expected of them, where to show up and when, and how to know if they’re successful.

Whenever I’m recruiting a new volunteer, I always have the description ready. I can give them the cliff notes version in-person. But I like to give them a sheet of paper that has all the expectations outlined. This way the volunteer can look over it in their own time and make an informed decision.

If you need help creating your own job descriptions, read this post.

3. Look for the volunteers

Part of the problem with recruiting, especially if you’re in kidmin is it’s hard to find the people. It can seem that everyone is busy or non-committal.

Let me give you a piece of advice that will free you. Don’t say no for other people.

It’s so easy to come up with all the reasons why a potential volunteer can’t serve. And some of those reasons may be valid. However, most of the time they’re not. You’re just trying to protect yourself from rejection.

Remind yourself that this isn’t life or death. The worst they can say is no. Take that and ask with courage.

But where do you find these people? In this post, I talk about 4 pools to look for volunteers. I won’t go back over that post here. But the best place to look are the people who are right in front of you.

If you’re in kidmin, that’s your parents. They drop off their kids every week. You can invite them to serve with you in one of the many positions you outlined in step 1.

I used to get in trouble for saying this, but I still think it’s true. You don’t have to like kids to serve in kidmin. They can serve in check-in, tech, or admin. They don’t have to work with kids to serve the mission.

Which brings me to my last point.

4. Cast vision

One of the biggest problems we have with recruiting is what we say when we recruit. We stand on the main stage and say we’re going to shut down the nursery if people don’t step up.

That message reeks of desperation.

The problem is desperation works. For a time. You’ll get a few people to serve out of obligation, but they won’t stick. Guilt is a horrible long-term motivator.

Rather, you should talk about the ways they can make an impact.

Take nursery for instance. Instead of talking about how you need two for each room, and if they don’t sign up, you’ll have to combine or deny kids, try this:

“You have an incredible opportunity to share the love of Jesus with our youngest people. You can be their very first interaction with the Gospel. And the great part is they will love you for it. All we need you to do is serve every other week with our toddlers, and you can make an impact that will last a lifetime.”

Which would you rather say yes to?

So, whenever you’re recruiting, start with vision and how they play a role in making it happen. You’ll get far more yeses and even more will stick with you for years to come.

No matter how big your church is, you will always need to recruit. As the leader, you are the chief recruiter. So, plan out your structure, decide what you need, look for the people and cast vision. Do this regularly, and you’ll find your structure filling up fast and your lack of volunteer problem disappear.