A little over a year ago, I was asked to speak at a church. I remember perusing the church bulletin and seeing this:
WANTED: VOLUNTEERS!
We DESPERATELY need volunteers to help with our children’s and youth ministries. No experience needed, just a willingness to sacrifice your time and money.
If interested, contact…
As I read that ad, I literally burst out laughing. My first thought was, Who in their right mind would respond to this?
So if this is not the proper manner, how should we go about recruiting volunteers? Let me offer some simple steps.
1. Pray. Far too often we skip this step, and yet it is the most important step we take. We need to seek God’s guidance before we start this task and allow him to guide us to the right people.
2. Know your needs. What exactly do you need the volunteers to do? Create a list of the roles and responsibilities you need for all areas of the youth ministry. Regularly refer to this list to make sure all your needs are covered.
3. Create and keep a list of potential volunteers. When you’re facing a crisis, that usually isn’t the best time to start thinking about volunteers. Create a list ahead of time of potential staff you are looking at to fill future needs. Use the church staff, current volunteers, and even your students to suggest names for this list.
4. Try to recruit a diverse team. The makeup of the volunteers should, in some way, be reflective of the makeup of the church. Look at issues such as race, age, sex, personal interests, etc. Too often we recruit only young adults, believing they will best be able to relate to adolescents. However, my experience has shown that having a mixture of young adults, middle adults, and even senior adults is desirable because each brings wisdom and life experience to the task.
5. Keep the congregation abreast of youth ministries. I operated on a simple principle: a bulletin or newsletter never left the church office without some mention of the youth ministry in it. I regularly asked the pastor for time in the service to recognize a teen or volunteer or to share with the congregation something positive that was occurring in our youth ministry. Then, when I had to go to them with a need, the response was always much more immediate because they were attuned to the good things the youth ministry was doing.
6. Get to know them and observe their character. This is more than just a job interview; you’re asking people to work with teenagers’ souls. Therefore, we need to make sure we are recruiting people who sincerely love God and are willing to follow your local church and/or denomination’s ethos for behavior.
7. Meet with the potential volunteers and share the vision for the youth ministry. Spend some time interviewing them and allow them to ask lots of questions. You want to make sure that they have as many of their questions as possible answered before they are working with the ministry so you don’t end up with a mess later. You also need to ask lots of questions in order to make sure this person is the one you want. Provide an information packet that details the overall vision and plan for the youth ministry and how the job you are recruiting them for fits into that vision.
8. Ask them to fill out an application to volunteer and agree to a criminal background check. This is becoming an ever more important issue as churches routinely face lawsuits from families whose children were abused in some way by volunteers who hadn’t been properly vetted by the local church. Make sure you are following the policy for your local church or denomination on this because each state has different requirements.
9. Provide a job description. Nothing frustrates volunteers more than not knowing what they are supposed to be doing. Make it explicit, and give them a time frame. You can always “re-up” them at the end of that time period, but they need to know that they aren’t committing to this for the rest of their lives!
10. Invite new volunteers to fill short-term, helping roles. This helps them get to know the kids well and discover whether this ministry is for them. Consider it a trying-out process for both you and them.
11. Train them! Give them the tools necessary to help them succeed. Pair them with experienced volunteers. Hold regular training sessions for all your volunteers. Suggest (or even provide) reading material for them. Encourage, challenge, and support them.
This list is not new. Variations of it have been at the core of good volunteer recruiting and training for centuries. The key is actually thinking far enough ahead to know what needs you have, the type of people required to meet the need, and the best way to recruit them to the mission. Using this list can be a major step forward in that process.
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Bribe them!
Just kidding. Free stuff never hurts, but there’s a lot more to recruiting volunteers than giving away t-shirts at your latest ministry fair. Recruiting volunteer leaders is hard work. Volunteers are our most underrated asset—they lift the burden, they share our ministries, they listen to students—yet I often fail to give the ministry of recruitment the time and attention it deserves.
It’s one thing to recruit a bunch of people to attend a meeting; however, building relationships with people who have the potential to become great leaders within your ministry is a more intentional effort.
Recruiting volunteers requires intentionality and an honest desire to love, train, and nurture the people you bring onto your team.
An effective approach (at least in my ministry context) begins with changing the language. I like referring to the people we train in youth ministry as leaders rather than volunteers. Leadership says to our workers, “You’re in a position of influence” and, “We trust you.”
There are some general ideas that help us as we gather a team:
Be prepared. Planning a yearly ministry calendar with the leadership needs listed at the beginning of each year has helped us recruit early. Do a church-wide emphasis for youth volunteer leaders and fill in the positions. Doing this helps us see where the holes are and pay specific attention to those areas further out. Sometimes all we need is a few extra days to recruit, pray, train, and lead!
Carving out specific times in our week to pay attention to volunteer leaders is a priority. This time is used to make phone calls, ask questions, pray, do background checks, schedule training, and plan team-building opportunities. Making time for leaders is huge.
We spend time focusing on the great leaders we’ve got. It’s good to show them that we are worthy of their time investment by giving them clear instructions, setting goals for them, training and equipping them well, showing our continual appreciation, and clearly communicating the mission and vision of our ministry. They will bloom and be fulfilled in their rolls. Eventually, their growth in ministry will be visible to others, attracting them to our tribe.
Then we’ve got to dial in on finding new recruits.
We begin by looking for parents who will partner with us in ministry. Many parents want to be a part of their children’s spiritual development, but most don’t know how to do that. Encourage their involvement in the experiential sides of ministry (trips, serving others, worship) and give them specific assignments. This helps relieve them of defaulting to “helicopter parenting” during the ministry and frees them to serve in important roles.
Next, we look to the great volunteer leaders in the church body. Most likely, each of them will have their own network of adults. Like tends to attract like, and we may be able to connect with some great leaders this way. We also don’t want to make the mistake of overlooking the young adults and senior adults in our church. Some of the most wise and patient leaders come from these two populations in our church. We like to attend our senior adult ministry events to build relationships with those who still have so much to share with our students.
And we can never forget to look to God. I started praying for workers for my ministry about three years ago. Praying about something on a continual basis keeps us mindful of the need. When I’m mindful that we have a great need for a leader in a certain area, I’m constantly looking for that person. Conversations tend to bring solutions or connections to people who have them. Don’t underestimate God’s ability to bring in a harvest of workers.
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I started my ministry while I was in college as the volunteer leader of a Campus Life outreach ministry at the nearby high school. It has probably never been easier to recruit others to join me than when my life was most like theirs.
Friends who travel in similar circles as you are the best prospects for your volunteer team. They know who you are, see what the ministry feels like through their relationship with you, and are often wired to care about the same kind of things you do. The recruitment conversation can be pretty short: “Wanna join me?” Spell out the expectations of the mission you’ll be bonded to so that there’s no confusion that what it takes to do ministry side by side is considerably different from simply hanging out together.
As you lock in with some stellar volunteers, you might also ask them who would fit your team and could help you invest in kids. The sharpest adult leaders know what it takes to deliver excellent ministry and are often as devoted as you are to having the right team in place. Their referrals are gold.
I’m convinced that there’s nothing quite so attractive as a band of brothers and sisters who are committed to each other and compelled by the same cause. Enthusiasm is high, and relational heroism is common. Looking for ways to be together publicly so that others can observe your chemistry is a fabulous recruitment billboard. After you’ve been doing ministry for a while, the people most likely to be drawn to join your elite (not exclusive) cadre will be those students who have seen the team laugh, cry, pray, and serve together. Ministry alums simply need to be coached about the work that’s needed to accomplish the cool outcomes they experienced when they were younger. They are already familiar with the vision, which is a huge benefit.
I’ve recruited from Christian colleges, secular universities, and large churches to meet my need for good volunteers. In those settings, more than what I’ve previously described, recruitment tools that help you communicate your ministry vision clearly are critical assets. Remember that your values are reflected in such tools, so make sure that they describe your ministry as you want to be represented.
You might also find success at drawing in some interested folks by using giveaways or free food. But when you use such tactics to get someone’s attention, you need to be extra diligent in your screening—people who come in the front door because of goodies can be party-hoppers and need to be checked out to see if their motivation will sustain them through the challenging demands of youth ministry.
A page out of Jesus’ playbook seems worth reflecting on. He tossed out wide invitations to follow him and got the chance to sort out those who had what it took for ministry as he watched them over time. Layering our recruitment with similar windows for observation has always made a lot of sense to me.
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