The red leather Bible on my bookshelf evokes twinges of regret. It belongs to Steve, a seminary student who volunteered on our youth ministry team nearly 15 years ago.
As a full-time intern, I was responsible for growing a ministry to a large suburban high school. I had recruited Steve and I admired his heart for God. Together, we decided he would focus on building relationships with the senior boys. Steve was older than most of our volunteers and loved basketball, so we thought he would have natural credibility.
Steve gave it his best shot. He showed up for athletic events, attended our programs, and joined in training sessions. By the middle of the year, however, I could tell his enthusiasm was waning. He showed that hangdog look of someone who feels defeated. He made less time for students. He skipped our end-of-year picnic.
Just before that, Steve had left his Bible in my car by mistake. Long after the picnic was over, I realized that I still hadn’t connected with Steve to return his Bible and to thank him for his service. By that time, summer vacations were underway, Steve had finished seminary, and I had no way to find him. His Bible still sits on my bookshelf.
While he probably shared some responsibility, I have come to believe that I bear ownership for Steve’s decline in morale. I simply didn’t understand volunteers.
Today I still wrestle with the question of keeping volunteers happy and productive, even though I’m now a volunteer. I have the privilege of leading a ministry in our church that is almost entirely led, funded, trained, and staffed by volunteers. I have a deep appreciation for the unpaid workers in the Kingdom. I want to keep them motivated and connected. I am on a personal quest to discover what volunteers really want.
Make it mean something
Most churches can’t afford to add all the staff they need, and many of the skills for “doing church” today are not taught in our seminaries. These forces will continue to drive churches to hunt for willing, able volunteers.
The demographics hold good news. As Baby Boomers reach retirement age, they have more discretionary time. And Gen X-ers display a natural inclination toward activism. This creates a deep talent pool, if you know how to maximize it.
As I reflect on my own experience, one insight consistently surfaces. I serve for many reasons, but the greatest is meaning.
Like many volunteers, I spend most of my week in the marketplace, pleasing several masters: bosses, customers, employees. Those stakeholders have values different from mine. If my workday thoughts appeared in over my head in a cartoon bubble, you would read, “I can’t wait to do something that really matters with people I love and with whom I share a common cause.”
If you are looking for volunteers, you should be salivating as you read those thoughts. People with those thoughts are ripe for volunteer work, on a few conditions.
* Give me a clear, compelling purpose. Happy volunteers are crystal clear on their ministry’s purpose. They can tell you not only why their group exists, but also why that cause is important. For an important cause, they will give selflessly, and thank you for it.
As Andy Stanley said recently in a talk on vision, volunteers want answers to three big questions:
- What is the problem?
- What is the solution?
- Why are we the ones to solve it now?
Answer those questions clearly, and people will volunteer for all manner of tasks.
I applied those questions to our newly married couples’ ministry. The responses were motivating.
The problem? Newly married couples in our society are at serious risk.
The solution? A strategy of connecting newly married couples to God, to their spouse, and to their life purpose.
Why are we the ones to solve it now? My wife and I are passionate about mission-oriented marriages. She is a practicing marriage therapist, and as a couple born between the Boomers and Gen X-ers, we have an ability to build bridges between potential mentors and young couples.
The answers to the vision questions provided our entire leadership team with a guiding light.
Involve me as much as possible. This principle is counter-intuitive, but miss it and you’ll drive volunteers nuts. On one hand, volunteers are busy and juggling multiple priorities. On the other hand, we desperately want to have input into the direction and execution of the ministry. Simply donating funds or executing staff-made plans fail to excite long-term motivation.
A large parachurch ministry recently asked me to provide training for their staff fundraisers. I have supported the organization financially, but after interacting with these committed servants, I was ready to give more, serve more, and tell more friends about it.
By allowing me to use my talents, they had converted me from ordinary donor to impassioned supporter. They can now unapologetically ask for the best of my time and talents to strengthen the ministry.
Celebrate moments by creating traditions. A couple of years ago, we got to the end of our ministry season and I wanted to hold our monthly volunteer meeting near a lake. I decided to do a take-off on the foot-washing story; we gave each leader a servant’s towel and, as a group, affirmed some way that they had imitated Jesus’ service. Dry eyes were at a premium as we soaked in the affirmation of God and our peers.
The next year, with the same result, we decided to make the towel-affirmation a tradition. It allows us to underline core values and say the positive words that often go unspoken. And it speaks to the desire of volunteers—consistent relational investment punctuated by meaningful moments.
Make it positive
As important as it is to maximize meaning, I have found it equally important to neutralize negatives. And believe me, I am embarrassed at the number of negatives I have allowed into the lives of my volunteers. Here are only three.
Don’t waste my time. Remember, our volunteers want to contribute. They see their unpaid work as a wonderful way to build meaning and purpose into life. And they evaluate every meeting, e-mail, and phone call to see if it adds meaning. If not, they will withdraw and allocate their time elsewhere.
My wife recalls a short-term mission trip that failed this test. Her team showed up at their destination only to find that their roles were unclear and their supplies inadequate. For half the day they sat idly playing cards, waiting for instruction. Needless to say, they felt frustrated by being available to serve, only to be stymied by a lack of direction.
Don’t waste my time, Part 2. Our volunteers develop a sensitive nose for the hopelessly under-resourced project. Nothing leads to the starving of projects more predictably than a failure to regularly prune the ministry project list.
At one church meeting I attended, this dynamic was on parade. One after another, volunteer teams made impassioned appeals for volunteers and resources. It was obvious that the church simply had too many sub-ministries going. Its leaders had not engaged in proper church hygiene, regularly examining all projects to decide which could be resourced fully and which should be curtailed or discontinued.
Nearly all of the sub-ministries ran dangerously close to the bone, and volunteers became less motivated.
As a leader, I find that I need a “stop doing” list at least as much as a “to do” list. Otherwise, I simply confuse and frustrate my volunteers.
Stop the ball-hogging. Any ball player knows how little fun it is to play with a ball hog. What that player is silently communicating is that he doesn’t trust you to do something good with the ball. And eventually, you just want to sit down.
How often do we really entrust our volunteers with doing the most important part of ministry?
I remember a pivotal meeting we had when I was on church staff. We had always made a big deal of small groups in our discussions of life-change strategy. But as we sat in a conference room, we realized we had been kidding ourselves.
We had two large programs a week on everyone’s schedule, complete with music, drama, and creative messages. But small groups had to find a way to fit into everyone’s schedules in the corners and cracks.
It struck me then that we didn’t believe in small groups; we believed in big programs. We started a lively debate that day. In the end, we decided to give our small group leaders, almost entirely volunteers, the ball. It was far from easy, but it was an important statement.
Ted Harro Willow Creek Community Church South Barrington, Illinois
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