Through a long, storied journey into ministry, I have been a little judgmental in my strategies. Meaning: if you don’t do it the way I do it, you are doing it wrong.
I now think, though still a little judgmental: if you don’t do it the way I do it, you MIGHT be doing it wrong. I do realize that strategies are not universal and context is a key, nay, vital component to what we do, but it bears repeating: we should always be on the lookout for ways to better our leadership and our ministry.
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With that confidence and disclaimer out of the way, I am going to share something that I believe every pastor/ministry leader that leads out any volunteer team should be doing more or better: volunteer care.
The three limited quantities we have in our life that we can spend on ourselves and others are simple: time, treasures, or talents.
If we are to grow our ministry qualitatively, the best thing we can do is spend time with them. Pure and simple. I’m a firm believer that the more time we invest in our volunteers, the better our ministry will be. Now, at first you may think that serving together during the weekly/monthly battle is “good enough”. It’s not. If the only overlap of time you have with a volunteer is when you’re serving together, you are doing ministry wrong. In church world, the moments between Sundays are arguably more impactful than the weekend itself.
I once had a leader who led out a ministry in photography and I asked her how she would describe her role in ministry. Her response was something like, “To capture moments that illustrate God’s movement in our community.” Not too shabby. But still wrong. My response to her was, “Your role is to lead out and love on those who… capture moments that illustrate God’s movement in our community.”
They sure do seem similar, especially to the outside observer on a Sunday morning at a church, but they are not the same thing. To have a pulse on our people and to love on those who serve on our teams is paramount to the ministries we lead.
We need to care more about who our volunteers are than what they do for our teams.
Can we function without volunteers pressing the buttons or them filling roles? Yes, actually. Maybe it’s not a long-term desire/solution, but our role in ministry enables and requires us to care more about the person as a whole than EVERYTHING they do to propel our ministry. The way they are talked to, the questions they are asked, and again – the time we spend with them in-between our shared moments in their volunteering is so key.
I reached out to several people I know whose churches have volunteer-based ministries and cornered them with this question:
“The question for your people who lead ministry (especially if they’re in a volunteer-driven ministry) – percentage-wise, how much time of a month is spent on volunteers and volunteer care (1:1’s, get-togethers, but NOT training)? If that percentage is too low or too high, what should it be?”
The answers I received were all over the place:
– 0% out of 0%, because people are so busy, but they are willing to meet if there are moral/discipline issues.
– 0% out of 25%, but they don’t have time to meet because their paid position is too important to fail.
– 10% out of 10%, but they don’t want to spend too much time with people if it hurts performance
– 20% out of 33%, because they just don’t prioritize it.
– 50% out of 50%, because it’s an organization-level mandatory expectation to love on their people.
Some of these numbers broke my heart, some were inspiring to me.
Now I will admit, going back to my original disclaimer, that there will not be a perfect percentage to aim for, but I can promise you it should never be 0% as a goal; as a matter of fact, I might go so far as to say 25% of your week should be the bare minimum of time spent on onboarding/caring for/texting/having lunch or coffee with/investing in volunteers’/teams/staff’s betterment.
So if we are to increase our time with volunteers, I am convinced that an in-person 1-on-1 is the BEST way to do it, especially if it’s over lunch or coffee.
A gallup poll states that the more people have good rhythms of communication, the better they feel and the closer they are.
A cautionary note: as leaders, we are not therapists, and so any advice that we want to give should be carefully considered/restrained. I do, however, love the idea of asking REPS questions (Relational Health, Emotional Health, Physical Health, Spiritual Health) to have a good pulse on my volunteers and leaders. I have a carefully constructed template that I use as a starting point for all follow-up 1:1’s, but I treat initial 1:1’s as a get-to-know-you session with simple questions like:
– Who are you?
– How did you get here?
– Tell me about how you met God.
– Tell me about how you met your spouse.
– How can I pray for you?
So what do we do with this?
Pull out your phone and setup your next 1-on-1 – they will be thrilled.
Questions to consider:
1. Does your team prioritize the job over people or people over the job?
2. Do you have a good pulse on everyone on your team, staff or volunteer?
3. If you have regular rhythms of 1-on-1’s, could you do it more or better?
4. How would your team describe your care for them if you weren’t in the room?
5. What barriers (real or perceived) keep you from spending more time with people?
6. When (and if) your volunteers step away, do they leave better than when they started?