Does Your Church Need More Volunteers?

Tag Archive - volunteer

Does Your Church Need More Volunteers?

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

The best churches don’t hire ministers to DO all of the ministry; they equip and inspire volunteers and leaders to get ministry done. Check out this quote from Wayne Corderio.

“I’m convinced that the influence of a church has on its community will be determined in large part not by the personality of the pastor, the size of its building or how long the ministry has worked in the community. It will be determined instead by the percentage of involvement in the ministry of each member. This marks the transition from attendance to ownership, from being consumers to contributors.”

You may be a gifted speaker. Your church may have a beautiful building. Your team may lead large ministries. But without healthy volunteers, your church will struggle and you will be stressed. You’ve got to decide…will your church be led by a small band of superheroes or a large army of servants? The best churches don’t hire ministers to do all of the work. They mobilize volunteers and leaders to make ministry happen.

This is why I want to introduce you to Get More Volunteers

Whether you’re a seasoned pastor or brand new to the ministry, you can learn what’s working to attract new volunteers to your church and lay the foundation for a healthy volunteer ministry. This online event is designed to help you attract new volunteers to existing positions, mobilize more people for ministry, and sign up people quick.

My friend Tony Morgan and the team at The Rocket Company interviewed five leading pastors and will give you the latest ideas and the best strategies for bringing new volunteers into ministry roles in your church.

Here are 5 compelling reasons you should sign up to watch Get More Volunteers 2013.

#1: It’s Fully Online

No travel required! I know you’re busy and your time is valuable. Gather your team around a computer or watch from your office.

#2: It’s Free

Not only are there no travel costs, the event itself is totally free. You’ll have access to all of this great content without having to spend a penny. Finance Teams rejoice!

#3: Fresh Ideas

You’ll hear from leading pastors and learn what they do in their churches to mobilize volunteers. This isn’t inspiration….it is practical help and new ideas to help your church.

#4: Respected Pastors and Speakers

My friend Tony Morgan is hosting the event, and along the way you’ll hear from Perry Noble, Chris Hodges, Wayne Corderio, Reggie Joiner and Derwin Gray. Each of these leaders knows how to lead volunteers.

#5: Rave Reviews

Thousands of church leaders around the world have completed free training events with the Rocket Company. They have trended on Twitter and been turned into eBooks.

Follow this link to register you and your team today!

Posted in Volunteers

5 Articles to Help You Make Vision Real

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Craziest thing just happened. You helped make the month of August the highest trafficked month on Helping Churches Make Vision Real! If I haven’t said it lately, thank you! It’s fun to see the comments and interaction through social media each month about the content and articles that are posted here! It’s always good to hear that the content is helpful! So thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top 5 Posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

1. What the Church can Learn from Southwest Airlines about Volunteers

I was recently on a Southwest Airlines flight and witnessed one of the most amazing volunteer moments I’ve ever seen. When it came time for the midflight snack of pretzels and peanuts a woman on the flight stepped up and volunteered to pass out the snack. And here’s the amazing thing…they let her! No application, no waiver, and no complex training classes. They simply handed over the basket of snacks and said go for it! Watching this whole thing go down I couldn’t help but think about how difficult we make it for people in the church to volunteer. Here are a couple of observations from that moment that I think are worth the church considering.

2. A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Looking for a Campus Pastor

I’m pleased to announce a new Staff Search. Sun Valley Community Church, is beginning a search for a Campus Pastor to serve on our Tempe Campus. Sun Valley began as a church plant in 1990 in Chandler, Arizona. Over the years Sun Valley has grown into a large mult-site church in the Phoenix metro area. Currently there are three campuses located in Gilbert, Tempe and Casa Grande with a total weekend attendance of over 5,500 people. Sun Valley was recently named by Outreach Magazine as one of the top 10 fastest growing churches in America. The Tempe Campus is the result of a merger in October of 2011 with Bethany Community Church. In the merger Sun Valley acquired a 16-acre, 8 building campus with over 100,000 sq. ft. under roof. Since the merger the campus has doubled in attendance and at present attendance is over 1,000. When fully utilized the campus capacity will accommodate 7,000 people. Sun Valley was recently featured in a new book by Leadership Network about church mergers: Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work. To learn more about that story click here Part-1 and Part-2.

3. A Leadership Conversation with Larry Osborne

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in a post entitled “Making Small Groups the Hub of Your Ministry” that I recently had the opportunity to spend some time at NorthCoast Church with Larry Osborne and his team to talk about Leadership and Small Groups. If you don’t know already, NorthCoast is an outlier when it comes to small groups and you need to get to know these guys. While the norm across the nation is hovering at about 50% of weekend worship attendance in groups, NorthCoast is shattering that norm and boasts just over 90% of their weekend worship attendance in groups. That was enough for us to get on a plane and spend some time learning from these guys. While that original post focused on Small Groups these are some of my take aways from the conversation that had broader implications for pastors and leaders.

4. Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit

If you missed the 2013 Global Leadership Summit, then you missed some great content, great speakers, and incredible ideas that have the potential to shift your thinking when it comes to leadership. This really was one of the best Leadership Summits I can remember. But no worries! Now you’ve got all the notes to every session right here at your fingertips for free! Hope you enjoy!

5. Leadership Lessons from a Family Vacation

Like many families this summer, we did a family vacation. Lisa and I had the opportunity to take the kids (all 4 of them now) for an incredible week in the mountains! Like any leader, it’s tough for me to just “turn it off.” So…upon reminiscing, here are five leadership lessons that parallel our time together we had as a family this summer.

Posted in Leadership

What the Church can Learn from Southwest Airlines about Volunteers

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

1. Create Entry Level Volunteer Opportunities

Handing out snacks isn’t the most complicated job on the planet. Just about anyone can do it, right? That’s kinda the point. Creating simple opportunities for people to jump in on allows them to safely test the waters and take another step at their own pace. Don’t worry; leaders will always rise to the top. And it’s important to keep in mind that volunteering is different than leading. Who knows, that woman may end up as the next great flight attendant at Southwest Airlines.

2. On the Job Training

It took very little to no training for this woman to perform the role of handing out snacks on that flight. Realistically she’s probably seen it done a hundred times before. Modeling and coaching in real time is a great way to train, and it doesn’t take hours of time out of the lives of your volunteers and take them away from their families.

3. Throw Away your Complex Volunteer Application

The flight crew didn’t make this woman fill out an application to work at Southwest prior to letting her hand out snacks. I know you think that having a multipage thorough application is responsible, places a high value on volunteering and is helpful. But it’s actually creating an obstacle to people volunteering in your church. While there may be a few volunteer roles that require a background check, for example working with minors. In actuality there’s only a very limited amount of information that you need from potential volunteers, which can be quickly collected in the on ramping process. Especially if you’re intentional about creating easy access entry level volunteer opportunities (like handing out snacks).

4. Make it Fun

Southwest is notorious for being a fun place to work. And when the Staff has fun the people on the flight will have fun too. And hint, hint…they’ll want to join in. If your Church isn’t a fun place to work and your Staff isn’t having fun, chances are you’re going to have a difficult time attracting volunteers.

Disclaimer:

Dear Southwest Airlines,

If you’re out there and reading this, and I just got the flight crew who allowed this woman the opportunity to volunteer in trouble by outing them, I apologize. Really I guess I should apologize to the flight crew. But I think what they did was stellar!

Posted in Volunteers

5 Reasons it’s Good When People Leave Your Church

Monday, May 27, 2013

Over the past 17 years of full time local church ministry I’ve seen people come and go from churches for all kinds of reasons. For the most part I’ve observed that those reasons have more to do with personal preference, style, and relationships than God actually “calling” them to be at one church or another.

And when this begins to happen I’ve seen Church Staff agonize over people departing from their churches. Frustration and fear can begin to creep in. How are we going to replace their financial support? Who is going to fill their recently vacated volunteer role? If they’re leaving and they’ve been here so long, then is there something wrong? Do they know something that I don’t? Should I be leaving too?

Even worse I’ve seen Church Staff begin to make decisions rooted in the fear of people leaving as opposed to the advancement of the mission. And when that begins to happen it’s a clear indicator that the church is drifting towards becoming insider focused.

What if I told you that people leaving your church can actually be a good thing? Maybe even the best thing? Below are 5 reasons that it’s actually good when people leave your Church:

1. They fell in love with who you were, not with who you are becoming

They’re stuck in the past. They were there when the church was small enough that you could know everybody by name and the Pastor was more available. Or maybe their favorite Staff Member excelled in their role when the church was smaller but it passed by their capacity and they’ve been moved to a different role, or they’re off the bus all together. Now things have changed and they’ve become critical that things aren’t the same anymore. You know people are stuck in the past when they keep talking about the “good ‘ole days” instead of what God is doing now.

2. It creates new opportunities

When people leave your church it creates an opportunity for new people to jump in, serve, and fill the gap. The exciting thing about new people is they always have fresh eyes, a different experience base, a new perspective, and new ideas. When people leave your church it’s an incredible opportunity for an infusion of new talent and ideas that will help propel things forward.

Posted in Leadership

Top 5 Posts from February

Sunday, March 3, 2013

February was a big month on Helping Churches Make Vision Real! Thank you for making these the top 5 Posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one nice tidy little spot!

#1 Why Nice People Kill Churches

This post may quickly become one of the most popular articles I’ve ever written. For the last 12 years I’ve had the incredible opportunity to serve on the Sr. Leadership Teams of some of the nations fastest growing and leading churches. Over that time I’ve observed time and time again one of the most destructive inclinations to church growth and the advancement of the Gospel is the simple fact that people on staff at most churches are simply too nice to each other. In this post I share 5 ways I’ve seen nice people hurt this mission of the church. Continue Reading…

#2 A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a High School Pastor

I’m pleased to announce a new Staff Search. Sun Valley Community Church, the church I have the honor of serving at, is beginning a national search for a High School Pastor to serve on our Gilbert Campus. Sun Valley began as a church plant in 1990 in Chandler, Arizona. Over the years Sun Valley has grown into a large mult-site church in the Phoenix metro area. Currently there are three campuses located in Gilbert, Tempe and Casa Grande with a total weekend attendance of over 5,000 people. Sun Valley was recently named by Outreach Magazine as one of the top 10 fastest growing churches in America. Continue Reading…

#3 Does Your Team Need to Change?

Churches get stuck for all kinds of reasons. But a common reason Churches get stuck is that the Sr. Leadership Team gets stuck. Last week I had the opportunity to sit in the room with Sr. Leaders from some of the nations leading mega-churches and talk through this issue. Here are a couple of the thoughts I captured about Sr. Leadership Teams from that conversation. Continue Reading…

#4 Stop Paying People to do Ministry

As they grow, many churches eagerly anticipate the moment when they’re finally big enough that they can afford to hire more staff and offer more ministry options for people. For example I’ve heard churches say they can’t wait to hire a Men’s Ministry Pastor. Nothing against Men’s Ministry per se, but that’s an expensive model. If you run it out to its logical end you’re going to have a lot of people on your payroll. Paying people to “do” ministry instead of “lead” ministry is an expensive mistake that many churches fall into. Here are 3 principles that will help you focus the Staffing & Volunteer philosophy at your church. Continue Reading…

#5 Overcoming the Fear of a Personality Driven Ministry

In church-world I frequently hear conversations surrounding the idea of “personality driven churches.” That is to say churches that are built around a dynamic communicator and leader. At best I’ll usually hear a criticism of its ineffectiveness and at worst statements about how shallow, wrong, and harmful it is to the church and the advancement of the Gospel. In this post I unpack 4 big questions you should be asking about personality driven ministries. Continue Reading…

Posted in Leadership

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