Tag Archive - volunteer

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Top Posts of 2015 #4: “Why People Don’t Volunteer at Church Anymore”

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

One of the most popular topics on my blog this year was “volunteers.” This is one of the most common areas where churches in America are stuck and the following post describes why.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau 1-in-4 adults volunteered their time in 2013. Altogether, 62.6 million Americans volunteered nearly 7.7 billion hours in 2013. Based on the Independent Sector’s estimate of the average value of a volunteer hour, the estimated value of this volunteer service is nearly $173 billion.

People in the community you live in volunteer their time. That includes people in your community who know Jesus and those who don’t know Jesus. But are they volunteering at your church?

In our research at the Unstuck Group we’ve discovered that:

  • The average church in America engages 43% of their adult and student attenders in some kind of volunteer role.
  • The Top 10% of churches in America engage more than 72% of their adult and student attenders in some kind of volunteer role.

That being said, I’ve never worked with a church that said they had enough volunteers to accomplish the vision that Jesus has given them. In fact here are some of the most common reasons why people may not be volunteering at your church:

1. Your Church has too many Paid Staff

A common reason many churches lack volunteers is because they pay their staff to “do” the ministry instead of “lead” the ministry. At the Unstuck Group we encourage churches to move towards a staffing ratio of 1:100 (1 full-time-equivalent staff person for every 100 people attending the church). The most effective churches have a tendency to move towards having fewer, more competent, and higher compensated staff.

2. Your Church has no Compelling Vision

Volunteering is one of the ultimate statements that someone can make that says, “I believe in this place and I’m with you.” The percentage of people volunteering at your church should act as an indicator as to how many people have bought into your vision and are “with you.” Does your church have a compelling vision that naturally inspires involvement?

3. Your Church has Poor Volunteer Strategies

Poor volunteer strategies are common in church-world. Often times we make it difficult for people to volunteer by making them fill out an exhaustive multi-page application, do a face-to-face interview with a staff member, go through a background check (which I’m in favor of when it comes to working with minors), take a class, or be a church member. Making people jump through hoops to volunteer that are often meant to increase commitment can actually have the converse affect and become barriers for people to overcome that they simply won’t waste their time with. There is a difference between volunteering and leading. I imagine there are probably some roles at your church where someone doesn’t even need to know Jesus to volunteer.

4. Your Church cares more about the Ministry than the Volunteer

Asking people to volunteer every week in the kids ministry because you have a value of consistency for the kids involved in the kids ministry may be noble, but alas ineffective. It’s a sure way to lose volunteers. It also keeps others from getting involved because the same person is in there volunteering every week, not making room for more volunteers. Often times I see churches that care more about what they can get out of a volunteer instead of what they can invest in a volunteer. Churches forget that volunteering is discipleship. People actually grow spiritually by volunteering and living out an others oriented life. So why not do what’s best for the volunteer instead of the kids? Those kids aren’t there every week anyway. If you do what’s best for the volunteer, chances are you’ll have happier, more fulfilled and more consistent volunteers. Which would make for a better ministry wouldn’t it?

At the Unstuck Group we help churches benchmark their behaviors and metrics to gauge their Church Health through a Ministry Health Assessment tool. Interested? Follow this link to learn more.

Posted in Leadership, Volunteers

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Top Posts of 2015 #9: “How Many People Should be Volunteering at your Church?”

Monday, December 28, 2015

This post came in at #9 this year. Volunteering was a huge topic of conversation on my blog this year. You’ll see it show up again on the Top 10 List.

Did you know that there is a direct connection between the amount of money a church invests in staffing and the number of people who volunteer? What we’ve discovered in our research at the Unstuck Group is that the as a church increases its spending on staffing the number of people volunteering decreases.

Translation: if you want more people to volunteer at your church you may need to spend less on staffing.

What we’ve learned through our experience and research is that the average church in America is mobilizing 43% of their adult and student population in volunteer opportunities. The reason it is so critical for churches to address this and take steps to move their culture in the right direction is because volunteering is discipleship. It’s not about filling roles and getting ministry done through people. It’s not about what we want from people, but rather what we want for people. Mobilizing people into volunteer roles is the ministry of pastors and church leaders. It is discipleship. Because volunteering and living an others first life is the very essence of what it means to live like Jesus.

Interested in learning more? Download the ebook “Vital Signs: Meaningful Metrics That Keep a Pulse on Your Church’s Health” or consider engaging the Unstuck Group to do a Ministry Health Assessment with your church to discover the health levels at your church and develop a plan to move things forward.

In the meantime below is a free exercise you can do with your team to begin addressing the volunteer culture at your church:

Step #1: Build a complete list of volunteers that are currently serving in the ministry you are responsible for:

  • What is their first and last name?
  • What is their role?
  • How many hours per week do they volunteer?
  • Once you build a master list of volunteers for your church take a moment and identify any volunteer redundancy and then count individual volunteer roles. For example if someone volunteers in 3 different ministries, or in 1 ministry but volunteers in 3 unique roles that is one volunteer fulfilling 3 roles. Come up with a separate list of volunteer roles and a list of volunteers. Are a few people doing the majority of the volunteering?
  • How long have they been volunteering in your ministry?

Step #2: Build a picture of what your ministry would look like if it were staffed properly with volunteers:

  • How many volunteers would it take?
  • What ideal roles would they be serving in and what would the structure look like?
  • How many volunteer hours would it take?
  • How many new volunteers would you have to recruit and place?
  • How many current volunteers would you have to adjust their role and/or hours they volunteer?
  • Create an actual written organizational chart of your ministry to reflect this.

Step #3: Are there any gaps between the current reality of the ministry and this picture of a preferred future that you have built?                       

  • What’s working, not working, confusing, or missing?
  • What are you currently doing to recruit volunteers? Is it working?
  • How do you place your volunteers? Do they love their role?
  • How do you currently train volunteers? Is it helpful?
  • What do you do to communicate with your volunteers? Is it effective?
  • How do you schedule your volunteers? Is it efficient?
  • What is the span of care for volunteers? Are volunteers who are in leadership roles responsible for 20 volunteers or 5-8 volunteers? Is it reasonable?
  • What do you do to support and care for your volunteers? Do they feel supported?
  • How do you measure if your volunteers are doing what needs to be done for the ministry to win? Are you winning?
Posted in Leadership, Volunteers

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10 Articles that will Help Your Church Build a Stronger Volunteer Culture

Sunday, December 20, 2015

I’ve never worked with a church that has said they don’t need more volunteers. But I’ve worked with a bunch of churches that have trouble getting people to volunteer and stay engaged volunteering. Because volunteering comes up so often when I work with churches I’ve ended up writing about volunteering quite a bit over the years. Here are some of the more popular posts.

Why People Don’t Volunteer at Church Anymore

According to the U.S. Census Bureau 1-in-4 adults volunteered their time in 2013. Altogether, 62.6 million Americans volunteered nearly 7.7 billion hours in 2013. Based on the Independent Sector’s estimate of the average value of a volunteer hour, the estimated value of this volunteer service is nearly $173 billion. People in the community you live in volunteer their time. That includes people in your community who know Jesus and those who don’t know Jesus. But are they volunteering at your church?

How to Build a Strong Volunteer Culture in your Church

Most church leaders I speak with identify a shortage of volunteers and volunteer leaders as one of the top 5 issues holding their church back from reaching the vision that Jesus has given them. It doesn’t have to be this way. You can build a strong volunteer culture at your church by implementing the following 8 principles.

How Many People should be Volunteering at Your Church?

Did you know that there is a direct connection between the amount of money a church invests in staffing and the number of people who volunteer? What we’ve discovered in our research at the Unstuck Group is that the as a church increases its spending on staffing the number of people volunteering decreases.

What the Church can Learn from Southwest Airlines about Volunteering

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.

Why Volunteering is the Biggest Issue Facing the Church Today

Your church is full of talented volunteers. In fact the people who attend your church are so talented that companies actually hire them to do jobs everyday and they actually get paid for it (sarcasm indented). The real issue is that the church needs to change the scorecard. We need to shift the focus of paid-staff from ministry production and execution to volunteer and leadership development. The churches that do this understand the following 5 principles and the incredible results that accompany applying them.

8 Reasons Why People Don’t Volunteer at your Church

The reason why this has to be a front-burner issue is because at the heart of it, volunteering is an essential component of the discipleship process in someone’s life. Plainly put, volunteering is discipleship. Understanding that, here are 8 reasons people aren’t volunteering in your church…and subsequently aren’t growing in their relationship with God.

4 Principles that should Shape the Volunteer Philosophy at your Church

If you’re on staff at a church your job is essentially to be a volunteer specialist. And while volumes have been written on building and leading volunteer organizations, below are four simple (while not easy) principles that should be at the foundation of your philosophy of volunteerism.

Building and Leading a Volunteer Organization

The most important asset you have as a Pastor is not your buildings, budget, or even your vision. It is the people that God has entrusted to you. So below are a few thoughts that may help you in building and leading this volunteer organization called the Church. For your volunteers to jump on board, and stay on board, you’ve got to answer 4 key questions for them…

5 Symptoms your Church Needs more Volunteers

While a lot of churches need more volunteers, most don’t know why they need more volunteers, or why it’s difficult for them to enlist and keep new volunteers.

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.

 

Posted in Leadership, Volunteers

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How to Build a Strong Volunteer Culture in your Church

Sunday, December 6, 2015

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve never coached a church leader or consulted with a church that said they had enough volunteers. In fact, most church leaders I speak with identify a shortage of volunteers and volunteer leaders as one of the top 5 issues holding their church back from reaching the vision that Jesus has given them. It doesn’t have to be this way. You can build a strong volunteer culture at your church by implementing the following 8 principles.

#1 Celebrate Volunteers

You’ve probably heard me say that what you celebrate gets repeated. Ask any parent who’s potty training their kid and they get this principle. I’m pretty sure that’s why God invented M&M’s. That same psychology follows us through life. What get’s celebrated gets repeated. Want a strong volunteer culture at your church, then celebrate volunteers and the great stuff they do. You know what? They’ll do it again and more people will want in on it, because it feels good to be celebrated.

#2 Connect Volunteering to Discipleship

You’ve probably heard me tell the story about the time I was asked to lead a Jr. High Small Group. I was scared to death. Not because they were Jr. Highers, but because I had to be prepared, I had to be further down the road than them and know what I was talking about. I grew so much by leading that Small Group. I think we forget how much spiritual growth takes place as a result of volunteering. Instead of viewing volunteering as roles to be filled to run a church, volunteering should be viewed as a part of the spiritual pathway of our churches. It’s a subtle yet significant shift that needs to be made in our thinking for the sake of the spiritual formation of the people that have been entrusted to us. When you start viewing volunteering as discipleship the way you treat your volunteers changes quickly.

#3 Don’t Hire too Many Staff Members

At the Unstuck Group we’ve discovered that there is a direct connection between the amount of money a church invests in staffing and the number of people who volunteer. What we’ve found in our research is that the as a church increases its spending on staffing the number of people volunteering decreases. Translation = if you want more people to volunteer at your church hire less staff members.

#4 Make it Simple

Most churches make it more difficult to volunteer than most employers make it to get a job. Get rid of the multipage applications, the class that you make people attend, the spiritual gift tests, and the long interviews. Instead let people start volunteering. The leaders will naturally rise to the top. People will gravitate towards areas of ministry they’re passionate about and gifted for. When someone asks, “Can I volunteer?” the answer should always be, “Yes!” Then tell them where and when to meet you to start volunteering. Disclaimer: it’s always wise to background check anyone working with minors or money in any capacity.

#5 Make it Fun

Is it fun to volunteer at your church? People want to be a part of fun stuff. Fun is underestimated and undervalued in most churches. And yet fun can change people’s attitudes, it makes teams contagious, and it keeps people coming back for more. If it’s not fun to volunteer at your church you might be doing it wrong.

#6 Pay your Staff to “Lead People” not “Do Ministry”

Stop paying your Church Staff to do ministry. Instead pay them to lead people. As a Church Staff Member no job should be beneath you, but you shouldn’t do every job either. Unless they’re in a very specialized and technical role, Church Staff should be evaluated on how many volunteers they’re enlisting and how many leaders they’re developing. It’s amazing to me how many times people in ministry forget the basic principles that the Scriptures teach; for instance that the job of the Church Staff is to, “prepare God’s people for works of service” (Ephesians 4:11-13).

#7 Connect Volunteering to Life-Change:

The unspoken expectation of people who volunteer in a church is that they want to see people’s lives changed. They’re life has been changed by the love of Jesus and they want to be a part of that for others. When you celebrate life-change in your church always try and connect it to people who volunteer. This will help people in your church connect the dots between life-change and volunteering and people will want in on that.

Posted in Leadership, Volunteers

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10 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Thank you for making October a great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying connected with you through social media and hearing that these articles have been helpful. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

10 Insider Focused Ministry Names

Yea, so even though this was written in 2013, this post continues to be one of the most visited on my blog. The language we choose to use is important because it both reflects and builds culture at the same time. And one of the most obvious ways to tell if a church is insider focused or outsider focused is the language that they choose to use. It either says that the church is “inclusive” or “exclusive.”

Why Secret Sauce is Better than any X-Factor at your Church

When a church begins to grow people usually start to wonder and ask, “What’s the Secret Sauce?” or “What’s the X-Factor?” Why is this church growing? Now let me preface this article and say we know that God is the one who draws people to Himself and grows His Church. Yet, it would be disingenuous to exclude the human effort or circumstantial situations that contribute to the sustained growth of a church.

What’s Wrong with Big Churches? Part-1 & 2

Some time ago I asked a simple question to the readers here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real, “What’s wrong with big churches?” As you can imagine I received some emotionally charged answers. But as I sifted through the responses there were 10 key issues that kept coming up.

8 Reasons Why People don’t Volunteer at your Church

I’ve never worked with a church that has said they don’t need more volunteers. But I’ve worked with a bunch of churches that have trouble getting people to volunteer and stay engaged volunteering. This is a critical issue for churches to figure out. The reason why this has to be a front-burner issue is because at the heart of it, volunteering is an essential component of the discipleship process in someone’s life. Plainly put, volunteering is discipleship. Understanding that, here are 8 reasons people aren’t volunteering in your church…and subsequently aren’t growing in their relationship with God.

How Many People Should Your Church have on Staff?

Before you buy into the idea that you need another staff person at your church, think again. That just may be the worst decision you make at your church this year. It’s not uncommon in churches that I work with to hear them say, “We need to add more staff.” After all if there are problems or areas where the church is stuck then throwing staff at that problem will surely fix it…right? Well, not always. In fact the opposite may be true. In fact the most effective churches that I see have a tendency to hire fewer staff not more staff. They hire more competent team members who have the ability to turn attenders into volunteers, volunteers into leaders, and build teams. Instead of paying people to do ministry they pay people to lead others to do ministry.

Video Teaching Versus Live Teaching in a Multisite Church

When the multisite movement really began gaining public traction 10 years ago the predominate models that were held up were using video to deliver teaching across their campuses. Since those early days the multisite movement has begun to grow up a bit and today about 50% of the 8,000 (ballpark) multisite churches are delivering teaching via video while the other 50% are using live teaching in their locations. But what are the pros and cons? Which model is best for your church?

Why People don’t Volunteer at Church Anymore

In our research at the Unstuck Group we’ve discovered that:

  • The average church in America engages 43% of their adult and student attenders in some kind of volunteer role.
  • The Top 10% of churches in America engage more than 72% of their adult and student attenders in some kind of volunteer role.

That being said, I’ve never worked with a church that said they had enough volunteers to accomplish the vision that Jesus has given them. In fact here are some of the most common reasons why people may not be volunteering at your church.

Learning from Kids about Leadership

The other day I sat down with a couple of the most influential people in my life to talk about leadership. Their perspective and input is very important to me. No leader becomes a great leader alone. Great leaders learn from others and invite input from others they trust.

Me? Some of the voices I listen to are my 11 year old, 10 year old, 7 year old, and 2 year old kids. Here’s what they had to say about leadership.

5 BIG Questions to Answer Before you go Multisite

Currently there are more than 8,000 multisite churches across America and more than 1,600 mega churches (churches of more than 2,000 people in weekly attendance). While both are growing the multisite church movement has outpaced the mega church movement in America. What was once seen as only a Band-Aid strategy for space issues at mega churches has become a vehicle for growth in local churches of all kinds and all sizes (the average size a church goes multisite is around 850-1200). “Multi” doesn’t mean “Mega” anymore. Your church may be considering going multisite. If so, that’s exciting news and I’d love to hear about it! But before you do here are 5 big questions you need to answer before you take the multisite plunge.

The Difference between Preparation and Planning

Do great organizations prepare for the future or do they plan for it? The answer is, “yes.” To be clear preparation and planning are not the same thing, and great organizations become great by doing both.

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership
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