I don’t think I have ever heard of any leader say, “You know what, I think I have enough volunteers in my ministry.” If you have ever said that, you should write a blog instead of me. Ministry is only as effective as the leaders you have and we are in a season of needing to being intentional about recruiting them. This is something I have shared with our teams in practical things to think through in recruiting volunteers for ministry.

  • Pray – Sounds simple but it’s so important. Lot’s of times it’s when we are are desperate is when we go to prayer. The truth is God cares more about your ministry than you do and we need to go to Him to provide the people He wants to move the ministry forward. I have found when we need people without prayer we get warm bodies instead of called bodies.
  • Build a pipeline – How deep is your bench? In our ministry we have 4 volunteer positions. 1) Ministry lead 2) Coaches 3) Service Lead and 4) Team Member. Our teams should have each one based on how many spots they need to make ministry happen. We need to make sure we have it written out and filled up and start building a bench of leaders to call on and to call up.
  • How can we make it easy to join? – We need to try and make it as easy as possible for people to jump on the team. How can you remove any obstacle people might have to jump on the team. How are you making it easy for people to jump into your team on the weekend? How is your ministry noticeable? How do they know that there is a need? How is your on-boarding process? Not really answers but questions you need to work through yourself.
  • Cast compelling vision – We are inviting them into something bigger than just serving. Give them the bigger picture. We should have a few back pocket stories that are ready to share of life change in your ministry that you can share instantly. People love stories. People want to hear about how they can make a difference and hear stories of others doing so.
  • Don’t say “no” for them – How many people are not serving in your ministry because they never physically told you “no” but because you said “no” for them assuming they could not.Just ask, even if you assume they will say no, still ask because they could say “yes”.
  • Leaders recruiting leaders – One of the the best ways is to challenge existing leaders to recruit leaders. When I come, people duck out of the way because they know what I am going to ask them. But when leaders are excited about what they are doing, challenge each one to recruit one by a date you set.
  • What are you inviting them into? – What’s your strategy? What are you doing? How are your doing it? How are you planning to recruit? Nothing great just happens. There needs to be a strategy in order to carry it out. What would it look like if you spent some time working through this next few months?

This list is not exhaustive but they are some things I have seen over time work on the intentional work in recruiting leaders. Hope it’s helpful.

@justinknowles3