How To Create A Volunteer Culture Of Loyalty And Longevity

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Volunteer Series: Part 5

If you genuinely want to break the cycle of a volunteer vacuum in your small church, or maybe you have a revolving door of volunteers who come but don’t stay, creating a volunteer culture of loyalty and longevity is the ticket. There are many rewards to creating this type of volunteer culture including a more significant ministry impact, developing deeper relationships, and growing in significant leadership skills. However, at the core, it’s just about being more like Jesus and following His example on Earth. Keep reading if you want to:

Learn how to keep volunteers for the long haul.
Develop ministry partners that you can count on instead of inconsistent helpers.
Discover the 4 reasons people remain on some ministry teams and quit others.
Apply Jesus’ life example and imitate His ways to deepen your volunteer culture.

Quick Recap

Throughout this series, we’ve been walking through the 4 I’s of volunteers. We’ve already covered 3. The first I, Identifying volunteers, has to do with expanding your pool of potential volunteers by focusing on the 80% who aren’t already serving, and are often the unlikely and the overlooked.

The second I, Inviting, may be unlike your first thought. Inviting has to do with giving them a sample of the ministry, not asking them to volunteer. This is an invitation to come and check it out. The third I, Involving, has to do with the importance of a great job description, their agreement, and a 4-step process to involve them in serving in a way that sets them up for success.

In this post, we will be going over the last I, Investing! We’ll go over what investing in volunteers and your volunteer culture looks like, and why it’s essential if you want to develop people as Jesus did. I want to encourage you to take everything you hear from me back to Scripture, and back to Jesus. My ways are definitely not the only ways. After 30+ years in ministry, I’m still learning, growing, and making changes.

However, if we look at the principles and the foundational truths, filling in the details can and will take different shapes and forms. We often have more differences than we have in common, but what we do have in common is so important. We love Jesus! We are all working to be more like Him and resting in Him too. We are trying to live in the Kingdom as we make our way together on this journey. When it comes down to this series on volunteers and volunteer culture, the core of my message is loving Jesus and loving people!

4 Reasons Why People Stay on Ministry Teams

I want to start by saying that our main job is to love Jesus, and love others. That being said, here are some practical ways to love people like Jesus, invest in your volunteers, and help them feel loved, seen, valued, and supported. All four of these things are put into each human heart, by God. It may look a little different for each person. No matter what, these 4 reasons are all things that Jesus offered to people.

1. Invest In Volunteers And Your Volunteer Culture By Extending Authentic, Genuine Relationships

Jesus did not merely pour out to His disciples through ministry projects or assignments. There was a depth and a mutuality that existed. I want to give you a few ways to deeply grow your relationships with volunteers. It is important to start building time into team training to genuinely get to know your volunteers. Stop what you’re doing and listen to people. This is more than simply hearing what they’re saying. Listen to people’s hearts.

Another important thing to do, is to be vulnerable. You can share the tough things, when you’re tired, and even when you’re sad. Allow them the gift of being in a relationship with you. Spend time with them for the sake of being together, not just doing things together.

2. Offer Them Significance

Humans were created to make a difference. We want to know that we matter, and that we’re needed. Consider how many people on the planet are depressed, because they don’t feel their life has a purpose. I want to provide you with a couple of tips for this. Firstly, refrain from doing all of the significant work. We are created to find joy and significance in work! Jesus said to be a light, so share significant work in ministry. You could even invite others to teach, even if you teach better. Allowing others to help you when you’re overstretched or overcommitted is also important. Please, don’t be a martyr in the ministry, this isn’t pleasing to God.

You may be thinking “I can’t get anyone to volunteer. I want to give them significant work!” I want to mention that we’re talking about changing a volunteer culture. Most volunteers have past experiences that impact the way they view volunteering as a whole. Take baby steps, and be ready. Plan to give significant ministry jobs to others.

3. Help Them Grow And Develop Skill

No one was created as a grown-up with fully developed skills or talents. God intentionally created us to come to the planet as babies. The Bible is full of teachings on growth, and small church ministry is such an amazing place to facilitate growth. Here are a few ways to do this.

It’s so important to have intentional conversations. You can ask questions like, “What would you like to learn?”, “How can I help?”, or “What resources do you need?”. You could also develop training programs. Make a list of the skills that someone would need to excel in your ministry area and create a plan to develop these with your volunteers. Just remember that we were not made to remain the same.

4. Recognition And Praise

Humans crave to be noticed, valued, and recognized. Now, I’m not a theologian, but I want to share that recognition and being prideful are very different things. Some people are cautious to give praise to others or to recognize the contribution of others because they don’t want to contribute to the great sin of pride. Please, don’t withhold recognition and praise for this reason because it isn’t correct thinking. Contrary to what you might think, prideful people don’t care about recognition because they are already full of themselves. They don’t need to hear it from you. Pride involves competition, and it’s extremely anti-God and anti-others. It isn’t related to being thankful or recognized for doing something sweet or amazing.

That being said, I want to show you how to recognize people in ministry as well as the people you serve with. Thank them privately with thank-you notes, in conversations, or even via text. You can also thank them publicly at banquets, church, and in conversations with others!

Investing In The Volunteer Culture You Already Have

This takes time, attention, and most importantly, it takes your heart. If you don’t have the time to invest in people, please stop trying to expand your ministry. Instead of doing more, invest in the people you already have! We pray that God will grow our ministry and bring more people in, but we should actually be questioning whether or not we can handle more people. Rather than praying and asking God to grow your ministry, the prayer might look like this, “God please do not let my ministry grow beyond my character.” That is so beautiful, isn’t it? This isn’t about influence, prestige, or even numbers. This is about loving people like Jesus and building disciples like Him.

Remember that loving God and loving people come before programs. Let’s refrain from stretching ourselves beyond the capacity that God has given us. Doing this cheapens what we do, and leaves it empty.

Do You Have What You Need To Invest Well In Volunteers?

When we talk about investing or giving, Christians often name three things: time, talent, and money. Sometimes, when we think about investing in volunteers our minds quickly go to money. We think about not having enough money to afford volunteer banquets or to send our teachers to a conference, and so on.

Understandably, we think about money first. In our society, we focus heavily on money, and if you’re in a small church you don’t have a lot of it. However, as far as I know, Jesus didn’t have a lot of money either. Therefore, in this context, we are a lot like Jesus. So, if that’s true and He did the volunteer thing well, then we must have what we need too.

As far as talents go, this isn’t where it’s at either. We’re called to be faithful with whatever we’ve been given. Therefore, whatever we have must be enough for us to work with.

The Trickiness Of Time

Time is one of the things that we are stingiest about. We don’t like getting interrupted because what we plan to do with our time is squandered. Sometimes we can’t even settle our minds to listen to people who are struggling. We treat it as though it isn’t a big deal to us, because we would rather spend our time doing something else. However, Jesus was never stingy with His time. He treated interruptions as though they were moments given to Him by God. He was quick to listen, and He never rushed.

Time is so valuable, but it’s limited, which is why we hold onto it so tightly. However, let’s consider investing more time into people. We should put more time into our volunteers who are becoming friends, and less time fretting over program preparation, decorating, or worrying about the ‘stuff’ of ministry.

The Ministry Of People

The core of ministry is the people! Our biggest priority is the people whom God brings our way. The bottom line is, that if you want your volunteers to stay, and if you want a volunteer culture of longevity, that comes with caring and building genuine relationships. People don’t stay in ministry because of the gifts you give them. They stay because of the people! They stay because they have relationships, they feel loved, and they belong. People stay because they’re making a difference, and because they are growing and developing. If you can create a volunteer culture of friendship with your volunteers like this, that is a ministry like Jesus’.

John 15:15 says, “I no longer call you servants, I call you friends.” He said this to His disciples. We should be echoing that to our volunteers! The disciples were invested in a relationship with Jesus because Jesus invested in them.

I want to emphasize that you might spend time pouring into people who leave you or who betray you. This has happened to me and many other people. This happened to Jesus too. Not only is it just like Jesus, but as you invest in others, you grow too. You grow as a leader and you grow in your reliance on our Father!

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