Episode 011: How to Increase Your Pool of Church Volunteers & Identify the Right Ones Before You Ask | Volunteer Series Part 2

Intro  0:01  
Hey, this is Laurie Graham. Welcome to The Small Church Ministry Podcast.

Laurie Graham  00:15
Hey, thanks for spending some time with me today, we’re gonna jump in and talk about identifying volunteers. If you’ve been to one of my popular workshops on the four I’s of volunteers, you may have heard about this crucial step in the process of working with volunteers.

Today, we’re going to go even deeper in the need and some specific strategies you can use to identify new volunteers even today. As part of this series on volunteers, this section is one that it would probably be great to listen to in order, because we’re going over four I’s that go in order in the process of working with volunteers. 

The four I’s include: identify volunteers, invite volunteers, involve volunteers, and invest in volunteers. In addition to these topics during this volunteer series, where you can talk about a few bonus topics that I haven’t talked about outside The Small Church Academy up to this point. So hang with me, as we journey through each of these four phases plus a few other amazing things. We’re going to talk about the biggest mistakes many churches make and how to do it better, with actionable strategies and ideas to put into practice. 

Whether you are a ministry leader, a volunteer who just needs somebody to cover your spot now and then, or a pastor’s wife, these are skills everybody should master. It’ll be a help not only to your ministry area, but as you learn these things and practice them, you can actually have a great impact on your church culture. As people start to notice you doing something in a new way, it’s going to look different; and feel different as you start to honor people as friends. 

As you take a slower route, that’s going to end up being more effective and long-lasting. Instead of just looking for volunteers over and over and repeat, you’re going to find volunteers who stay longer and serve with more joy, more passion and more loyalty too. On top of that, as you practice the things we’re going to be talking about, they’re going to get quite effortless, and really become standard for how you operate. Throughout this series, you’ll find yourself more hopeful as you become more aware of where God’s already working; and less stressed, knowing that your success is more about joining up with God, and less about your own abilities, your effort, or even your talent. 

Laurie Graham 2:34
Here we go with the first I: identifying volunteers. This first I is a vital step that typically gets completely overlooked in most small churches. In fact, if I asked most people to outline the steps of working with volunteers, the first thing they would say is you got to ask them; because how could there be something about working with volunteers before you actually ask them to volunteer? But there is, and it’s actually a biggie. 

Identifying volunteers happens well before you ask them. If you don’t start with an intention to identify volunteers, before you ask, here’s a few things that can happen. First off, we tend to ask the same people who are already serving. This totally makes sense because it’s obvious. Their front of mind, we know them, it’s kind of how our brain works. We tend to go with what’s familiar first, but if you keep asking the same people who are already serving, what happens? They get overstretched and even divided and where they spend their time, and we end up continuing that unhealthy 8020 pattern. We’re not doing ministry like Jesus, and we’re not really functioning as God created His church to be. 

The second thing that can happen if you don’t start with intentionality—intentionally and prayerfully identifying volunteers first—is we invite the wrong people, and it hurts our ministry areas. It’s pretty awkward and really difficult to remove people once you’ve asked them to volunteer. Sometimes to avoid this, we allow people to continue in really ill fitting spots, places they aren’t suited for, whether it’s because of their maturity, their ability or even their desire. What happens is it damages our ministries. It puts strains on relationships and actually causes other volunteers to quit. Even more devastating. 

The third really sad thing that can happen when you just ask people to serve instead of going through the steps to identify them first, is we can unintentionally set people up to fail. It’s incredibly sad, and is so common, when volunteers end up feeling like failures and they don’t ever want to serve again. The reality is it wasn’t their fault. and they are not failures. In this case, the leader may have really set them up, they may have been the link to the failure, because they invited somebody into a place that wasn’t right for them, and never was. 

Laurie Graham 5:14
We need to do better. We need to be careful with the human beings God created us to be, because humans, all of us, are fragile, easily hurt and sometimes scarred. So can we commit to do better? There are many ways we inadvertently set up volunteers to fail. In fact, we’ll talk about this in each of the four phases of volunteering. For now, we’ll stick to how not to do this, in this phase of identifying volunteers. 

The fourth issue that comes up if we fail to identify volunteers before we ask them is kind of cool and deep to think about. If we don’t take the time to identify volunteers, we run the risk of surrounding ourselves with people who are like us, instead of people who make us better. Yep, I said it. There’s a mistake that happens when we surround ourselves with people who are like us, instead of people who make us better.

So how do we prevent these mistakes? What is this first phase of working with volunteers: identifying them? What’s it really about? We’re going to start by just talking about, what do you need? By “need” I don’t mean the number of people you need, like “I need a Sunday school teacher” or “I need a Men’s Ministry lead.” I mean, what qualifies these people? What do they need to possess? 

If you need a person in the nursery, you don’t really need someone. You need a certain someone. You need someone who’s kind, someone who’s patient, someone who follows procedures, someone who’s safe. If you need someone to run the soundboard, you don’t need someone. You need someone who hears well, someone you can count on to come early, someone responsible, someone available to come practice, and someone who’s willing to learn. 

Laurie Graham 7:16
I’m in several ministry Facebook communities, and I just cringe. Whenever someone posts a question that asks people what is the number one quality you desire in a volunteer, and I’ve seen this happen over and over again. The reason I hate it is because invariably, a discussion begins something like this: “I just need a body. Anyone that shows up is my favorite volunteer.” 

I have to be honest, I could not agree with this less, it actually hurts my heart so much and those are usually ministry leaders saying that. Can I just say that is the last thing you need. You do not need a body to fill a spot. It’s not Biblical. In fact, that is the quickest way to hurt your ministry and to her people. It’s terrible leadership. 

If you don’t have the right person, you don’t need that ministry area, the program, or the event, period. This is a huge reason many churches find themselves with burnout people, ineffective ministries, and people who will never serve again. If God hasn’t provided the person, don’t take it on yourself to force something before it’s time. Know what you need ahead of time. 

This doesn’t mean you only get experts and those who have arrived, it just means there’s potential. There’s a heart turn to serve with pure motives, there’s a desire to learn and grow. Identify what you need, write it down: “I need someone who’s blank and blank and blank.” Then figure out where those things will come from. You can easily end up with two people instead of one because one person has a few qualities and the other person has the others. Oftentimes, splitting what you need into more hands actually works better than you ever imagined. 

Once you’ve identified what qualities you need, not the number of servants, but what qualities you need, then you can move on to identifying the actual people. Remember, you don’t identify people by asking, you identify those you might ask before you ask them, sometimes way before you ask them. This is a process. This is not an item on a checklist. In fact, identifying people will probably become a constant for you. It’s not something you just do once. It’s something that just becomes part of who you are. 

Laurie Graham 9:55
Let’s talk about how to do this well. As I mentioned, when people don’t take the time to identify the range of possible volunteers, the first thing that often happens is they ask the same people who are already serving. This continues that 80/20 pattern we talked about in episode three. If you missed that episode, I highly recommend you go back and catch it, it’s a good one. 

How do we do better? Make a list of the 80%. If you’re not familiar with the 80/20 rule, it states that 20% of the people in most churches do 80% of the work. What I’m suggesting is you do not write the names of the 20%, down who are already serving, but start writing down the names of the 80% Of all the people who aren’t serving, and there’s a lot of them, it’s 80%, right? 

Think of the people who don’t come every single week, those who come occasionally, and write them down. Think of the people who sit in the back row and aren’t always volunteering. Think of the teenagers who are on the fringe. What about relatives who only come on Christmas and Easter, even friends of friends, or those you’ve seen at just different outreach events you do? That’s the 80%. 

Make it your mission to start building relationships with them. Because that’s what Jesus would do. As you build relationships, instead of just thinking about your ministry area or positions you need to fill, get to know them without that agenda. And just imagine where they could fly. Imagine where they could serve, where God could fill their heart with a new significance, where they could make a difference, where they would enjoy community and grow in skill too, and start keeping mental notes of where you see potential, passion, and openness to serve. 

Is that going to be fast? No. Are they going to be a sure thing as a volunteer? No. Join the way of Jesus, this is what he did. Besides, you’re just making a list, you’re identifying possibilities. You’re not inviting anyone, not yet. Remember, you’re not looking for people to fill your spots, you’re just building relationships with God’s kids, with curiosity about what God might have in mind for them. 

Laurie Graham 12:20
If you’re not driving right now, while you listen to this podcast, I want to encourage you to start the list now, just grab a sheet of paper, you can put the podcast on hold and jot down the people who already came to mind right now as you’ve been listening. Because those people who popped in your mind might just be the people that God brought to mind. It’s so like him to speak to us when we’re open to hear. He does that a lot. 

Now that you’re working on a discovery list, discovering what the 80% has to give, and how serving can meet them in their needs too, remember God created us to be interdependent. You have what I need, and I have what you need. We were created to be together in community. 

When it comes to identifying possible volunteers, I want to broaden something out for you. I mentioned how ministries often hurt people by not identifying the right people and putting them in the wrong spots. This has more to do with positions than ministry areas. Because I truly believe every ministry area can include people with a huge variety of talents, skills, and even passion. It’s not true that everyone who serves in Kidman needs to have a passion for children. They could have a passion for finances or organization and be in charge of registrations or payment collection. 

You could have someone running social media for the youth group who doesn’t have a passion for teenagers at all. You could have people who love to bake, baking for a homeless shelter, a moms group, teens or the men’s group. So don’t necessarily think about the right people in the right ministry area, but in positions where they could serve and find joy and satisfaction serving. This is where we need to broaden our minds and get away from the one-size-fits-all ministry position. 

Laurie Graham 14:15
This is kind of where the person who serves on the creative team needs to be good at all things creative from crafting to construction. This isn’t true. Or what about thinking of somebody who serves in the youth group as being somebody who is a kid at heart and has boundless energy? It doesn’t have to be like that. As you get to know the 80% who are not over-involved and over-committed, you’ll start finding specialists and uncover where they could serve and contribute to something amazing. 

It might not be obvious at first to you or them, but get to know their dreams, not just their talents. Some of the most amazing people I know in ministry learned on the job, like people who always wanted to learn to play an instrument, picking up the guitar, or learning to play the keyboard for worship. We may all start like stinky fishermen that Jesus recruited and along the way, develop a love for people, a love for the Word, and a love for ministry. 

Who is on your discovery list? What is there to discover? Keep in mind, you want to discover their hopes, their dreams, their skills, but also their potential. This is something that Jesus was so good at, and I want to be good at that too. Seeing the potential in people, not just their present, or their progress; not just what is but what could be. This is what Jesus did. He developed people, He didn’t recruit people who were already skilled and talented, can you see that? 

We’re going to talk a lot more about developing people in future episodes, but it’s so important to understand that developing people is a factor, even when you’re just dreaming about identifying future volunteers. You have to be able and willing to see potential in people. Carl Vaders, who’s a pastor who also speaks about small church ministry, said this in a time when I saw him speaking at an event that I was at, he said “It’s easier to develop a servant into a leader than a leader into a servant.” I think there’s a lot of truth to that— give me somebody with potential, and a heart to serve any day over somebody who’s super talented, but not so willing to learn new things. So look for character over talent, look for potential over accomplishment.

Laurie Graham 16:47
The last thing I want to throw out for you to consider today, as you work toward identifying new volunteers is this: Please look for people who are not like you. This is actually a tough one unless you’ve developed a habit of this because it’s not the way naturally things happen. We tend to naturally surround ourselves with people who are like us, people we identify with. With a similar energy level or sense of humor, or maybe the same value of time management, or organization, people with similar passions, personalities, and styles. 

While it’s amazing to have a friend who laughs at the same jokes and can finish our sentences, the truth is, people with the same gifts often have the same weaknesses, challenge areas, and even blind spots. So if you’re a visionary, you don’t really need a team of visionaries. Not that that wouldn’t be super fun, because it would for me, but I’m just not sure how much we’d get done if we were all together. 

What you need, if you’re a visionary, is someone whose feet are planted on this planet. Somebody who grounds you when you’re up in the clouds. If you’re a facts and figure kind of guy or gal, you really could use someone around to bring some levity and lightness into the picture. You see what I’m saying? As I’ve mentioned before, I truly believe that God created us to be interdependent, not independent. So once one person’s strengths fills in for another person’s weakness. 

I love how Becca Jackson York said this at one of our conferences, she said this: “We have to lean into each other’s strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses.” How could we possibly do that if we surround ourselves with people who are just like us? I have to say it’s easier to work with people who are like us, we tend to get along better. It’s good to take some strength and growth in areas like people skills, expanding our capacity for grace and forgiveness, developing a team culture that excels in curiosity and compassion. 

Laurie Graham 19:01
There’s nothing better when the body of Christ is working as God intended. It is diverse, in its gifts, in maturity, in personality, in weakness. This is the beauty of the Body of Christ. The beauty of the Body of Christ is not in a collection of people who have all arrived, or all put together or excel in skill, abounding maturity and all things good. No, the beauty of the Body of Christ is a ragtag group of us focused on growing up together in this journey of knowing and following Jesus. We struggle, we fall, we help each other get back up again, and keep going on the journey. 

Before I leave you until next week, I have this love-hate relationship with memes. So some of these memes that are going around are super catchy and they kind of ring true and they get all these shares and before long, everybody’s sharing and you’ve seen the same meme like 18 times. Have you ever seen a really great meme circulating around though? That kind of hits you funny, like, something’s off? Or that’s not really right. 

So here’s one that hits me kind of funny. There’s a meme that goes around occasionally that says, “There’s no I in team,” letter I—there’s no I in team. Have you heard that one before? What does it really mean? The best I can tell is it originates somewhere in the sports world, which kind of makes sense. Like when one player is all about themselves, and it’s not about the team goal or accomplishment. I can totally see a culture yelling, “Hey, there’s no I in team get over yourself!” However, in the body of Christ, I just want to say, yeah, there’s not an I in team, there’s a bunch of I’s, and they’re supposed to be. 

While yes, we are called to work together for a common good, the individual is valued and honored as an I. I don’t see anywhere where God minimized the individual, for the sake of the team. It was about that one lost sheep. It was about Joseph and his relationships with his brothers, not just about what was happening in society. So there’s a difference between uniformity and unity. As we build teams, I think it’s important to understand this and really grasp it. 

Laurie Graham 21:31
Uniformity is when we’re all alike, we are the same. I picture those little plastic green army guys that my brother used to play with as a kid. It’s not about the individual, you can’t even tell them apart except for how they’re standing in position, but in the Body of Christ, it’s different. We’re called to unity, yes, but not uniformity. The individual is so important, all individuals are important, not just the leader, or not just the one who’s been there the longest. 

I think this is where we go wrong in the church sometimes. Instead of working to elevate all the I’s to their importance in the Body of Christ, the beautiful gifts God places in each and every one of us, we have limited what God does in and through us. I’ve seen church leaders say in ministry team meetings to shut someone down who shares an opinion or an unpopular idea. They say, “Hey, it’s not about you.” 

I have to be honest, I hate that phrase; because it is about you. It’s about you, and it’s about me, and it’s about everyone else, too. I get that if I’m demanding my own way, of course, I need to submit sometimes, or if I’m putting someone else down, I need to look at them like Jesus would. I do believe our relationship as a group absolutely is about each of us as individuals. It is about Joe, Oscar, Ana, and it is about Bill. It’s not about one person, but it is about all of the I’s, each individual. 

The group purpose or goal does not negate the individual, or make them less important, or it shouldn’t anyway, that’s what the Body of Christ is all about, that we need everyone, and I think this is so Biblical. Jesus didn’t say of the one lost sheep, “Hey, it’s not about you. It’s about the 99.” Can you imagine how different the gospel message would be if He had said that? It is about you. Let’s value all the individuals He put on the planet, even the ones we don’t understand. Even the ones we have a harder time loving. The strongest teams I have ever seen are the most diverse. They’ve learned to work together to value input that is unlike your own, to reach deep and try to discover what God might be doing, saying, both in your team and in each individual who’s part of the team. 

Laurie Graham 24:09
So before you ask people to serve, let’s spend some time identifying both what we need and who God might be nudging to step into something brand new. Help your brain get past the familiar, to move beyond what your past experience has been, who the proven servants are, and start the discovery process of what God might be doing. Isaiah 43:19 says, “See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I’m making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” So do you believe that God could be doing a new thing? Right where you are, in the church where you worship? Because I truly believe God is at work there. I really do. 

He is not a boring God or an apathetic God. He is not about mediocre or complacency. It’s just not who God is. So if He’s there, and He’s working, because He says He is, what is He doing? This step of identifying volunteers is just one way of taking a step closer to discover what God’s up to your small church. 

Thanks for joining me today. I’m praying your week is beautiful, and that you’re joining up with God in whatever He’s doing in your midst. I totally appreciate your leaving a review if you have a minute, and please share this podcast with others who need the good news too, about what God is doing in small churches all over the planet. So go be a light wherever you find yourself this week. Talk to you soon.