226: Why You’re Struggling to Get Church Volunteers (It’s Not What You Think)

226: Why You’re Struggling to Get Church Volunteers (It’s Not What You Think)

Laurie Graham  0:01 

Hey, welcome to the Small Church Ministry Podcast, where we help volunteers and ministry leaders experience less stress, more joy and greater impact as we share strategies that actually do work in smaller churches. I’m your host. Laurie Graham, let’s dive in. Hey, hey, welcome back to the Small Church Ministry podcast.

If you’re new around here, this is where we talk about what ministry actually looks like in smaller churches—the pressure, the people, dynamics, the stuff that comes up week after week, and how we can serve in a way that’s healthier—a little more human and actually sustainable.

Now, before we jump in today, I do want to connect this to something that we just finished up. A couple months ago, we did a series talking about Top Mistakes That Our Churches Are Making, and it was called ‘Stop Doing This To Volunteers.’ And the response to that series was a lot, a lot of messages. A lot of this is exactly what we’re seeing. A lot of ‘Okay, so what do we do instead?’ And this next series that we’re stepping into is a little bit of the next step. Now we’re not repeating the same ideas, but we’re going a layer deeper. Because instead of just looking at what we’re doing or what I was suggesting that we stop doing. We’re going to look at how people are actually experience what we’re building in ministry. And honestly, that’s the piece that most of us are not seeing clearly. It’s also a piece that changes everything.

So today we’re starting with the fact that we just don’t need more people. A lot of times we think we just need more people, more volunteers, more help, more hands. And I get it. If you’re listening to this, you’re probably one of the people who feel like you’re doing it all, and you might be doing it all. But when we look at our teams and our schedule, what needs to happen every week, it feels like the problem is we just need more hands. Like, if we could just get a few more people involved, or a few dozen more people involved, that everything would settle down. And I want to shift this just a little bit, because what if people aren’t responding the way that we expect? Not because we don’t have enough people, but because of how they’re interpreting what we’re inviting them into.

So hang with me and let that just sit in for a minute or even a few seconds. Most of us have this exact thought. I’ve had it many times myself. If we just had a couple more people, this would work differently. We can look at it in Kids Ministry, in Women’s Ministry, in hospitality, in worship, in leadership roles. There’s always a gap. There’s always something that’s just a little bit short, and it feels fixable with more people, like, if we just filled that gap, we would be okay.
And so we try and we try and we try. We make announcements, we send emails, we ask people after church, and sometimes people say yes, and there’s that moment of relief, like, ‘Okay, we’re good’, but it doesn’t always last, and a few weeks later, or a couple months later, we’re right back there again, feeling like we’re shorthanded, or the people that are serving are really stretched, and we are trying to make it work, and we keep trying to fix this shortage by adding people, but oftentimes people aren’t responding the way that we would expect or the way that we want them to. Many pastors estimate that only about 40% of people in their churches are actually serving. Now I was surprised when I saw that estimate, because a lot of times we hear of this 80-20 rule, or 20-80 rule, where only 20% of the people are doing 80% of the work.

And then I also know that there’s a lot of people in our churches who in our community, in our Small Church Community in our free Facebook community, the people coming to our conferences, the people sending me emails who actually say our church seems really healthy because everyone’s serving. And even in those cases, most people are still saying it’s not enough. We need more people. So many churches are already trying to run everything they’re doing with less people involved than they say that they need. And what is this like? This means there’s constant tension, and it’s not just you.

So if you’re feeling alone on any edge of the spectrum, I just want to say you’re not alone. This is happening almost everywhere, where we feel like we’re doing more than we have the capacity to do, or few people are holding a lot more weight than maybe people feel like they should be. And what I’m getting at today is we keep trying for the same solution of, ‘let’s get more people, let’s get more people, let’s get more people’. And so today, I just want to go with a different angle of a question, or maybe even a completely different question—because here’s what we’ve been noticing over the years—people aren’t responding to a need, like, there’s a gap, there’s a need.

People often respond to what they think it’s going to be like, or what they’re going to experience. So let me say that again, people aren’t responding a yes or no to a need, like we need to fill this gap. We need a person here. They’re not responding to a need. Their response is based more on what it’s going to be like, and that response is fast. It’s almost instantaneous. You say, we need help, and the person you’re talking to, their brain goes to, what’s it going to be like for me? Now we’re going to unpack why this is not an unspiritual thing, because I know you might have just gone there, like, why is it selfish? Why is it about us? And I’m just going to say it is, and we’re going to talk about that in just a second. But oftentimes it’s even unconscious, like it’s subconscious. It’s below the conscious nature.

People aren’t just thinking, like, instantly, is this going to be stressful for me? Am I stuck every week? Am I going to be supported? Is this going to be like, the last time I volunteered? Is this going to take more than I have to give right now? I am not saying in an instant we are consciously evaluating that it’s not always part of what is at the top forefront of our mind, but it’s there because none of us are starting from scratch. None of us, is this the first time we’ve been asked to volunteer. We have all had some kind of experience with volunteering, typically at church, but also in the community or at a school or at another nonprofit. So when we’re asking somebody to volunteer, they’re remembering, they’re comparing they’re filling in the blanks. People don’t just say yes to serving. They’re saying yes or no to what they know or believe they will experience if they say yes.

There’s a consistent gap between people who say they want to serve, and people who actually do. And that gap what we want, what we desire, and what we actually say yes to, or what we commit to, or what we show up for. That gap isn’t usually about our belief or our desire or what’s deep in our heart. It’s about what we expect the experience to be like. You know—I’ve said this before in several places, at conferences, on podcasts—I’m not shocked that more people aren’t volunteering. I’m actually shocked that people still volunteer at all, because I really do believe most of us have had a lot of negative experiences, in churches, in relationships, in what we experience when we’re on a team, when there’s angry people, when there’s mixed expectations, when we’re showing up for something and it’s not what we thought we were showing up for.

Because this is the part that we don’t always see. The expectations that people have, that we all come in with, don’t start with the announcement that just was made in church for a volunteer. These expectations have been forming over time with what we’ve seen, what we’ve experienced, what we’ve heard from others, how ministry has felt over not just this Sunday, but over the years. So when you say, ‘Hey, we need some help’, no one is hearing that in a neutral way. They’re not just hearing it from you. They’re filtering it through everything that they’ve already believed about volunteering that they’ve already experienced, and oftentimes that experience has looked like over commitment, unclear expectations, doing things alone, feeling stuck once they say yes, stepping into something that is already stretched, not because any one of us meant for it to feel that way, but just because that’s what it’s become.

So when you invite somebody to volunteer and they just have that look on their face, it could be a look that’s going to say yes, it could be a look that’s going to say no, just understand that people aren’t reacting to our ask. They’re not reacting to that one question. We’re all reacting to what volunteering has come to mean. Now, I know there’s a thought that comes up. I’ve already mentioned it that has come up on social media. It’s come up to my face. It’s come up at conferences when people say, well, volunteering shouldn’t be about us. We’re supposed to serve out of obedience. It’s not about whether it feels good or not. And honestly, I agree with a lot of that.

Serving isn’t about getting something back. But that doesn’t mean that how we treat people doesn’t matter. These are not the same thing. Please hear this. I’m not saying make it easy so people will like it. I’m saying how we treat people matters. Setting people up for success is important, and honestly, I really believe this is spiritual. Let me say it in a different way. It’s not unspiritual for people to want to be part of something where people are kind and thoughtful and actually value each other. That is not selfish. It’s actually very spiritual, and honestly, it’s biblical. We are told to love people well, to honor one another, to serve one another, and from a side in ministry where we’re asking people to volunteer, it’s not just about getting the job done.

Being obedient, to step up to serve does not cancel out how we treat people serving God and treating people well. These are not competing values. So we don’t get to call somebody spiritual or unspiritual if they don’t want to be part of something that wears them down, where they feel beat up, like let’s stop doing that, we don’t get to separate the call of ministry or commitment from how people experience it. Now, because you’re on the other end of a tablet or a mobile device or a computer, I don’t get to see how this is landing for you, and I wish I did. I wish we could have a two way conversation, which is why we love our live events, which is why we love our live conferences that are online. It’s one of the reasons I love our membership group so much, because we get to get on Zoom calls together and have two way conversations. But what I’m talking about here isn’t comfort. It’s not about making it easy for everybody to volunteer. It’s not about lowering the bar of expectations. It’s actually about asking, ‘Are we creating environments where people can thrive, not just survive or get through it’, because when volunteers, when people who are serving constantly feel or consistently feel overlooked or stretched or stuck, we don’t grow like that. Like this isn’t just a church conversation on obedience or service or getting people to fill the slots or fill in the gaps.

This is literally about how people are wired, biologically and psychologically, all of us, and by the way, how we’re wired is how God created us, His kids. We only last as long as we can, and that’s why this matters so much.

This question we’re talking about is because I honestly don’t believe we just need people to serve to get the job done. We want to grow. We want them to grow. We want to stay and feel like we’re doing something that’s making a difference. We want them to stay and feel like they’re doing something that’s making a difference. This isn’t us and them, it’s both. We’re all in this together, and could we act. Actually experience community while we’re serving and volunteering. Like, how awesome is that we’re not trying to make serving easier for the sake of making it easier or more palatable or more culturally relevant? We’re talking about making serving healthier. So this is what we’re talking about, is why we’re struggling to get church volunteers, and it’s not usually what we think. We think that people are too busy, or they’re uncommitted, and this is not the truth. So often we feel like people are saying yes or no to our ask for a specific thing. Can you help at Vacation Bible School? Can you serve in this way? Could you teach this class? Could you help do the bulletins? Could you serve with hospitality? And what I want to bring up in awareness is that people aren’t just saying yes or no to the ask for that one thing.

People are actually saying yes or no to how they believe they’re going to experience it. And this is not a recruiting issue. Here’s where the question shifts. I want to get past this question of, how do we get more people, and start raising up the question of, what do people think they’re stepping into? If they say, yes, do you see how that’s a completely different lens. It’s a completely different question, yes, but it’s a completely different way of looking at it. What if it’s not about getting more people anymore, but it’s about understanding what people think they’re stepping into if they say yes, because now we’re not just thinking about filling roles, getting a quick need met, filling a service position. We’re starting to think about and consider what it feels like to be part of this position, this ministry, this team, this church.

We’re thinking about how people experience it from the outside, about what they’re expecting before they even say yes. And I just want to say if we want different responses, we want more yeses. We want people feeling like they’re part of a team. We want more development of servants, of volunteers, of whatever word you use in your church, like team member, then we have got to change what people think they’re stepping into, because I got to be honest, if they’re saying no, it’s because they don’t believe they’re stepping into something that’s healthy or purposeful, or where they can make a difference, or where they belong.

Most churches are not struggling to get people to say yes once. They’re also struggling with people staying, which means we are almost always in positions of rebuilding. This is our modern church culture. This is the lack of volunteerism, the thought that people don’t want to or are too busy. And I just want to say that is not usually the core issue. It’s a pattern that we’re in that recruiting alone is never going to fix. It’s never going to fix that, and that’s where we’re going next. We need to maybe get a hold of this, or get a handle on this, that this isn’t a recruiting issue, this isn’t a numbers problem.

People aren’t responding the way that we want, the way that we expect, the way that we need, because they’re not responding to a need for a volunteer. They’re responding to what they believe they’re going to experience. Because they have a reason for this, because what they’ve experienced in the past—sometimes a recent past, sometimes a history of past years—is not even the same as what we think we’re inviting them into. If you’re on the inviting end of this, come help at Vacation Bible School. Come serve with us. Most likely you have a commitment to the church that you are in or to the ministry area. You’re passionate about it, you’re finding meaning in it the way that you serve. Maybe a way that you are experiencing in some way that makes you feel needed, loved, making a difference. You’re committed to this very possibly because of your long held faith, your belief in what the church is and and who God called us to be and this is beautiful, but we’ve got to remember that these expectations and our experiences have been forming over time, and we’re when we’re asking people from the outside in to come into it. I think it’s so healthy to realize that what we’ve experienced might not be what they have experienced.

So I think one thing to realize is we’ve got to stop just trying to get volunteers and realize that we’re actually if it’s going to work, well, right? If our churches are going to get healthy, we’re actually going to change a culture that people have already adapted to, right? So if we’re struggling with volunteers, and this is over and over and over again, or the volunteer commitment is low, or we’re seeing this happen in our the church culture that we’re in, or just in our society, we can talk about that we’re actually part of changing a culture that people have adapted to. And if this episode feels a little theoretical, I’m going to give you some really practical stuff before we end here. But I think we’ve got to start wondering why it’s so hard for people to say yes. Like, what is it like? Instead of, you know, just blaming a culture or saying people are busy, or no one steps up anymore, or the few people are doing all the work, let’s start asking, why would it be hard to say yes? Here, you know, maybe we see little bits of it, but we don’t know what to do yet. And this makes sense, it’s okay. It’s not going to happen overnight. People have learned that volunteering doesn’t always feel great, that people in churches aren’t always really nice. People have learned what happens when they say yes, what it costs them in a lot of different ways, and we make decisions based on this.

Again, it doesn’t change overnight. It doesn’t change because we changed our announcement and it’s really slick now. Or it doesn’t just change because we made a personal ask. I want to make sure that we all feel this, that we’re not failing at recruiting. It’s not because we’re terrible at recruiting. We’re working against a pattern that people already understand. So let’s talk about just a couple things we can actually do. Instead of trying to fix everything all at once, I just want to give a place to start that actually matches what we’re talking about here. The first thing is this, stop trying to fix the system all at once, like we don’t need to rebuild an entire volunteer culture overnight. Think about the area that you’re in, or the area that you’re trying to fill the gaps for some place where you’re looking for volunteers or more help, or where you’re building a team, just start in one little place. And the second step I’m going to give you is hard, because I’m going to ask you to stop filling the gap immediately. You may have a gap in—you know, running the slides on Sunday morning, or there may be a gap in Children’s Ministry or hospitality or even a leadership position on the elder board—when there’s a gap, instead of rushing to fill it, let’s take a breath.

I know it’s uncomfortable, uncomfortable. I know that things need to happen. But when we step in quickly to fill the gap ourselves or try to find somebody to plug that hole, we are reinforcing the same pattern that would be healthier to change. So instead of filling that gap right away, pause long enough to ask, why would this feel hard to step into? What is it that we’re actually fighting? Because if we keep filling the gap, we don’t understand the problem. So to really take a pause and say, Why would this be hard to step into? Would people maybe feel like they’re alone serving? Do we not have support? Is it that endless position where nobody gets a break, or there’s no replacement, there’s no team, and then before you fill the gap, before you ask someone to step in, change part of the experience? Go back to that. Why would it be hard and change part of that? Just one part that might be making sure that nobody’s doing anything alone. It might be clarifying what’s expected, or, you know, writing up a little manual, something short and simple about what’s actually expected. It might be simplifying what we’re asking people to do, or creating space for people to speak into this first to ask their questions. Because if the experience doesn’t change, the reason that it’s hard to step into this, the response is not going to change either.
We’re going to be continuing a pattern of maybe not the healthiest experience, because just asking people better doesn’t fix a bad experience, if we’re not setting people up to be successful or to be in positions that are honoring and lovely and places of growth and places with support. Asking better doesn’t fix a bad experience. So the first thing is just not trying to fix the whole system, getting really specific about where we’re at. The second thing is stop filling gaps immediately. Instead asking, Why is this hard to step into? The third thing is changing a little piece of that experience, what they’re going to experience if they say yes, before we ask. And the fourth thing I’m going to suggest is just to start small, but do something differently. That’s it. It’s the last one. Just do something differently. Instead of trying to get four people, just try one. Have a real conversation, ask for input, listen differently, just do something together and differently, even if it’s small, even if it doesn’t fill the whole gap.

Because what we’re building is not just finding help. What we’re building is trust, ownership grows in small, real moments. It doesn’t grow in slick announcements. And I know this is slower. I’m not going to pretend this isn’t a slow route, but I have to be honest, I believe Jesus took the slow route. I believe God set up this whole world, not in instant McDonald meals and microwaves and Insta Pots. God set up seasons and growth to be slow. So if this feels slow to you like you can’t just fix the fill the gaps immediately. I’m not going to pretend it’s not slower, but it is real, and it does last. And what we’re about here is really changing things to make them healthier, not just about having more people. So anytime I do a podcast series, it is so difficult because I know what next week is, and I know what the next week is, and I know how we’re going to bring this together and make it practical and give more solution. But just like with anything in life, if we don’t address the core issues and understand what we’re looking for—if we don’t get back to the core—we can’t move to solutions, to the solutions.

So just to bring today’s episode together, when we think that this is a numbers problem, like we need more volunteers, there’s no way we can solve get to a solution for the wrong problem, because the reason people aren’t responding isn’t just because of the ask or the role or because they’re not because they’re too busy. People aren’t responding the way that we want, but they’re not responding to the same thing, to that need. They’re responding to the experience of what they think or know it will be like. And again, those expectations, those experiences, those beliefs, have been forming for a long time. So sometimes we think we’re not getting volunteers because we’re not asking right, or they don’t like us, or they’re not committed. And I want to say the bigger reason people say yes or no is based on what they believe they’re going to experience. And we’ve got to look at that again.

This isn’t about selfishness. This isn’t about comfort. This isn’t about making it easier. It’s about honoring people and setting up spaces where people are loved and supported, where we’re setting people up for success. So before you ask for help with anything, just take a pause and ask if I were somebody who’s a little more on the outside, what would I think this is going to be like, not what we intend or what we wish for them, or what we want. But what do we think they’re really thinking, what do they think this is going to be like? What does that feel like from the outside? And just start there. Now. Next week, we’re going to build on this. Because when we start to see this, the next question becomes, what needs to change? I’m actually going to be walking through four very specific shifts that change how people experience ministry from the inside. And just a heads up, this whole series is building towards something we have been working on behind the scenes, because so many people have been asking, Okay, how do we do this? How do we do it differently? I want specific. I want steps. I want systems.

We’re going to walk through a really cool thing together in a live workshop coming up on May 16. If you’re listening live, if you’re listening later, there’ll be a recording. It’s a whole resource we’re building out so you’ll also have access to that, but just a little bit of a sneak peek. So we’ll be sharing more about that soon. Thanks for being here today. If this episode put some words to something you’ve been seeing or feeling, would you please take a minute to leave a review? It really does help more church leaders and ministry volunteers. Just find us here at Small Church Ministry. So give us some stars. Leave a review. Love to hear from you. All right, we’ll talk to you again next week.