So you’d love to see more volunteers serve in your church or organization.
Who wouldn’t?
And yet when it come to volunteers, a surprising number of leaders struggle. Many leaders suffer from:
A chronic shortage
High turnover
Mediocre or poor morale
Ask most leaders why this is, and they can’t tell you.
And yet the reasons are not that difficult to figure out. Often you just need to shift perspectives.
Start With This One
Here’s a simple place to start. If you’re always short on volunteers, ask yourself:
Would you volunteer for you?
Answer honestly. The response can be very telling.
If the answer’s no (or you think the answer is yes, but almost everyone else would answer it for you differently), then the next step is to figure out why. Why aren’t people stepping up or sticking around?
That’s where the next seven questions can help.
Seven Questions Every Volunteer Asks
Almost every volunteer at some point probably asks variations of these seven questions, whether they ever say them out loud or not. If you’ve volunteered for someone else, you’ve probably asked them whether you realize it or not.
Develop great, healthy answers to these seven questions, and volunteers are far more likely to stick around.
Better yet, they’re likely to grow and flourish under your leadership.
1. Is this really about the mission?
Most people want to give themselves to a cause that’s bigger than themselves. In my view, no cause is greater or more worthy than the mission of the local church.
Yet many churches lose focus on the mission.
Volunteering ends up being about:
Filling a slot
Meeting a need
Doing your duty
Or, in the worst case scenario, volunteering can become more about serving the ego of the leader than it is about serving Christ.
When you keep the true mission of the church or your organization central, people rally. For example, in addition to leading a local church, I sit on the board of directors for an extremely well-run local food bank. Their mission? A city in which no one is hungry. That’s inspiring.
When you lose focus on the mission, volunteers lose heart.
Every volunteer wants to give their time to something bigger than us or bigger than themselves. So give them that opportunity.
