Home Youth Leaders Articles for Youth Leaders 4 Areas You Should Delegate to Volunteers

4 Areas You Should Delegate to Volunteers

As student pastors we are called to not only serve students, but to equip our volunteers to serve students as well. We see this plainly stated in Ephesians 4:12 when Paul says, “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” We must always be thinking about how we can better train and equip our volunteers. Not only train and equip them, but we need to make sure we get them plugged into some area of our student ministry. If we just equip them, but not get them involved in serving, then we missed the point. Our volunteers are not just bench warmers for our ministry, they are vital to the success of our ministry. I want to share a few areas I have delegated to some of my volunteers. Delegation is not always easy, but it is necessary for the health and growth of your ministry.

Administrative Assistant. One of the areas many student pastors struggle is the area of adminstration. It may not even be they are bad at it, but they just don’t have enough time in the day to get all the administrative details done. This is why an administrative assistant is huge for a student pastor! Unfortunately, many churches will not hire a staff person for this position, so the student pastor is left to do it on his own. But this is a great area for a volunteer to step in and serve. You may have a volunteer that is extremely gifted in this area and will jump at the opportunity. I recently plugged one of my volunteers into this role in our ministry. She is going to come in once a week and help with administrative stuff. If you need help in this area, find a volunteer to delegate some of the admin stuff to.

WorshipYou may be blessed to have a completely student-led worship band, but many student ministries do not. A great place to start is to put a volunteer over this part of the ministry, particularly one that can lead worship or knows music, and let them run with it. Let them find students for the band and have them handle the worship side of your services. If you’re like me, you have no musical ability. I love music and can pick out good songs, but I have no clue how to form and lead a worship band. Find a volunteer who has a heart for this kind of thing and delegate this area of ministry to them. Also, they can become a mentor and leader to the students in the band.

Small Groups. This is probably the easiest and best way to get your volunteer involved. I believe every student ministry needs to incorporate small groups into their ministry (click here to see why). The only way to do this effectively is to have your volunteers become small group leaders. Rather that happens within your mid-week service or in homes throughout the week, use your volunteers as small group leaders. This will allow your ministry to disciple more students.

Event Planning. Planning events can take up a ton of your time and energy that should be used elsewhere. An area in which I am using a few volunteers is event planning. I give them an idea and they plan the event. This allows me to give them something to do and frees me up to do other things. There are some great volunteers out there who love this kind of thing. Find them and let them start planning some awesome events!

These are just a few areas I am delegating to my volunteers. Without them my ministry would not be what it is. If you’re having trouble finding volunteers, I’d encourage you to check out a post I wrote a few weeks ago about selecting new volunteers. In it I give a few practical ways you can find new volunteers for your student ministry (click here to view that post).

[Question] What are some areas of your ministry you have delegated to your volunteers?