Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Well, in my experience, one thing that churches can never have enough of is volunteers. But the stats seem to show that the level of volunteerism is actually on the decline within churches. In this episode, we're going to talk about eight things your church can do to get more volunteers. Let's do this.
You're listening to the Reach Right podcast, the show dedicated to helping your church reach more people and grow.
Hey guys, I'm Thomas.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: And I'm ian.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: And today we're talking about why your church volunteers are vanishing and what you can do to win them back. Should be an interesting conversation. This is coming from a study recently put out there by the Unstuck group and it's pretty mind blowing what they found. 45% to 50% of people pre pandemic volunteered at their church on a regular basis. So it was at 45% to 50%.
Now that number is all the way down to 34% of regular churchgoers are volunteering on a regular basis at their church. So from 45 to 50 down to 34%.
Kind of heartbreaking to think about it.
We don't do this to be a discouragement to people, but I can do that though. Yeah, it's important to live in reality. And I don't know, I've kind of seen this within churches that I'm talking to and within my own church, it seems like that this has been harder than it has been in the past.
Why it is there's a lot of different theories out there. Maybe you have some, Ian, but I think people, in a lot of ways, at least what I've seen in some churches I'm talking to, is that people stepping back from volunteering in the pandemic season, they kind of maybe became comfortable. We got used to that rhythm that was there and rekindling the rhythm of serving and volunteering. It can be a challenge for a lot of churches to try and help people do that there. So I don't know. Do you have any theories as to what's behind that?
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Oh, gosh. Well, I think through what we share as far as what can improve it, we'll uncover quite a bit. But I think it's kind of in the same vein as why attendance, even though attendance, church attendance has gone up a bit post pandemic, it still has been down compared to where it was pre pandemic for over a lot of churches. And so I think it's the same thing. But I think why it's even this stat is probably even worse than attendance is.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: It's more commitment.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: And if people are already kind of apprehensive to be regular churchgoers or regular attenders at a church, and if that's still been something that's been on the mend, then how much more yeah, to even take that commitment. So I think it's commitment level. I think we're also in a day and age and I can relate here, having, and you can as well, kids in sports, the fast paced culture we have you got a lot of stuff competing with people kind of taking that extra step and giving a little bit more time. So there's one other factor but I know there's a lot more.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's exactly it. I think it's the commitment, like it's the commitment level that people are intimidated by that and we're not getting any more comfortable with commitment as time goes on either. I think that's just a general trend over my entire lifetime is that people are less and less willing to commit to anything, whether it be relationships and marriages and they're less willing to do it to their church just across the board. Just commitment is not something that we're fond of because we like our own control of these things. So inviting people to volunteer again and we have some strategies we want to talk about in this conversation that we've seen are tried and true and we talked to real churches and these are working and these are things that your church can do and we believe they will work for a lot of you. So anyway, we wanted to share some of those. The first one and this is kind of I don't know if this is an increasing volunteer strategy as much as it is a strategy to need less, but it's basically reassessing your volunteer roles. I think that in a lot of cases maybe we're set up for a world back when we had 50% of our regular church attenders regularly volunteering and we may need to actually take a step back and reassess. Can we change this up a little bit in two primary ways? Do we need all of these roles? Are some of these redundant? Can we combine some of these roles where it makes sense? And then also I think reassessing to think about maybe people's willingness and the time they're willing to give. Can we in some ways break up these roles into smaller chunks? So maybe a role that used to take 3 hours a week, can we turn it into a 1 hour a week job for two or three people and kind of reduce the threshold for people to initially say yes to volunteering? Now, I understand that we want people to be giving more of their lives, not less of their lives towards the work that God's doing and being involved in church more. But I think just helping them get over that initial hump and saying yes to something, I think getting them there is really the first battle we have to overcome there. So I think reassessing some of those roles is a great first step.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And in that step. One other thing I'll just add to that is that if it is something that's maybe less time consuming and once they step into that and you reduce that apprehension and they're committed as we're talking about with that word, they may find that they are going to want to do more once it's fulfilling to them. So I think that was a good last.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: I think in most cases that will happen. I think that whenever they're able to volunteer and you actually have great program, you have great things set up there and it's meaningful and you're actually seeing results, people will, generally speaking, be like, this is really life giving for me and they'll want to be doing it more. So I think that's it getting them over. The initial hurdle is the challenge.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And then the next one here, once you do reassess your volunteer opportunities, maybe it's time to host a volunteer reboot event. So if you've assessed it or reassessed some things, let's create some excitement and host an event where people can come out and this is where you can rekindle enthusiasm for it. Recast the vision, talk about new roles maybe that have been created, and time commitments, all that, that we just talked about, have a chance for people to ask questions that again, will reduce their apprehension and make them more likely to commit to volunteering. So I think this one would be a great idea. Yeah.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: So we used to call it our ministry fair. And what it was is basically every volunteering opportunity would have a little booth basically set up almost like you would go to a convention hall or a trade show and you'd see little booths and they were really scaled down. But they would have these things set up. And we'd encourage it would usually be after church on a Sunday. We'd encourage everybody after service to kind of on their way out, walk through the ministry fair and kind of see and chat with some people and talk. And this would help people kind of get over that hump, talking to leaders and being actively invited to participate in a specific volunteer role. It really went a long way. So if you really broke it down at your church, you probably have at least, I'd say, a dozen volunteering opportunities. Even the smallest churches have that many kind of different assignments out there. Larger churches, you could have dozens or if not 100 different volunteering opportunities and places to serve. Whether it be lighting or video or sound or worship team or whatever it would be. There's so many different places people can get involved. So just making sure that the volume of opportunity is known to them and then there's an easy way to have conversations with the leaders of these ministries, I think that really helps people.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good stuff.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Next one, leverage personal testimonies, giving people a chance to hear what are some of the results of these ministries that are happening. So on these, I'm talking more about the impact that the actual volunteering has had on people. So if you're trying to recruit people to be on your worship team, for instance, or your children's ministry, let's use that as an example. This would be telling testimonies of kids and the impact they've experienced as a result of going through children's ministry and your programming there at your church. So maybe this is a story of an adult or someone who just graduated from high school and they talk about the impact that your church has had on their lives from the time that they were five years old and talking about some of their Sunday school or their children's ministry leaders and people they've built relationship at my church. I've been bringing my brother with me to church and it's amazing because there's a lady within our church who she was at our church when I was like seven or eight years old and my brother was in her children's ministry class right then. And he immediately sees her and has this they give each other a big hug and it's just so great to see those two reunited after, I don't know, 20 or 30 years probably that they hadn't seen each other. And it was an immediate connection because everybody has really fond memories of those people that taught them and invested in them when they were young people.
I have mostly fond memories of my children's ministry leaders when I was a kid. I don't know if they're all fond memories or not, but I'd say mostly fond.
I was from the deep like flannel graph era of children's ministry. So I remember like a strict Bible verse memorization programs and some of those things. But I will say that I have great respect for the woman that led our children's ministry and I really would love to sit down and share a cup of coffee with her today and thank her. But it was definitely challenging. I didn't love it as a kid maybe, but I'm very thankful for it now. There was some fruit. Absolutely.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: You're right. It can go both ways. There could be bad testimonies of good ones, no, but we obviously want to focus on the positive ones. So we'll go to next one. This one's very important. Now it's digital onboarding of volunteers. So if you don't have a way a digital on ramp for people to volunteer quickly or get the information they need about volunteering and do those types of things, then you're really missing out. So there's several obviously different ways to do this, but having of course resources online for volunteers, of course, taking a step back, having a way for a volunteer to register to volunteer or sign up to volunteer online, whether or not that's on your website. A QR code, however, but something that you want to make sure that you provide an on ramp for.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a great idea. Like with the QR codes, I think that if you're ever pitching a volunteer opportunity on a Sunday morning, I think giving people an opportunity to do something right then with it. So if you're talking about Children's Ministry volunteer opportunities, having a QR code right behind you, that someone can hold up their phone to and scan up on the screen and actually say, yeah, I'm interested in learning more about, this or you have a super simple domain on your site, so it's go to ourchurch.com kids and you can get some more information about getting signed up with this here. So giving them those opportunities on the front end of the onboarding, I think also with the ongoing part of the onboarding, like getting them trained and ready to go, I think that's one of the things that people are afraid of is the time commitment in learning the role, right? So if someone is looking to get involved in youth ministry, for instance, you probably have things like background checks that you have to do and training about things we do and don't and safety regulations and those kinds of things. Make a video that highlights those things and then have them do their background check online and get all that stuff done so that it just makes the process seamless and that they can use their time that's there at the church and doing the volunteering actually ministering to kids in this case here, digital onboarding is huge.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah, big time.
Yeah.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: Next one is highlighting the impact. So where I was talking before about personal testimonies, this is now talking about the impact. So it's kind of both end. We talked about the impact that these volunteer opportunities have on people. We could also talk about the impact that they have on the volunteers themselves, I guess is what I'm getting at. So we all know that volunteering, it does more for us than it does for the people in a lot of cases that we're volunteering for. If you've ever been on a missions trip, you know this to be true. You go and do a missions trip overseas and you're working on I don't know why they have us unskilled American laborers go and build buildings in third world countries. I don't really get that. But they would have us do those kinds of things. And I don't know that the buildings that I built when I did that in the past, I kind of doubt that they're still standing knowing my carpentry skills. But I do know that it did great things for me as the volunteer and the impact it made on me was enormous. And this is the case for everything. So yes, the children are blessed when we do children's ministry and yes, our church is blessed when we play drums on the worship team, but it does something for us. And being able to share those kinds of stories as well of the kind of impact and the kind of person it makes me when I volunteer, I think that really helps people kind of say yes to volunteering as well.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Because they're relating and seeing the fulfillment opportunity for themselves.
This next one is a good segue. It's a good segue to this next one, show appreciation and recognize your volunteers.
If someone's serving on a regular basis and again, they're committed, there's that big word we're using, commitment. That's what volunteerism is at a church. And if they are doing a good job of that, they need to be appreciated. So how are you doing that? Are you doing appreciation events? Maybe it's a meal. It's blessing them with a meal. Maybe it's highlighting them in your church newsletter. It could be gift cards, thank you notes.
Those things go a long way to someone to know, hey, we appreciate you taking the extra time and serving our church the way that you're serving. So to me, this one's a no brainer.
I could see I'll say one thing to that I could see again. Once we get in the grind of ministry often, and it's easy to forget this sometimes too, if you have things, your systems and your processes in place, it's easy to kind of forget, hey, take the time to step back and thank these people. So we get how that could be missed, but should happen for sure.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: I don't think it's possible to over encourage people when it comes to volunteering. I think that this is something that every chance you get, you should take the opportunity to be praising your volunteers and people like, if you're ever talking about children's ministry, take the time to thank the people that are actually doing it. Give them a round of applause for all the work that they do. And every time you go back there to pick up, if you're a pastor that has your own kids, go back there and thank them for the way they invest in your kids and the work that they do. So just doing that, just saying thank you and working that into the culture of your church of thanking and celebrating and commending people that give sacrificially like this, I think that really will help you and it'll get people over the hump with this here. That's good. All right, next one is utilize social media. This is a great place to do some of that thanking we were talking about before. So make that maybe like a weekly thing where you're highlighting volunteers and people that are answering the call and serving within your church and serving in your community, having a regular schedule on social media where you highlight some of these things, I think that's super helpful.
Social media is also a great tool to highlight needs that you have. But I have found that if you're going to be focusing on one or the other, whether it's highlighting the deep need or highlighting the great reward, I would always focus on the reward it's on. Talk on social media about how great it is to be a volunteer and don't appeal to people from the place of, hey, we're really lacking volunteers and we really need more people and we're desperate. Don't go that route. Go the other way. Go that, hey, it's so fulfilling and great and rewarding and impactful to be a volunteer. But social media is a great place for these things to happen there. So you want to make sure you include links. So back to getting to that digital onboarding idea. Give people links to take that next step. Call them to action in your social media posts if they are interested in maybe going to one of those initial meetings to kind of see if it's interesting to them or not. That ministry fair idea we were talking about before, give people an opportunity to jump in on some of that stuff. But yeah, I think social media is a great tool to use to get people to say yes to volunteering.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: Absolutely.
Well, last but not least here we have engage in one on one conversations with your volunteers.
Obviously, if someone's already serving, take the time to ask how are they fulfilled with it? They feel like they're using their gifts. And then this also might be that you feel like someone in your church will be good at a specific area of service.
So just based on their leadership abilities or based on how they interact with people, if someone's not as personal and mean, we put them in the parking lot ministry to serve. And I'm kidding, kind of, but you're relegated. Yeah, if someone's good at stopping people and they're maybe not a people person, they'd be really good at making sure people park and don't park where they're supposed to. I'm kidding. But I'm just saying think about people that in your church that would be best suited for certain things. That just was a funny example that popped in my mind because we have quite the parking lot process when people come and go and I've seen people, for lack of a better word, lose their salvation in our church parking lot. So the people that are managing that and keeping it organized yeah, your church.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: You guys are thousands of people every Sunday. And so to see that how many services do you guys do?
[00:18:44] Speaker B: We have three services on a Sunday in particular.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Yeah. So you have that transition time, I imagine, is when most people do lose their minds. There like in between a couple of.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: Services, but I've been at times cut off. I'm like, did you just listen to the sermon or what happened?
You were just in there with me. Right? What happened? Kidding.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: No, they're still coming in. They were on their way in, I think, to service. They hadn't heard it yet.
Yeah, I think you're right. Just the one on one conversations, though, that is where it's going to happen, I think, especially on the recruitment side.
The thing is you're not going to be able to meet your volunteer need just by presenting opportunities on social media and from the pulpit and then waiting for people to come in. You will always need to actually personally invite people in one on one conversations to take that step. Invite them to pray about it. I think that's my one bit of advice for that. Don't just tell them they should do it, but invite them in their relationship with the Lord to kind of bring it before him and see what he would say and let God take care of it from there. But I think prompting that with an individual request one on one, I think that's where you're going to get the best results in the end.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: That's good stuff. Good stuff.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: Good. Well, I hope this has been helpful. We've all struggled with this. I've pastored for years and I know that recruiting volunteers is one of the hardest jobs in ministry. And try as we might, you will never have as many as you want. And to see it having gone down over the last few years is really a challenge. So hopefully this has been helpful to you. We'll never have 100% commitment to volunteering at our church, but I think this may be some tools you can do to get back up towards that 50 or above. So if it has been helpful to you, let us know in the comments if we missed something that maybe you do as a church to help get more volunteers. Maybe a tip you want to share with other pastors that watch these videos here, that would be great. So let us know down in the comments on that. Thanks for being a part of the reach right family. Hit the subscribe button and we'll see you next time.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: See you.
