Volunteer Culture: How to Lead a Ladder-Climber
This is the third in a four-part series on the types of people we find on our volunteer teams. Missed the first part? Get started here. Defining the Ladder-Climber In the first post of this...
Category: Volunteer Culture
Volunteer Culture: How to Lead a Laborer
This is part two of a four-part series on the types of people we find on our volunteer teams. Missed the first part? Get started here. Defining the Laborer In the first post of this...
Q&A: How Do I Deal with an Inconsistent Staff Leader?
Q: I’m a volunteer on a ministry team at my church. The staff member who manages our team is inconsistent at best. How can I navigate this? [from the 2024 blog survey] A: It’s hard...
How to Lead a Book Discussion
In a recent post I talked about how to choose a book (or books, because plural books are better) with your volunteers or staff. In this post, I want to talk about how you actually...
Laborers, Ladder-Climbers, and Lifers
For those of us who lead volunteer teams within the church, I think it’s important to get inside the head of our vols: what motivates them? What demotivates them? What makes them feel appreciated? What...
“This is Too Corporate.”
I heard those four words again not long ago. I was with a group of church leaders in another state, and the topic of training guest services volunteers came up. One of the staff repeated...
4 Reasons Volunteering Within the Church is Crucial
This is an article I recently published with Lifeway Research. You can see the original post here. All of us love a good “count me in” story: those accounts—either wholly historical or mostly anecdotal—that capture...
Should You Serve On a Team That You Lead?
Leaders of volunteers are a hardy bunch: they have to possess the perfect mix of visionary, recruiter, trainer, coach, administrator, encourager…sometimes it feels like we hold every role from chief cook to bottle washer. And...
Building Fast vs. Building Well
There’s a tension between building a healthy volunteer culture and the breakneck urgency of filling critical spots. Maybe you’ve experienced that if you’ve recently experienced high turnover on a team or been asked to create...
“Just Tell Me What To Do.”
In many years of leadership, I’ve learned that volunteers are not fans of micromanagement. They like to have the freedom to be creative, to use their God-given common sense, to add a bit of panache...
