You Need a Skeleton Crew
What happens when a guest shows up late to your church?
What do they see? What do they experience? What do they do? Where do they go?
Not long ago I arrived at one of our campuses about a half hour into the service. I pulled into the parking lot, saw our familiar “turn on your hazard lights” sign, saw another sign, and then…nothing. No parking team. No one on the sidewalk. No one at the front door. Not one single volunteer until I made my way into the lobby.
If I had been a first time guest and had turned on my hazards as instructed, what would’ve happened? What would my next step have been?
“But wait,” ye protest, “You should’ve been on time. You should’ve followed the rules.”
Well, maybe. But not everyone is on time. And guests don’t always follow the rules. And people who show up late are usually in more of a need of a good first impression.
So you need a skeleton crew. You need a small contingent of vols who takes one for the team and serves as an advocate for guests out in the parking lot…and on the sidewalk…and in the lobby…and at the auditorium door. You need a scant handful of people who will hand over their time while a guest trusts us with theirs.
Tough to do? Maybe. Hard to fill that roster? Yep. But our guests’ comfort is worth it.
Rattle dem bones.
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[…] the existence of God. Arrived late and doesn’t know where to go because there’s not a skeleton crew. Pairs of volunteers draw cards out of each stack and do a two minute role play (or discussion) on […]
[…] 1. Not everyone goes to VHQ. The main reason for the Attend One Serve One strategy is that we want there to be a volunteer presence at all points of the morning. Once the service is well underway, we scale back to a skeleton crew (around 10% of our team) and leave them in place so that they’re available for late-arriving guests. These crews rotate from week to week so that everyone gets to VHQ…most of the time. Related post: You Need a Skeleton Crew […]
[…] our volunteer team mostly involved a rotation of people who would take turns serving as a skeleton crew, covering the basics of the guest services team: staffing the first time guest tent, manning the […]