Four Types of Volunteer Huddles (and Why They Matter)
We’ve talked before about the importance of the volunteer huddle. Whether you hold yours prior to the service or once the service is underway (and that article includes an argument for the latter), a regular and brief touch-base is important to keep your vols aligned.
But what types of huddles should you have, and how does each function in your larger ecosystem?
Here are the four huddles I suggest:
1. Coaching and skill development
The natural path of a vision is that it will eventually leak. Great intentions get forgotten. Once-shiny skills get rusty. The best of your team takes their collective eye off the ball.
That’s why this huddle is vital. I recommend that you have a rotating list of crucial items that you want your team to know: things like a skeleton crew, reminders that weekends are for new friends, and tips on how to stay alert. If there are problem areas like a team being too friendly, this is the huddle in which to address that, as well.
2. Vision casting
While #1 might remind volunteers of what should be, #2 points them to what could be. Have a regular rotation of “why” reinforcement. If your initial volunteer onboarding is vision-focused (as it should be!), revisit some of the original notions that drew them to the team.
One way of solidifying vision is through stories. You should have a story repository, and you should use those often. Repeat a classic story that you’ve shared before. Pass along an anecdote you heard the previous weekend. When we tie our “why” to a positive outcome, the actions that led to that outcome will get repeated.
3. Info dump
There are times that we just need to get a message across: communion has moved from pre-sermon to post. The middle school group is meeting offsite today. There’s a new check in procedure for kids. And while some of this can be communicated prior to the weekend via email, a face-to-face reminder is always helpful.
But I’d encourage you to use your info share strategically. Give your volunteers advance notice of something that’s coming…long before the general congregation gets wind of it. That helps them to buy in, ask questions, get equipped with answers (because they’ll be asked), and take ownership of what’s to come.
4. Prayer
We dare not talk about our plans and fail to seek God on his. We should create a spirit of desperation in our volunteers for the Spirit to do what only he can do in our services.
I would encourage you here not to simply have the round-robin prayer request time. Those have their place, but they can get time consuming. And we can spend far more time praying for someone’s cousin’s second-grade teacher’s ingrown toenail than we can praying for the Spirit to bring dead souls to life that very morning. So lead your people in targeted, timely prayer for your service, and leave the never-ending prayer request for small groups (Small group leaders: you’re welcome.).
[bonus!] Post-service debrief
On the rare occasion that you roll out a brand new initiative that your volunteers have a hand in (or are affected by), it might be helpful to have a quick touch-base to see how it went. That immediate feedback can arm you with the data points you need to make changes for the following weekend.
It’s important to note a couple of things about the above examples:
- Not every type of huddle needs to get the same type of focus. I would encourage you to consider a schedule for your huddles, where you rotate through the four types on a regular basis.
- Some elements need to make it into every huddle. You should pray every time you gather. Some times, you might choose to only pray. Others, you might offer a quick prayer to wrap up. Likewise, some Sundays an anecdotal story (#2 above) might be the foundation for your entire huddle. Another, it might serve as the cherry on a huddle sundae. (Did I just use the term “huddle sundae”? I did.)
