The Churn of the Church Volunteer Team
This is the next installment in our ongoing “Large Church” series, which looks at guest services through the lens of the larger congregation: those with an average attendance of 800 or more. See the entire series here.
In an earlier article in this series, I proposed seven ways that larger churches struggle with hospitality. The final struggle on the board – or at least the final out of the original ones mentioned – is the churn of the church volunteer team.
This is a struggle of all sizes of churches, isn’t it? I’ve yet to meet a church leader who can honestly say, “Y’know what? I’m good. We have all the volunteers we need for all time. Turn off the faucets, please.”
But for the larger church, this tends to be a specific struggle for a few specific reasons. In fact, I believe it’s posslble that the larger the church, the more susceptible we are to creating volunteer churn. Let me outline a few of those and give some practical solutions.
5 ways larger churches create volunteer churn (and how to avoid them)
1. All menu, no map.
Big churches have big ministries. Big opportunities. A huge diversity of serving chances to choose from. For the newer guest or the uninvolved attendee, the “just pick one” philosophy can backfire. When there are too many options, some will opt out.
The solution is to provide a serving runway that utilizes newcomers events, membership classes, or generic volunteer orientation opportunties as mile markers on the way to the destination. Rather than “just pick one,” give people a vision for why serving is important, and recommend a specific first step.
2. We don’t suggest first, send later.
Around our place, we tell those interested in serving, “If you know exactly where you want to serve, great. You should ‘just pick one.'” But for those not sure where to start, we recommend they try Guest Services, Production, Prayer, Kids, or Students (the latter two after applications, background checks, etc.) These tend to be our most visible weekend ministries with the biggest needs, and with the most seamless onboarding processes so that the road from “I’m not sure where I fit” to “I’ve found my fit.” is a short one.
But we also recognize that some are just using those as a temporary stop-off until something more permanent catches their eye. Yes, we’ll have some lifers in our ministries, but we should also view our role as senders, not hoarders.
3. We adopt a “Book of Judges” strategy.
You know this strategy…it’s where every man does what is right in their own eyes. In volunteer ministry, it means that every ministry is out for themselves, with their own systems, rules, cultures, onboarding, offboarding, span of care, you name it. Practically, this can look like a family who is suffering in multiple serving schedules and expectations: Dad is on the parking team every single Sunday for a 30 minute stint, Mom is in the nursery but only when called, the teenage daughter is on the worship team and serves monthly, but in every single service throughout the weekend.
I love Nelson Searcy’s “lakes and ladders” model that he outlines in his excellent book Connect, but I don’t think we have to make it even that aligned. I think simply building similarity in the way our various ministries think about the philosophy of serving can be a huge help
4. We don’t pay attention to span of care.
I’ll say it again: larger churches have larger volunteer teams. And if you’re the leader of one of those larger volunteer teams, it’s all too easy to try to make it on your own. After all, if all of your volunteers are functioning out of the same playbook, why would you need a multiplicity of leaders to help you do that?
The answer is simple: it’s not just about how your volunteers serve, it’s about how you shepherd. Your volunteers have lives that are shaped by suffering and sin and sadness and schedules and sick kids and sudden layoffs. And once your volunteer numbers creep above about – oh, I don’t know – eight people, your ability to shepherd those situations gets dicey. Creating a plurality of leaders and paying attention to your span of care will do wonders for retention.
5. We don’t have one ring to rule them all.
There’s a simple solution to most of these problems, and I’ll admit at the jump that it’s not a solution we’ve ever successfully implemented. I’m talking about a church-wide volunteer coordinator position whose role is to tether all of our ministries to one aligned volunteer strategy.
This is a position I’ve long desired but never gotten the green light for. And I get it: it would be a significant slow down before we can speed back up. But if you’re at the phase of your church history where adding a volunteer coordinator might just work, you should pull that trigger.
One person giving voice to all systems and keeping check not on the ministries themselves, but how the ministries equip and care for and shepherd their volunteers – that’s a position worth checking out.
