Calling All Volunteers
Getting an adequate number of volunteers for children’s ministry is a real challenge for most churches
In a recent survey of its church leadership teams, Pioneer Clubs discovered that leader recruitment is an issue for nearly 75% of participating churches. Despite a broadly accepted understanding of the value of adult involvement in ministry with children, many congregations have difficulty in consistently providing an adequate number of volunteer leaders for their programs.
At LOGOS, we appreciate this challenge and point to a solution for increasing adult participation in ministry. We are committed to a defined, biblically-based process of call in which potential volunteers carefully discern God’s intention for their involvement and seek alignment between their gifts and the ministry’s needs. Elevating solicitation/recruitment to the status of call and discernment can energize the process and provide a stronger motivation for volunteers…but more importantly, it places God squarely in the midst of inviting disciples into ministry.
How does your ministry gain and retain volunteer leaders? God is calling us to serve…let’s make God’s call an important part of our work with children.
December 8, 2006 at 9:47 pm
Being called by God to serve the church seems a lot more compelling than volunteering (or being “recruited”)to be on a ministry team.
December 8, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Being called by God is such an awesome responsibility but very rewarding. One of the things I have noticed is that called people don’t burn out. They may need a rest or sabbatical but they don’t completely burn out the way over-taxed recruited volunteers do.
January 4, 2007 at 3:46 pm
As a former DCE, my biggest challenge was always staffing our programs. When I attended my first LOGOS training I learned how to use the Call process to staff our ministries. It changed everthing! What a relief to have workers who were blessed to be serving our children and youth. Other ministries of our church saw how we used the Call Process and asked us to teach them how to use it too. This transformed our church. This is powerful stuff!