You are not competing against the other teams in your church for volunteers.

You are not competing against the other teams in your church for time on an event calendar.

You are not competing against other churches in your community for new members to increase your volunteer base.

Instead:

You are competing against what the world wants your church members to do.

You are completing against the spiritual warfare going on in this world.

You are competing against the comfort zone of your church members.

It is time to refocus your efforts on something besides stealing volunteers from other teams or asking the same people to do more work. It is time to realize that there is a real battle going on for the attention of your church members. This means you must meet your church members where they are at, put yourself in their place, and find ways to join them in their lives.

Your goal isn’t to guilt them into serving. Your goal is to find ways to understand their interests and match them up with opportunities in the church.

It is time to stop competing against each other and compete against our real enemies that are stealing our future volunteers away from us.

The more difficult the skills involved, the more difficult it will be to recruit new volunteers. If you make the job of recruiting too easy, you’ll likely get a mismatch with the kind of volunteer that will best fit your team. The downside to this is that it takes longer to find new volunteers, so you have to constantly recruit for these kinds of positions.

The opposite of this is also true – the more difficult you make it for someone to be interested in and join your team, the less people you will attract.

The higher the barrier you create through required skills, required time commitment, and other factors, the more difficult it will be to recruit for your team.

How you match your barriers to entry with your volunteer recruiting will determine how many people you are able to attract. Make the activity more complicated and it will take longer to recruit, longer to train, and will likely require longer retention of your volunteers over time. Make the activity simpler and you can attract more people, but they may come and go from your team sooner.

Every position you fill for your team will require you to evaluate the type of person you need, the level of difficulty for the position being filled, and the most likely methods for recruiting volunteers to fill that position. Spend some time strategizing on this, as it will help you prepare for your next recruiting initiative, as well as ensure that you find the right people for your team.

I’m not saying to lie, cheat, or steal volunteers. What I am recommending is to consider doing something different if what you are doing today isn’t working.

Start talking to people rather than shying away from them.

Consider what they will get out of the time of volunteering, rather than what you want out of it.

Don’t assume that the type of volunteers you have today are the same kind that you need tomorrow.

Not praying? Pray about your need for volunteers.

Praying but not getting an answer? Ask God to open your eyes to the issue – it might be you, it might be Him wanting to slow you down, or it might just be something else entirely.

Whatever it takes, break out of your habits and try something different. You may be surprised at what happens.

Sign #1: The Overcommitted Volunteer

Every church or non-profit has a group of volunteers that sign up for everything. They often say ‘yes’ to every opportunity out of guilt or because of the belief that the more they do the better. Adding an overcommitted volunteer to your team can negatively impact everyone involved because they will fail to show up, under deliver, or burnout and bail.

Before adding volunteers to your team, find out where else they are serving and if they really have the time to commit. To find out, ask their other team leaders as they will never admit to being overcommitted.

Sign #2: The Know-It-All Volunteer

You know the type. These volunteers seem to know everything there is to know about how your team works. If they are being honest, they think they know more than you do – and they just might.

Know-it-all volunteers often suffer from a large ego that will get in the way of your team. Instead of finding know-it-all volunteers, find volunteers with a willing heart to learn. It may take more time to train them, but they will be more willing to learn and offer unbiased suggestions on improving your team.

Sign #3: The Indifferent Volunteer

The opposite of the know-it-all volunteer, these volunteers don’t really care for anything. They tend to never commit to any task, keeping your team from being effective. Often, their attitude manifests itself into the simple mantra “Hey, I’m a volunteer. Don’t like what I’m doing? Then fire me!”

Indifferent volunteers seem dependable, but create a poor attitude that can infest you and the rest of your team. Sometimes their attitude may be as a result of burnout in the past or due to a desire to volunteer out of guilt. Deal with their heart issue first before involving them in any critical areas of your team.

Sign #4: The New Believer Volunteer

When a volunteer is a new believer, they are often “on fire” and very excited. The upside is that they are usually eager and happy to serve in any capacity as a volunteer. This is a great thing and should be part of the process. However, many new believers are still struggling with understanding their new faith and being Spirit-led in their activities.

Be patient with new believers as you integrate them into the team. Don’t be in a hurry to give them activities just because they are excited about their new faith. Encourage them to be discipled and grow into their new faith by limiting their involvement. Finally, allow them to be involved in activities that are simple and don’t involve counseling until they have time to mature.

Sign #5: The Ex-Leader Volunteer

Occasionally, a leader from another church or ex-pastor will begin to attend your church and approach your team. This is especially the case with past worship leaders or Bible study leaders, as they naturally follow their skills and passions at a new church. The problem is that you don’t have any history with them, you don’t understand their heart, and don’t understand their assumptions and beliefs.

Let ex-leaders and volunteers from other churches start slow. Allow them to learn your church and team dynamics first, before allowing them to interject their own processes. Otherwise, you may quickly lose control of your team as they start to introduce constant change and frustration to your team.

The problem is that we assume everyone is built the same way we are when they aren’t. Instead, everyone has been built uniquely by God to be passionate and gifted in a certain area or areas.

Let’s do a quick mental exercise:

Picture your church all clustered together in your auditorium. Ask them to raise their hands if they like what your team is doing. You’ll probably see 10-25% raise their hands. Then ask those that have their hands raised who has the time to give to join you. Now you probably have 5-10% with their hands raised. Now, ask how many are passionate about your cause to the point where they cannot see themselves not doing it. You probably have only a few hands raised. That is your harvest.

We often picture the entire church as our harvest field that want to serve our ministry, when in reality there is only a small harvest within the church crowd.

It means that you need to learn how to reach this crowd.

It means that you need to learn how to treat this crowd.

It means that you need to learn how to lead this crowd.

“…pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” – Matthew 9:38 (ESV)

I can’t think of anything else to say. I think He pretty much covered it. Get praying in earnest!

1. Recruit with enthusiasm, because people will know otherwise
2. Define the activity using a half-page job description to provide clarity
3. Put in a time limit, along with a trial period where they can bail with “no questions asked”
4. Find people who know people so that you aren’t recruiting by yourself
5. Work with other leaders to help place people, as not every volunteer will be a fit for your ministry or theirs
6. Restructure your team to make positions easier, allowing for a lower time commitment
7. Create opportunities for a one-time serve by grouping small stand-alone tasks into opportunities for non-commitment

Like these steps? Consider downloading our FREE eBook on Recruiting Volunteers, with more details on the 7 steps outlined above, a 5-step process for improving your volunteer recruiting, and job description examples.

Don’t let a difficulty of recruiting volunteers get you down! Instead, learn how to be more effective at recruiting volunteers.

You must be able to convince a candidate who is interested in your team to become a
volunteer. To do this, you must prepare to explain what your team does and why they should
consider joining. This is called the recruiting message.
Being plugged-in, beinga volunteer or servant, and filling a need (even desperate ones) is a by-
product of recruiting, not a selling point. Instead, focus on the benefits of joining up, such as
making an impact in the community, becoming part of a team, or exercising specific skills or
talents.
The recruiting message is also about your enthusiasm. Are you and your team having fun with
what you are doing? I’ve seen some church teams do some amazing things when they have the
proper attitude. I’ve also seen some teams with very interesting work fail to recruit new
volunteers because of a poor attitude.
Smile. Be happy. Serve the Lord with joy! Your candidates will catch your attitude through your
attitude and your words!

From the FREE ebook “Recruiting Volunteers”

Have you ever done a Google search, found a result that looked like a promising article, only to find out that it was from a site that wanted to sell you a book? I have experienced this more and more lately. You know what? I just leave and go back to another search result, since I feel deceived.

When this happens, should I blame Google? Not really, since they can’t review every link to ensure they aren’t using deceptive tactics. In the same way, I shouldn’t blame my volunteers if they decide to leave because the team isn’t what was promised. The blame starts and stops with me, the leader.

So, as you spend time thinking about how you market your ministry to others, remember: words mean things, so be transparent and honest with both yourself and the volunteers you are recruiting. Otherwise, they’ll leave and go find another opportunity.

Click here to find out more about the Recruiting Volunteers ebook