Building a Great Team: A Response
In thirty years of youth ministry, I can honestly say I’ve tried every recruiting style possible. Take a look at these four fall-back recruiting approaches:
The “Cruise Director:
‘Come join the youth team! Free trips, free food, hotels, fun and you’ll have a great time! No, you won’t have to chaperone at lock-ins!’”
The “Beggar:
‘If you don’t join come on this trip, we’ll have to cancel it and lose our $2000 deposit. We really, really, really need you! PLEASE???????’”
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The “Lone Ranger:
‘Hey, great having you on the team! Here’s your job description. Thanks for doing your part. You know? Let me do that for you…the kids are used to it being done a certain way. Oh, and I’ll do that, too. Why don’t you just watch for awhile?’”
The “Do-It-Yourselfer:
Building a team? What’s that? Nobody wants to volunteer so I don’t even ask.’”
See yourself here? (I’m a combo of the Cruise Director and the Lone Ranger.)
Don’t do these!
Instead, I’ve learned a little something from Jesus’ example when he put a pretty awesome team of 12 together. I call it, “The Five I’s: Invoke, Identify, Invite, Initiate, Inform. In other words:
Invoke: Bring the Holy Spirit into the process anything. Go somewhere and pray.
Identify: Listen for who the Spirit lifts up. Identify those people He reveals would be an asset to the team. Don’t assume anyone will say “no.”
Invite: Talk to them one-on-one and ask them to pray for a week before saying “yes” or “no.”
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Group Magazine puts trusted ministry experts
in your volunteers hands DIGITALLY!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Initiate: Let them come and check things out; give them a peek into what you’re asking them to do.
Inform: Hand them a volunteer packet so they can make a well-informed decision. Info would include a specific job description, volunteer guidelines, a ministry covenant, program purpose statement, 12 month youth ministry calendar and something fun, like a $5 card from Starbucks to enjoy a hot cuppa while reading and praying.
That’s how I do it, anyway.
Conversation
I'm enjoying this week's
I'm enjoying this week's emails. We have a great, established team in our youth ministry. However, schedules are so scattered, it's hard to have regular meetings with our team, and it's hard to have much prep time with them right before our program begins. We're learning how to better delegate, and then follow up. But when dealing with adults, since they are volunteering, sometimes you feel like you're asking so much of them. We're struggling with finding that specific position that they do on our youth night's that works. It takes almost more work to organize the team, than it does to execute the program. And we just don't seem to have a lot of time for training.
What I'd love to see are some great tips & specifics on what you are having your leaders doing on youth night. How exactly are you organizing them,their duties and responsibilities, and what have you found that works most effectively so all the bases are covered? Again, we have a great team of 9 of us, with around 50 kids each week. Now it's creating a team that is fully engaged and fully aware of everything that is going on and needs to get done.
Stephanie, I read this for
Stephanie, I read this for like 3 seconds before I remembered helping with the role play at SYMC this year. I was like "hey this must be Stephanie Caro." I'm pretty sure I acted the lone ranger part. Thanks again for your helpful insight!
I've been youth pastoring for
I've been youth pastoring for 22 years and have also tried everything I could think to try. Finally, about 5 years ago, I started recruiting recent graduates. I watched our college kids slowly fall away due to the church not offering them much compared to what the world was offering them. So, I decided to hand pick the ones as seniors in high school, talking to them and starting the mentoring process so they could become a student leader upon graduation. I meet with them weekly over lunch and teach them leadership skills. Then, they are allowed to use those skills weekly in our youth ministry. They are mentored for two years as student leaders, then they are promoted to full fledge youth leaders. We make it a big deal and the kids in the youth group are actually excited to have the opportunity to be asked to become student leaders. To me, it's win win. We end up with great leaders and keep the world from taking those we've worked so hard to keep in church all those youth years.
What does your volunteer
What does your volunteer packet look like?
Thank you!
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