Summary: We were volunteers before leading volunteers. And we’ve likely been hurt through lack of support or personal care from our leader. Learn how to lead volunteers better.

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Do you want to know one of my greatest fears? I fear not taking care of a volunteer well and they get hurt. Listen. I was a volunteer for a very long time.  I GOT HURT sometimes and it was almost always from a lack of support or personal care from the staff leader I was serving under.

Then I became THE STAFF LEADER and transitioned AWAY from being a volunteer.  While it helps to have been a volunteer, that ground level knowledge can wear off.  I can forget pretty quickly.

You know if volunteers have a bad experience and quit, they will likely tell their friends. Then we feel doubly doomed. Word tends to spread and it tends to spread pretty fast.

I wished I could tell you that there was a simple solution. However, if Jesus Himself said, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few,” you can pretty much take that one to the bank.

Volunteer leadership is hard. But it does not need to be impossible.

I am sending you these little video inspirations so you will not quit investing in yourself.  I want you to consider again whether the Lead Volunteers course might be a good fit for you.

I want you to consider joining the Lead Volunteer Learning Community SO YOU CAN BETTER invest in your volunteers.

Leading volunteers will always be hard work.  But it does NOT need to be as hard as you are likely experiencing. I have a proven plan to make the hard work of leading volunteers easier.  That is it. Plain and simple. Leading volunteers is hard. I have a plan to make it easier. I simply think you could benefit.

Let’s get better together. I want you to join me in this process.  I want you to come with me on a journey of learning how to Lead Volunteers – better.

Let’s GO.  Let’s do this. Let’s do this thing together.  Join LeadVolunteers.com today.

Summary: A mentor once taught me that it was not my job to do the work of the ministry. It is my job to build others to do the work of the ministry.

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I had a mentor early in ministry. There were two questions my mentor said to me over and over. Every single meeting it was the same thing. He would ask me the same two questions: What are you doing right now? and Who are you training to do that thing? Every single meeting he would incessantly ask me these two questions. Before too long, I determined that I should just do what he was telling me to do. I mean, after all, this is what pastors do, right? They train others.

Well, I did start to train and teach others to do the very things I had been doing. Years past and I actually thought that the concept of training was standard issue in every pastor or ministry leader. I thought this is what pastors did.

I was shocked to learn that most ministry leaders were doing ministry all by themselves. This likely means that if you are watching this video you are doing ministry yourself. You see, my mentor told me over and over and over that it was not my job to do the work of the ministry. It is my job to build others to do the work of the ministry.

Stop doing all the work yourself and learn to do your real job. You see, the scriptures say that your job is to build up the body to do the work of the ministry. Your job is not to do the work of the ministry.

LEADVOLUNTEERS.com is a proven path for you to duplicate yourself in ministry. Stop trying to do it yourself.

Join LEADVOLUNTEERS today.

Summary: Stop running from one fire to the next and trying to do it all.

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You are living a movie. Your life is a movie. You are literally living your very own screenplay right now. As in any good movie, there is a villain. The villain in the movie of most ministry leader’s lives is the villain, Burnout. When burnout enters the room, that ominous and disturbing music rises in the background.  The stakes are high. You are living a movie and there is a villain and that villain is Burnout. But who will win?

Too many leaders are caught running from one fire to the next.  You need to get organized. Too many leaders are watching helplessly as the revolving door of volunteers sucks the life right out of them. You need to retain volunteers. Too many leaders are burning out because there are just not enough people so they scurry here and there and end up doing it all themselves.  You need to prevent burnout.

You need a proven plan to stop that villain and have a victorious closing scene where your life and your ministry are a success. Let me help you get your life back on track.

LEADVOLUNTEERS helps you get organized, stops the revolving door of volunteers and prevents burnout. Why not let me do the heavy lifting for you. You need help and I’m here to help.

Join LEADVOLUNTEERS.com today!

Summary: Volunteers need to be thanked in a way that matters to them.

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One time I got a voicemail as the director of Children’s Ministry and I open up that voicemail. It was a fire-breathing volunteer and she was crying. This person had a reputation for chewing up people and spitting them out. Now, this volunteer had left me a voicemail, she was crying and I’m talking the ugly cry. She said through her tears, how thankful she was that I had sent her a handwritten postcard telling her thank you. She went on to say, through major tears, that no one had ever told her thanks. While I find it rather hard to believe that no one EVER told her thanks, I must say, that no one had ever told her thanks in a way that resonated with her.

You see, volunteers need to be thanked in a way that matters to them. Everybody has a different love language and everybody has a different way of receiving praise or acknowledgement. I believe that it is our job as a leader to become students of our volunteers. In the story I just told, the hardest of hearts and the most vicious of volunteers was brought to tears through a simple hand-written postcard. Could you turn a corner with a particular volunteer through a simple act of kindness?  My challenge to you today is to write one postcard.

LEADVOLUNTEERS has 53 different done-for-you postcards and over a dozen sample write-ups from which you can gain inspiration and send YOUR OWN postcards.  Trust me, it will make all the difference in the world.

Join LEADVOLUNTEERS.com today!

Summary: Your volunteers should feel seen, have measurable goals, and know their work matters in the kingdom of God.

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One of the best books I have ever read was entitled “Three Signs of a Miserable Job” by Patrick Lencioni. Patrick Lencioni is a wonderful leadership author and this book changed everything for me. The concept is quite simple. There are three signs of a miserable job; anonymity, immeasurement, and irrelevance.

Anonymity. This is being unknown or invisible in a roll or a job. Everybody wants to be known by someone. Do you realize that your volunteers might feel lost, alone, and not known by their leader? They may not feel known by you. This is a sign of a miserable volunteer.

Immeasurement. This is a term that Patrick Lencioni personally made up. It is the inability to measure. Immeasurement is not knowing how to measure if you got a home run, a single, or you struck out. People need to know whether or not they won. They need to know, as they volunteer in your area, whether or not they were successful. As leaders, we need to provide volunteers with a clear metric for what it looks like to win in this role. Not knowing if you were successful or not is a sign of a miserable volunteer.

Irrelevance. A miserable job is doing work that really doesn’t matter at all. Our work in ministry is really important. It really does matter. But it is your job as the leader to help connect the dots for people to see why their work matters. Not being able to see that your work matters to the kingdom of God is a sign of a miserable volunteer.

I want to help you make sure that your volunteers don’t have a miserable job.

One way that I’ve done that is by creating LEADVOLUNTEERS.com. We help you have processes and systems so volunteers don’t feel anonymous. We provide a step-by-step process to ensure that volunteers know exactly what their job is and whether or not they’ve won at that job.  In addition, we help you provide strong sense of purpose so that your volunteers don’t feel like their job is irrelevant. We are here to help. Join LEADVOLUNTEERS.com today

Summary: Learn new things and challenge yourself constantly, not just one time a year.

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I don’t like to make New Year’s resolutions. I like resolutions. I make them all the time.  I make resolutions and I make them often. I just don’t make them exclusively on New Years day.  I constantly seek to challenge myself. I set big targets and small targets in front of me on a regular basis.

You see, winning brings future winning. I seek to set frequent and continual resolutions that can be completed and come to resolution or finality. Winning paves the way for future winning. I don’t set annual resolutions. I set daily resolutions. Sometimes I set 4-day resolutions. Sometimes I set 6-week resolutions. Sometimes I set 18-month resolutions. Maybe even a simple 2-hour resolution. Pick a task, carry that one task to completion, and resolve to see it through to the end. The momentum of a completed task will have a snowball effect that leads to more success.

LEAD VOLUNTEERS is a series of micro-learnings. You read a small section in the leader book. You reflect and write a few thoughts about that reading. You watch a short 3-4 minute video. Finally, you download something and then you do that something right now. LEAD VOLUNTEERS is an action-oriented, master's level course. This is not just a think and feel course. It is a think, feel, and get something done course.

Challenge yourself constantly, not just one time a year. Resolve to make resolutions that breed future success and momentum.

Joint LEADVOLUNTEERS.com today!

Summary: Serving in the church provides volunteers the opportunity for community, deeper relationships, and growing in their faith.

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Today I’m going to share with you the single biggest limiting belief that I had when it came to recruiting volunteers. I believed that recruiting volunteers was taking something from people.

Here I was, a former high school chemistry teacher now in the deep end of the ministry pool, and I was overwhelmed. I needed to recruit 250 volunteers that would serve every week for the next year. I needed 125 to serve on Sunday mornings and about 125 to serve on Wednesday nights. How could I do this?

God reminded me by asking me a simple question, “Remember how volunteering helped you grow, meet people in the church, deepen relationships and how volunteering helped you trust Me more?”

Then God inspired me at a deeper level. I felt as if God was saying to me, “Do you think I could do these same things in the lives of people you will recruit? Won’t they grow just like you did?”

At that moment, my outlook completely changed. I was not taking things from volunteers. I was providing people with the opportunity to grow. I was providing people the opportunity to meet new people and deepen existing relationships. I was giving people an opportunity to lay up treasure in heaven.

I want to challenge you today to rethink how you view recruiting. For me, recruiting became the pathway to the fulfillment of my calling to make disciples. I had ONE job as a pastor and it was to make disciples. Recruiting became the vehicle that helped me fulfill my calling. I can’t get behind slot filling, but I can get behind disciple making.

LEADVOLUNTEERS.com helps provide inspiration, the wording, and the tools to effectively recruit, train, and retain volunteers.

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Summary: Develop relationships with your volunteers, but also between your volunteers.

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One time I failed in ministry while I thought I was winning. One of the first things I did when I became the Director of Children’s Ministry at my church was to transition from a traditional Sunday School classroom setting to a large group/small group setting. The traditional classroom setting was two teachers with 30+ kids.  We transitioned to 15-20 teachers in one big room, each having 8-10 kids in a small group. I needed to sell the vision of the large group/small group idea.  One of the positive selling points was “Adult Community as You Served”. I had positioned this change as a relational win for the teachers.

About 7-8 months into this change, a key volunteer came to me and said “You know that blonde lady that sits next to me on the right? What’s her name?” Insert failure. These leaders did NOT know each other as I had envisioned.  My hope for a relational win had failed. A change had to be made instantly.

We immediately instituted quarterly gatherings on Friday and Saturday nights at a home. Volunteer families were invited. Kids, husbands, siblings were invited. We made simple soups that could work for both Friday and Saturday night. If you couldn't make it Friday, try to come Saturday. We played barefoot kickball, played board games and we began to experience big wins.

People may sit by each other as volunteers and not know each other as people. It is our job to ensure that volunteers have relationships with us but also relationships with each other. We need creative ways for volunteer leaders to have community.

LEADVOLUNTEERS is a jam-packed resource with ideas to immediately execute so that you can win big with volunteers.

Join LEADVOLUNTEERS.com today!

Summary: Overcome day-to-day hardships or discouragements by remembering a bigger purpose.

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You are not alone in this volunteer leadership thing.  I have been there.  I have been where you are and Leading Volunteers often feels like a dull ache that you cannot ever shake.

It feels impossible to have every volunteer role filled ministry wide. You want volunteers to have a deeper commitment. You want them to know the blessing of serving. Yet, just like clockwork, late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, dropouts drag you down and wear you out.

Do not give up. I want you to think of the LONG GAME and not what you are experiencing in the day-to-day hardship of leading volunteers.

As Psalm 27 says, “He will life my feet up on a Rock. And not my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me. I will sing – Yes – I will sing praises to the Lord.”

I invite you to join the Lead Volunteers Community. What have you got to lose?

Join me on this journey to make YOU a better leader of volunteers. Let’s do this.  You will always have volunteer problems. But we are here to make them just a little bit easier.

Join LEADVOLUNTEERS.com today!

Summary: Trust God, and give the freedom for potential volunteers to say “no.”

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Today I’m going to tell you my most valuable recruiting phrase of all time. Here it is, “I want you to feel the freedom to say no”. You might be surprised that my number one recruiting line is to give people this huge open door to say no to me. Here’s the thing, we can be quite persuasive. I have the ability to use my human power of authority and influence when it comes to recruiting people.

We can even come across as pushy when we recruit because we tend to feel so desperate. Our pitch can place undue pressure on our potential volunteers. I want to remove all personal pressure and allow a clean and clear opportunity for people to hear from God.

Here is what I say to people, “If you feel you should not take on this roll, by all means, do not take it. Save yourself and please save me the pain. But if you pray and feel God saying that you should do this, please say “yes”.

You see, I want to give people a bold and clear opportunity to feel the freedom to say no. I want to boldly allow people to say no to me but possibly say yes to the Lord. I want to remove the pressure from my volunteers and dismantle my own sense of personal and powerful persuasion. I would much rather have people respond to the voice of the Lord than my human voice.

LEADVOLUNTEERS.com is a proven path that allows you to get organized, retain volunteers, and prevent ministry burnout. We have system after system that would allow you to make sense of all of your recruiting needs.

Join LEADVOLUNTEERS.com today!