Wise kidmin leaders know that volunteers are the heartbeat of our ministries. We simply cannot do ministry without them. Celebrating these faithful servants should happen regularly throughout the year but Valentine’s Day is a great time to shower them with love.
This year, our team selected this flip book from Christian Tools of Affirmation (CTA) to show our volunteers how much we appreciate them. We’ll have them available each week throughout the month of February (some of our volunteers only serve once a month, so we didn’t want to overlook anyone.)
In addition, we will do other special appreciation gestures such as special sweet treats and a hot chocolate bar throughout the month of February.
If you’re undecided on how to honor your ministry volunteers this Valentine’s Day, you still have time to pull together a small token of appreciation. Pinterest is a great place to find ideas. To help you out, here are a few of my favorite ideas from the popular website. Most are relatively inexpensive and easy to assemble.
Who doesn’t love chocolate from Valentine’s Day? Collect small fabric bags with ribbon drawstrings. Let your students fill each bag with chocolate Hershey Hearts and pull the drawstring (or tie the bag with a ribbon). Have the children make small cards that say, “Hugs to you, our wonderful volunteer.” Punch a hole in the corner of each card. Help the child tie the card to the ribbon. Present the candy bags to your volunteers with a word of thanks.
This keepsake book for volunteers and teachers weaves encouragement, uplifting Scripture, real stories, and more into a gift that’ll warm their souls—and help keep their enthusiasm for introducing kids to Jesus going strong.
Training and equipping our kidmin leaders is of utmost importance if we want them to lead well in their ministry area and to have longevity in serving with us.
There are many challenges when it comes to volunteer training, however.
How can we make it beneficial to rookies and veterans alike?
How can we make it appealing so that they’ll actually come out for the event?
Are there some creative elements we can incorporate to make it fun and memorable?
What can we call it other than ‘training’?
How do we make it both informative and engaging?
There are so many resources available for kidmin leaders to take advantage of to train and equip volunteers. One of the best resources, in my opinion, are workshops that I attend. Many times when I travel to national workshops I am unable to take staffers or volunteers with me, so I try to find ways to share what I’ve learned in various contexts. Usually, I purchase audio recordings from the places I attend and pass them along to others. However, I felt compelled recently to try something different.
I attended Group’s KidMin Conference back in September and one of the workshops I took there was called “50 Ways to Bring the Bible to Life”. (You can pick up my notes here). I loved the premise and content provided, so I thought that it would be cool to teach my version to our elementary and preteen leaders. I absolutely THRIVE on preparing for events like this, so I was very excited about how it would come together.
When I began thinking about a catchy name for this event, I knew that it wouldn’t be called “training”. I mean, that screams excitement, right? NOT!! So after some careful thought, I landed upon Leader Lunch & Learn. This past Sunday, I hosted our very first Leader Lunch & Learn and it was great! Here are some details about the event:
I wanted this event to be (1) a time of fellowship (over a delicious lunch that we provided, of course!), for the leaders to get to know each other better in an informal, casual setting; (2) informative – leading a group of children requires our leaders to know what they’re doing; (3) practical – I wanted the information presented to be something that they could use right away; and (4) engaging – I wanted attendees to get share ideas (it’s always a good idea to have team members learn from each other) and practice what they’ve learned.
Keeping those four things in mind, the event began to take shape. I designed an invitation that was sent to adult and student leaders via email (I used Mail Chimp). I set up responses to go to a form I created on Google Forms – very easy to do. Then I used the workshop notes to come up with a time flow/outline for the 90 minutes that we’d have together:
Arrival
Welcome & Overview (5 minutes)
I welcomed everyone, thanked them for coming and gave them an overview of what our time together would look like.
Lunch & Fellowship (20 minutes)
Since we held this event immediately following our 2nd service hour, serving lunch was not an option. I landed on a simple, delicious lunch that was very affordable and easy to set up: I ordered a deli sandwich wrap platter and provided potato chips, fresh fruit, cookies, brownies, iced tea, lemonade and bottled water.
Introductions, Introduce the “Smarts”, Have team take “Smarts” Inventory (7 minutes)
Our elementary and preteen ministries are run separately, so many of the attendees had never met each other. We took a few minutes to introduce ourselves and then I had them quickly fill out the “Got Smarts” inventory (that was included in the workshop notes) so that they could discover their primary “smart”.
Review responses from “Got Smarts” Inventory, Talk about “Smart Chart”, and Ways to Incorporate these ideas into their large group & small group times (25 minutes)
After reviewing the responses from the “Got Smarts” inventory, we discussed what each ‘smart’ looked like and ways to incorporate each ‘smart’ into our lessons. Since each of our volunteers is very gifted and creative, I wanted them to learn from each other, too, so they tossed out additional ideas that were not included in the original notes. They had some great suggestions!
Group Assignment & Sharing
I wanted everyone to get some practice incorporating what they had learned, so I broke the group up into 3 smaller groups and assigned each group a Bible story: The Good Samaritan (Luke 10;30-37); Jonah and the Whale (Jonah 1); and Feeding of the 5000 (Matthew 14:13-21). Their task was to brainstorm ideas to bring the Bible to life by incorporating each ‘smart’ into that particular Bible story. Boy did they do an awesome job with that. When they shared their ideas, I was blown away! You can read their ideas here.
Wrap Up/Thank You’s
I closed our time together by reminding them to not be afraid to think outside of the box and infuse creativity into their lessons to help the Bible come to life for every student in their group. I affirmed them, thanked everyone for coming and reminded them to take home a special treat I had prepared for them. Since we were talking about ‘smarts’, it was only fitting to use “Smarties” in the treat bags.
Take-Home Treat (the front)
Take-Home Treat (the back)
As a result of preparing for this training event, feedback was so positive that we will offer a new topic every other month. I asked volunteers for suggestions on future topics and so we’re set for our next event, which will be held in January. I can’t wait!
Now it’s your turn – what does your volunteer training/equipping opportunities look like? Share what works for you below!
Last month at Group’s KidMin Conference, I shared a ministry challenge and a ministry joy at the opening General Session. This is what I said:
“I’ve been chosen by God to not recruit volunteers to ‘fill holes’ (which is a pet peeve phrase of mine). I’ve been chosen by God to recruit volunteers to a vision, shepherd them, train them, equip them to serve, connect them with other volunteers and place them in their volunteer sweet spot so that they serve with us for the long haul.”
Recruiting volunteers ranks near the top of the list of challenges for ministry leaders. It really doesn’t matter whether your church is large or small; no church is immune. You rarely hear someone say, “I don’t need anymore volunteers.”
Yesterday I attended a local networking event here in Baltimore for kidmin leaders. The topic: Stop Recruiting, Start Retaining. The speaker was Christine Kreisher, who serves as the Family and Connections Pastor at Glad Tidings Church in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Here are the notes, 4 things to give volunteers so that they stay around for the long haul:
SIGNIFICANCE
“People don’t need another job; they need, and crave, purpose and meaning.” – CK
Leaders: Create a FUN and meaningful experience where volunteers feel that what they do matters.
Volunteers will say: “I love this!” or “I’m making a difference.”
Best Practices:
Connect the vision
Find the fit
Improve the process
Fill their bucket
SUPPORT
“It’s the lack of communication and preparation that kills volunteerism.” – Dr. Darren Kizer
“People matter to God, so they matter to us.” – Nelson Searcy
Leaders: Ensure that every volunteer has the necessary information, resources, & encouragement to fulfill their role in ministry.
Volunteers will say: “I have what I need.” or “I feel valued.”
Best Practices:
Communicate early and often
Huddle up
Train for success
Organize volunteer teams
COMMUNITY
“God created us with a hunger for relationship – for relationship with Him and with our fellow people. At our very core, we are relational beings…The soul cannot prosper without being connected to others..” – Henry Cloud
Leaders: Establish a culture where volunteers feel connected and new friendships can be developed.
Volunteers will say: “I belong here.” or “I’ve got friends here.”
Best Practices:
Friendship-friendly programming
Make it fun
Plan connections
Get it on the calendar
Embrace the mess!
EMPOWERMENT
“The local church should be one of the greatest leadership development agencies on the planet because Jesus was a great leader and developer of leaders. The church does not have a leadership problem…there are plenty of leaders…the church has a leadership development problem.” – Mac Lake
Leaders: Invest your time and resources to empower people to develop as a leader.
Volunteers will say: “I’m trusted and have opportunities to develop into a better leader.”
Best Practices:
Replace yourself
Set them free
Delegate vs dump
Make it helpful
Keep the conversation going! What strategies have you seen that work in retaining volunteers? Let me know by leaving a comment below!
Yesterday, I shared details about the Children’s Ministry Tailgate party we threw for our volunteers. (If you missed it, you can catch that post here.)
At the event, I shared a bit of what God had laid on my heart months before. You see, for the past two years, I have asked God for a word, one word, that would be our theme or focus for the upcoming year. Last year, the word was “new”.
This past May, God laid a verse on my heart and one word kept jumping out at me each time I read the verse. The word? More. Here’s the verse:
Ephesians 3:20, NLT
Here is a portion of what I shared with our volunteers that evening:
This spring, I asked God to give me a word – a literal word – that will serve as the them for the upcoming ministry year.
This year, I clearly heard Him say “MORE“. (Refer back to Ephesians 3:20)
I wonder what this will look like this ministry year. What will God do if we ask Him to help us be…
more intentional as we partner with families…
more intentional as we build relationships with the children we lead…
more connected to those we serve with…
more committed to lead and serve with excellence?
Something I’ve quoted regularly in the last few months is, “With God, all things are possible.” I truly believe that.
I am trusting God to do exactly what His Word says – to accomplish INFINITELY MORE than we would ever dare to ask or hope. Will you trust Him to do the same? Are you up for the challenge?
What about you? How would your ministry be different if you believed God can accomplish infinitely more than you could ever dare to ask or hope? Keep the conversation going by leaving a comment below!
