Growing Your Volunteer Base

The best advertising is word of mouth. That holds true in the marketplace and in any ministry area. Word of mouth recommendations are the most trusted source for accurate information and zeal. Most of us buy products, eat at restaurants, choose doctors, and even hair products based on a friend's recommendation.

Why is this important in the church? When your volunteers love their area of ministry, they will tell their friends. Thus, you have to be willing to ask yourself, "Do our volunteers love their ministry?"

If so, are you encouraging them to share stories about what they do with others in the church and even outside the church? When volunteers are happy and feel like they are helping accomplish the overall vision of the church - they will share their stories with others and invite others to experience what they love.

Here are six ways to assist happy volunteers to recruit others:

• At your next volunteer meeting, give everyone a small piece of paper and ask them, to write down three names of potential volunteers.
• Send an email to all your connections with a detailed description of the role you are looking to fill and ask for names of people that might fit the role or might be interested.
• Empower and encourage your volunteers to go after others.
• Have detailed descriptions of each volunteer role, outlining key expectations
• Celebrate the wins of volunteers and of the ministry regularly
• Pray with your current volunteer team for others to join the team

What other ways are you helping empower, encourage and enlist your current volunteer base to reach more potential volunteers?

5 Things to Increase Giving

"I wish we just had more money.” I have heard many pastors say that very thing. The reality is, ministry and money go hand-in-hand. Pastors often feel under the gun to generate more money to help fund more ministry initiatives. Most pastors aren't lacking vision as much as they are funding. There are some basic things churches and leaders can do that help foster a spirit of generosity or, if poorly executed, can have a negative impact on generosity.

Here are six things to consider implementing that will foster a spirit of generosity:

1. Have multiple giving venues

There are many statistics showing per-member giving increases as churches offer more giving venues. What opportunities can churches provide? I recommend all churches provide these four venues at a minimum: offering during the worship service, online giving, mailed offering envelopes to regular attenders and givers and automatic deductions from members’ bank accounts. Consider two more options to implement: giving kiosks in the lobby and having small group ministries occasionally take an offering.

2. Purposeful and meaningful vision with goals

People will give more if they see the church has a goal that will make a difference. “Increasing total gifts by 10 percent” is not a meaningful goal or vision. People wonder what return their money will have. Giving 10 percent more to move the gospel forward in a specific zip code is more meaningful.

3. Talk and teach on money

If you are leading you will talk about money and stewardship. Jesus talked about it regularly and taught us money is a way to see the heart. It is inexcusable as pastors and leaders to not talk and teach on the theology of stewardship. Consider using a new member orientation as another avenue to teach people about giving and to give clear expectations.

4. Have a transparent financial reporting system

There are people and will always be people in your church that care about your numbers. If people sense that pertinent financial information is being withheld or miscommunicated, they tend to give less or nothing at all. While that does not mean every financial statement provides endless details, it does indicate that church members will have a clear idea of how funds are given and spent.

A few things to consider: a) Send out quarterly giving statements with details on where people are at in their yearly giving. Always have a letter that accompanies the statement, clearly spelling out the vision of the church and connecting the dots for people to see how their money is making an eternal difference. b) At the end of each fiscal year give a state-of-the-church report with enough detail about the current financial setting and goals for the coming year. c) Talk about money as much as possible from a positive viewpoint rather than from guilt or fear.

5. Provide opportunities for people to give to special projects

Some people are project people. Having specific goals will compel some to give in big ways. In your quarterly statements, consider sending a list of current needs, including everything from TVs, to furniture, wall art and even a church van. You never know who might step up to fill a much-needed hole.

Church Planter, Christmas isn't Everything

Christmas is here. Those words provide a level of excitement and dread for most pastors. The time is filled with holiday parties, staff get togethers, church programs, and it is busy. The Christmas season will create momentum in your church and community. People naturally come together to celebrate the holidays. Because of that, Christmas is a momentum builder in the church. As a church planter, you want to make sure you leverage the season and momentum well.

Do a Christmas series with a Christmas Eve Service as the finale. Make sure you invite your neighbors and community to come and enjoy the evening together. Sing Christmas carols, eat your fill of cookies and drink lots of hot chocolate. Find a way to bring some of the best family traditions into the church celebration. In our community, having a Christmas Eve service was always a local favorite.

My favorite Christmas Eve service was held in the movie theater while simultaneously movies were being shown all around. We got permission from the theater management to give out free Christmas cookies to people coming to church or going to a movie. It provided a great opportunity to connect with people in the community who would never think about coming to church. We witnessed people on our guest service team talk people out of attending their movie and joining us for a Christmas Eve service.

I love the Christmas season. However, in all honesty, I actually began to dread the time of year. After doing six Christmas Eve services, my family was beginning to dread me on Christmas. It is a challenging season in which we minister. Here are a few things I learned along the journey and my hope is they help you in yours:

• Make family a priority. What does that look like? First, make room in your schedule to attend school Christmas programs, to go shopping with your spouse and to bake and decorate cookies as a family. Refuse to bump those family times and memories. Communicate clearly and early with your family about the church schedule and don’t require them to be at every program and activity.
• Be prepared. During the fall work ahead on the Christmas series and Christmas Eve service. It comes around every year and having done much of the prep before it arrives will allow you to enjoy the season that much more.
• Cancel all unnecessary meetings in the month of December. They are always poorly attended. Everyone is overbooked with parties and family commitments. Love your family and your volunteers by giving them the month off of meetings.
• Preach the Christmas story. Don’t be anxious about having to be overly creative and having to put a new spin on Christmas. Christmas is God’s story. It is powerful and beautiful the way that it is. People will value you for telling and retelling the Christmas story. Some of our best moments during the Christmas season happened when I just took time to tell the story of Christmas with low lighting and music in the background.
• I know this one sounds crazy but consider canceling the Sunday service between Christmas and New Year’s Day. That Sunday is a probably the lowest attended Sunday of the year. Instead, create a devotional that families can download and do as a family at home. The demand on volunteers are so high in a church plant that your volunteers will love you for giving them a week off. And trust me, some people will tell you the world will end if you cancel a Sunday service. It won’t.

This Christmas season be careful that you don’t lose sight of the star of wonder. Sometimes ministry has an ability to drown out the power and majesty of what God actually did in the Christmas story. Take time this season to lay down the professional perspective of Christmas and connect personally with the love story of God. Christmas is about a Holy God stepping into time, space, and history so that you could be reconnected into a right relationship with Him through Jesus. Christmas is nothing short than incredible.

Have fun this Christmas season, and may your bells have extra jingle. Let these words of Isaiah be a place of comfort this season:

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this” (Isaiah 9:6-7 ESV).