The Ultimate Guide to Recruiting and Retaining Volunteers for Your Online Church

Through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus Christ set the ultimate example of what it means to serve others. We look to his life to learn from him and follow his example. Every Christian is called to serve. This calling remains constant throughout our lives, even if the ways we serve change. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 12:9-13, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”

Serving in the local church. 

There, sometimes, can be no greater joy. I’m consistently amazed at how people who work full-time jobs, sometimes six days a week, spend the time that they could be relaxing and resting, serving their church. I’ve already covered how we can find the right online volunteers in another blog post so this post is more about what to do when you find the volunteers to join your team.

Volunteer Role Descriptions

We often know we want volunteers but don’t quite know exactly what we want them to do. When online ministries are being built, things can feel overwhelming. It can feel like there are a million things that can be done. There are so many different ideas of things that a team of volunteers could accomplish. It’s critical to write these down. Create a volunteer job profile just like you would for a staff role. Some questions to think through are:

• What’s the vision behind the team and role?
• What experience would be preferred?
• What are the strengths that you are looking for in this role?
• What does a win look like?

Creating a clear role description not only helps you as a leader but is a great help to the volunteer as well cause this will help them know what they are signing up for. This also helps to set clear expectations for the role. 

Candidate Selection Process

We’ve all heard stories of how teams can be so desperate for help that the only qualification we are looking for is a heartbeat. When it comes to building a volunteer team for any ministry, my advice is to not settle. I believe that there is a next step and a place for everyone that comes to our church. But I don’t believe that the next step for every person is to serve. So we need to create an interview process that is created with the individual in mind. What is the right next step for the person who signed up for this role? Remember to pastor your people through these conversations. This is also where you can find out who they are, their story, and why they want to serve. This is also where you can find out if they align with the vision, values, and beliefs of the church. You could do part of this process as a written interview where they submit answers to the questions you have and the second part of the interview could be a conversation. When it comes to online ministry, think through the kind of ministry they may be doing and identify questions that would be beneficial to ask depending on the role they will be in.

New Volunteer Orientation

How exciting! You’ve found the right people to join your team and they are excited to be a part of this larger vision. They’ve been praying and believing for God to use them and now this is their moment. Chip and Dan Heath, in their book, The Power of Moments highlight the importance of defining moments and learning to recognize their potential and apply time, effort, and strategic thought to turn them into defining moments that shape memories or change perceptions. When a volunteer joins your team, their first day is a defining moment and it’s important that we think through what that experience feels like. 

• Do they feel welcomed on their first day or were they expected to figure things out on their own?
• Was there a ‘Welcome to the team’ moment for them?
• Do they have access to all the platforms and technologies they need?
• Do they know who to call when they need help?
• Do they have a person guiding them through their first 90 days?

These are just examples of questions to think through. Remember, while this may start with this being something you or another staff member does, this onboarding process could be a volunteer role.

Training & Development

Once they are on the team, we need to invest in their life by creating learning and growth opportunities. Think about how we can provide training and support that will not just impact how they do in their role, but also impact who they are as a follower of Christ and friends, spouses, or parents for example. Culture is happening every minute of every single day, whether we’re paying attention to it or not. Our churches and teams have a culture. It’s automatic. Culture doesn’t wait to be defined by its leaders, it forms on its own as people join a team. This is why as church leaders, we need to be intentional about our culture because the culture of our church, organization, or team is constantly drifting. Creating regular training and development opportunities will help your team stay aligned. Not all training’s are equal. Some could be in the form of celebrations like a Christmas party at the end of the year or it could be highly operational at the start of the year when you are planning for the year. You may choose to hold quarterly opportunities where your team can join you for a book study or bring in outside speakers to speak about a particular topic. Think of the different ways you can pour into your team cause a healthy and productive team doesn’t happen by accident, we have to be intentional about it. 

Feedback

Once you’ve shared the vision, and outlined the expectations, don’t forget to build a system of accountability for your team. This is important whether you have a couple of volunteers or a couple of hundred volunteers. There’s a book called Radical Candor by Kim Scott where she talks about this idea. Kim says that “Radical candor is the sweet spot between managers who are obnoxiously aggressive on one side and ruinously empathetic on the other. It’s about providing guidance, which involves a mix of praise as well as criticism―delivered to produce better results and help employees achieve.” Learning to give and receive feedback is a critical part of any growing team. As leaders, we need to learn how to do both well. Our team also needs to learn how to do both well. Feedback can happen during 1-1’s, it can happen through a yearly survey like the Gallop Q12 Survey, and it can also happen during training and development moments. The important thing to remember is that we need to create an environment where feedback is welcome. We’ve learned to seek feedback at every opportunity we have. 

When we see the life of Jesus, we see how He showed patience and love to all who came to Him seeking relief for their physical, emotional, or spiritual illnesses and who felt discouraged and downtrodden. This is our example. He is our example. We follow His lead in learning to serve and tend to those who are under our care. I hope these thoughts have been helpful to you. If you have questions or want to talk more about building a thriving volunteer team, let me know. I’d love to talk. Just click this link to set up a time for us to connect. I look forward to connecting with you.