Chad Koke is the Kids Ministry Director at The Creek. The Creek is a multisite church in Indianapolis, IN, where Chad has been leading for several years. Here are his top tips on recruiting volunteers to serve.
Ask your current volunteers who they’d like to serve with
Asking your current volunteers, who they’d like to serve with is a great way to recruit more quality volunteers.
You get a warm referral to somebody, and if they agree to serve, you can be sure that they are working with people they like. This makes the experience more enjoyable for everyone, and these volunteers tend to be more committed.
Recruit from people that your volunteers sit by
Whether we like to admit it or not, church people have their spots where they sit every weekend in the sanctuary. You can have your volunteers reach out to their seat neighbors and invite them to serve.
Recruit Kids Ministry volunteers from Student Ministries
The kids in your Kids Ministry love this because they look up to the youth in student ministry. You’re also allowing youth to serve, and this could help in a variety of ways. Even better, when kids in Kids Ministry are older and engaged in student ministry, they may be inclined to volunteer since they remember how incredible their youth volunteers were when they were younger.
Make teaching easy for Kids Min volunteers.
Using tools like Playlister makes it easier for Kids Min volunteers to serve. If someone has to use technology that they don’t understand, they will be more likely to continue serving.
No sacred cows- try new things.
Has the volunteer info booth been in the same place for years? Move it and see if you get more visitors. Try phrasing the way you ask differently to see what works best. Instead of asking, “do you want to volunteer?” ask “when do you want to volunteer?”
Since this isn’t a yes or no question, it is more likely to generate an answer that moves the conversation forward. Recruiting volunteers will always take a lot of effort. The better effort you put into it, the better volunteers you’ll get out of it. Are you not feeling like trying any of the ideas in the blog post? If you haven’t done one before- give it a shot. It’s helped Chad and his team :-)