Imagine for a moment you’re eating at a nice restaurant when the doors to the kitchen open up and the head chef walks out. He yells to get everyone’s attention, and you notice that he’s got an apron in one hand and a knife in the other. Once everyone is listening, the chef says, “You all look like you know how to eat food, so I’m pretty sure you can figure out how to cook it. We’ve just had a line cook quit, and we need a warm body back there now.”
It’s an absurd illustration, but perhaps not too far off from what happens in the local church. We look at the volunteer gaps and know those gaps have to be filled. And suddenly, we’re just looking for anyone with a pulse who can stand in a room. We are so focused on filling the need that we don’t even consider whether the person is actually gifted—or prepared—for the role.
While we might actually fill out the volunteer roster like this, we are missing the fact that volunteering in ministry is a significant step in discipleship. Serving in the church is not just a way to keep the church organization from breaking down; it’s the pathway God intends for every Christian to live out their gifts from the Holy Spirit.
If you find your church is constantly on the search to find willing volunteers, it’s possible you might be leaning towards recruiting warm bodies instead of helping people take their next step in discipleship. To that end, here are seven common mistakes churches make when recruiting volunteers:
1. Recruiting Out of Guilt Instead of Vision
We’ve all heard—and probably made—the desperate stage announcement that sounds like this: “If two more people don’t sign up for the preschool ministry, we will have to shut the class down next Sunday.”
While that might work in the short term, guilt is a terrible motivator. The shift here is to stop telling people what will happen if they don’t serve and start painting a picture of what happens when they do. You aren’t just looking for babysitters; you’re inviting people to plant the seeds of the gospel in the next generation.
2. Asking for a Lifetime Commitment
Many times people don’t volunteer because they don’t know the parameters. They feel like once they’re in, they’ll never be able to get out, and so they say “no” to protect their family calendar. Instead, we can give people an exit strategy. We should recruit them for a specific season and let them know that at the end of their term, they can cleanly step down, take a break, or renew their commitment. Clear boundaries like these provide freedom.
3. Lowering the Bar Too Much
Sometimes we are so desperate to find help that we make the job as easy as possible. But in our efforts to clear the hurdles for service we actually make it less appealing, because we are unintentionally communicating that the role is unimportant. High-capacity people don’t want to give up their free time to something that requires nothing of them. Don’t be afraid to have high standards, and to be up front about them. People very often rise to the challenge set for them.
4. Relying Strictly on Stage Announcements
Yes, it’s necessary to talk about opportunities from the stage. But if that’s the only way we tell people, everyone can assume that someone else is going to do the job. As ministry leaders, we can’t be afraid to directly and personally challenge people to serve. When we do, it’s an opportunity to call out and affirm specific giftings you see in them.
5. Forgetting to Train and Equip
There’s nothing more frustrating than stepping up to help and then being left to figure it out completely on your own. When we dump volunteers into a role without clear instructions or tools, we set them up to fail. The shift here is to prioritize onboarding. Before a volunteer ever steps into a role, give them a simple, clear guide on what success looks like. Then check on them during their first few weeks to offer support and answer questions.
6. Treating Volunteers Like Free Labor Instead of Disciples
Volunteers are not unpaid labor; they are sheep under your care. That means their service should be an avenue for their spiritual growth and not a distraction from it. When we recruit volunteers, we should still be mainly concerned about their personal discipleship; we should care more about them than what they produce.
God is not panicking over your empty volunteer slots, so you don’t need to either. Take a step back and examine your process. Don’t just fill slots; form people. When that happens, service stops being an obligation and becomes an opportunity to see God move.
