Blog | Scheduling Volunteers for Their Strengths
Scheduling Volunteers for Their Strengths
Having a strong volunteer team can dramatically improve the experience for visitors at your church. A well-operated volunteer team means everyone is present, educated, and ready to go for their respective areas. But volunteers are needed for a diverse set of roles within the church – some dealing with kids, music, relations, guests, leadership, and so many more. For example, just because someone is a musician doesn’t necessarily mean worship ministry is the most appropriate role for them.
Finding volunteers is stage 1. Once you have a set of solid volunteers, you need to begin assigning them different roles based on their strengths and interests.
Personality Strengths: Assigning Church Volunteers Appropriate Roles
Nothing burns someone out more than doing a job they don’t like. And honestly, not everyone realizes what it is they truly want right away. The more you get to know your volunteer teams, the more you’ll recognize each individual’s strengths, weaknesses, and passions. Using that information is absolutely key in building a powerhouse leadership team.
We’ve seen hundreds of churches working with small and large volunteer teams. Here are a few best practices of how to manage volunteers based on their strengths:
1) Ease of Entry
You don’t always have the luxury of picking your pool of volunteers. You have what comes to you, and what comes to you is directly influenced by how easy it is to get involved in the first place. If you want to schedule church volunteers based on their strengths, you need to make it easy for them to find a ministry they can volunteer in right away.
One way to do this is to advertise it on Sundays. Talk about the areas you need volunteers in openly on a Sunday morning so the entire congregation is aware. When someone wants to sign up, make sure you have someone designated to the role of getting them plugged in (whether you or someone else). If you say you’ll follow up with people who inquire, actually follow up, and do it fast.
2) Personality Tests
There are a lot of personality tests that can be too vague, and we get that the entirety of a person’s character cannot be summed up in a simple test. However, popular personality tests like the Myer’s Briggs, Strengths Finder, or DISC Assessment are a few of many personality tests that help you get a grasp on a volunteer’s particular areas of interest, expertise, or passion. Don’t use a personality test unless you have a specific agenda in mind. If you do have volunteer opportunities that require a certain type of person, the combination of a personality test accompanied by good ‘ol fashion “get-to-know-you” conversations can help you better understand what role they should be in.
3) Generalize Your Volunteer Opportunities
There are a few volunteer positions that require a super specific type of person. Worship leaders need musical experience, leadership characteristics, and the ability to operate independently. Children’s Ministry Coordinators need to be good at working with kids. But not every need in a church requires a super specific type of person.
Start opening volunteering roles that can apply to a variety of personality types and strengths. Whether it’s ushering, helping with sermon slides and tech, joining the setup crew for church plants, or running an info hub or coffee station, there are tons of areas where you can get people of a variety of strengths plugged into volunteer roles.
Conclusion
Not everyone is in the role they were “meant” to be in. Some people sign up to volunteer for a certain position just because it was available, and they heard about it. That’s why it’s so important to make sure everyone in your congregation hears about the need for volunteers. Some people want to volunteer, but they just don’t know of any positions that fit their strengths, so they jump on the first opportunity presented.
Start using personality tests for volunteer roles that require a certain subset of strengths. If you don’t want to use personality assessments, at a bare minimum, meet with volunteers to get a good handle on what types of things they excel at. What are they passionate about? What strengths do they have? Finally, open solid volunteer roles that don’t require a very specific type of person. There are plenty of roles – ushering, coffee stations, greeting, etc. – where anyone can get involved in helping grow your church. Opening these types of roles can also produce a volunteer-culture at your church an encourage more people to come on board helping behind the scenes.
About the Author
Chris Fleming is a professional musician from Minneapolis, MN who has played with artists such as Kari Jobe, TAYA, Aodhan King, and Jason Gray. He is actively involved with the CCM scene and has contributed as a drummer, music director, song writer, and producer for various worship artists and churches locally and nationally. Chris is the Motion Designer at Motion Worship, helping to create motion background collections and countdowns for our subscribers.