Partner Training Series #6 : Serving Your Volunteers…The Coal in Your Career Ministry Fire!

Howdy Partner!

In God’s greatest commandment, He instructs the faithful to love Him and love people.

In today’s training, we are going to focus on what keeps our career ministry’s going. You guessed it, it’s the volunteer and loving on them is huge to our ministry success!

No matter if you are reading this as church staff or lay leader/volunteer, you probably leverage the time, talent, and even treasure, of your volunteers. For any ministry to grow and go for the Lord requires us to work together.

I probably don’t have to tell you, but I do want to remind you, that career ministry is a powerful way to meet the felt needs of those in our community. Felt needs like work, life purpose, finances, health, relationships. However, with many of us, career ministry is not front and center at our church. So, recruiting, inspiring and encouraging our volunteer teams can be difficult.

A unique way to build, equip, and retain your volunteers.
In my 13+ years of leading finance and career ministry, some of the most powerful moments that bonded our team was when we participated in a church-wide seasons of fasting and prayer! I remember one experience vividly. I invited individuals and families over to the clubhouse of our subdivision. We checked the boxes of food, networking, music, etc. The highlight over all of the must-haves of a leader gathering was our anointing ceremony.

After everyone had finished their food and fellowship, I called folks together for some vision-casting about the upcoming ministry semester. Following that, my wife, Becky, and I cued up the solemn worship music and called up our leaders to be anointed as they felt led. This experience was amazing and memorable because it so succinctly demonstrated God’s love and care for our volunteer teams.

Bonding and Belief
This was a time of divine bonding and connection for our teams. I can still picture it now as men and women, single and married, younger and older, stepped up to get prepared to serve who God was going to send their way in just a few short weeks.

This kind of meeting or service may happen at your church from the pulpit, but this night was our smaller team of folks on a mission to help people with their careers and finances.

How are you serving your teams, especially in this time of COVID-19 pandemic?
You may not be able to gather like we did some years ago, but there may be an opportunity for you to host a prayer meeting or worship session for just your team over Zoom or other video conferencing software.

In addition, please consider making room in your meeting calendar for ministry participants to work-in communication with your teams on a weekly basis. Not only will it help them serve now but will help them grow as a leader to serve long-term.

Consider serving your team through:

Quarterly Leader Gatherings / Events

Bi-weekly Phone Calls

Weekly Text Messages / Emails

Semi-annual or post-semester Thank You Notes

Next week, discover how some of our ministry partners are using The Job Connection to lead their volunteers and ministry participants!

Go Get ‘Em!