Letter #4 - How do you organize volunteers? Do you have a committee that helps with that responsibility? –from Jim in Gahanna, OH

OK, Jim. For starters, "committee" is a bad word around Granger. In fact, I think committees generally make it more difficult for people to connect in ministry. In a former life, I attended church committee meetings. Lots of people sat around complaining about lots of topics and very little, if any, ministry was accomplished. At Granger, we only have one board with lay people that oversees the mission, vision and values of our church. Everyone else is volunteering on a ministry team. One big advantage of that decision is that we now have more people in ministry rather than in meetings.

On the other hand, these are the three primary ways people connect into volunteer roles at Granger:

  1. Shoulder-tapping — We ask people who are already serving in ministry to invite their friends. Because there’s already an existing relationship, people are more likely to enjoy serving. And, they’re more likely to stick with it for the long run. As Tim suggested in Simply Strategic Volunteers: "If the pastors or church staff members [or committees if you have them] are the ones solely responsible for finding and placing new volunteers, then the growth of the church will be limited….All leaders and volunteers must believe that it is their responsibility to ‘tap the shoulders’ of the folks next to them and invite them into ministry."
  2. Promoting Connection Opportunities — Most often times this is happening through the website or through the weekly newsletter. We don’t promote very many opportunities through the bulletin and we rarely promote anything from the platform. When we list available roles, the ministry teams are contacted directly (it’s automated through the web and newsletter). The teams take care of follow up communications with the people who respond. They make sure those that have said they’re interested are invited to an orientation, audition, training session or directly into a serving role. And, depending on the nature of the role (like children’s workers), there may be an application process and background checks before people can serve.
  3. Attending a Spiritual Gifts Class — We teach the Purpose-Driven class materials that Rick Warren developed. Class 301 focuses on helping people identify their SHAPE (spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality, experiences). Once people determine their SHAPE, we have a team of volunteers that provides coaching on various ministry roles that might be a good fit. That team is also responsible for follow up to make sure people have made a ministry connection.

Tim and I cover this topic in much greater detail in our one-day workshop that we host a couple of times each year on the Granger campus. You may learn more about that opportunity at WiredChurches.com. (Here’s a little secret. We’re going to take this workshop on the road in 2006. I’ll tell you more about that in the coming weeks.)