By Chuck Peters
The biggest concern keeping most youth pastors awake at night isn’t their budget, Bible study prep, parent involvement, or mental health concerns. As I interact with NextGen ministry leaders across the country, there’s one thing weighing on every leader’s mind: “How can I recruit the best volunteers?”
As the laid-back days of summer slip away and fall rapidly approaches, leaders everywhere are feeling the pressure of having too few volunteers for too many students, and are scrambling to fill the volunteer gaps before school starts. Maybe you’re feeling that
pressure now. Maybe you’ve procrastinated and now what was once a distant need has become an urgent one.
If that’s where you are today, this article is for you! And, yeeeeeaaaah. It’s appropriate for you to be a little worried. Recruiting under urgency using late, last-minute, need-based tactics doesn’t typically get you the best volunteers. But don’t worry, all is not lost. There’s still time to reset your strategy and deploy some wise, time-tested techniques to help you stop recruiting from a posture of stress and panic, and start functioning with proactivity and confidence. Here are a few tips to help.
1) Be selective.
The leadership advice that Moses’s father-in-law Jethro gave him in Exodus 18:17–19 applies really well to us today. When Jethro sees Moses trying to lead the people by himself, he says, “What you are doing is not good . . . You will certainly wear out both yourself and these people who are with you, because the task is too heavy for you. You can’t do it alone.” Jethro advises that Moses select leaders from among the people, specifically those with admirable qualities and upright character.
When we recruit out of urgency, we will always be tempted (or forced) to compromise our standards. Guys, this is a compromise I never want you to make! There’s too much at stake. Broadcasting a desperate cattle-call need for volunteers is a good way to find bad leaders. We can’t afford to give unqualified, warm-body, anyone-who-is-available volunteers access to influence our students. We need to be supremely selective about who we allow to teach and guide them. Instead, we should set increasingly high standards for serving in our ministries; high standards of morals, character, testimony, commitment, and consistency. We need leaders we can trust and rely on. You’re not recruiting chaperones; you’re enlisting powerful influencers.
The biggest concern keeping most youth pastors awake at night isn’t their budget, Bible study prep, parent involvement, or mental health concerns. As I interact with NextGen ministry leaders across the country, there’s one thing weighing on every leader’s mind: “How can I recruit the best volunteers?”
As the laid-back days of summer slip away and fall rapidly approaches, leaders everywhere are feeling the pressure of having too few volunteers for too many students, and are scrambling to fill the volunteer gaps before school starts. Maybe you’re feeling that
pressure now. Maybe you’ve procrastinated and now what was once a distant need has become an urgent one.
If that’s where you are today, this article is for you! And, yeeeeeaaaah. It’s appropriate for you to be a little worried. Recruiting under urgency using late, last-minute, need-based tactics doesn’t typically get you the best volunteers. But don’t worry, all is not lost. There’s still time to reset your strategy and deploy some wise, time-tested techniques to help you stop recruiting from a posture of stress and panic, and start functioning with proactivity and confidence. Here are a few tips to help.
1) Be selective.
The leadership advice that Moses’s father-in-law Jethro gave him in Exodus 18:17–19 applies really well to us today. When Jethro sees Moses trying to lead the people by himself, he says, “What you are doing is not good . . . You will certainly wear out both yourself and these people who are with you, because the task is too heavy for you. You can’t do it alone.” Jethro advises that Moses select leaders from among the people, specifically those with admirable qualities and upright character.
When we recruit out of urgency, we will always be tempted (or forced) to compromise our standards. Guys, this is a compromise I never want you to make! There’s too much at stake. Broadcasting a desperate cattle-call need for volunteers is a good way to find bad leaders. We can’t afford to give unqualified, warm-body, anyone-who-is-available volunteers access to influence our students. We need to be supremely selective about who we allow to teach and guide them. Instead, we should set increasingly high standards for serving in our ministries; high standards of morals, character, testimony, commitment, and consistency. We need leaders we can trust and rely on. You’re not recruiting chaperones; you’re enlisting powerful influencers.
Set your sights on high quality individuals in your church and seek them out intentionally.
Consider their reputation and qualifications, then approach them personally. “I see qualities in you that I want to develop in our students. Would you be willing to have coffee with me so I can share my vision for our ministry and see how our mission matches your giftedness and calling? God is doing big things in our students, and I think you would be a fantastic fit on our team.”
Don’t just take whoever you can get; choose who you want. Not just anyone will do. As Jethro said, we need to be selective.
2) Clarify the kind of leader you’re looking for.
One of the biggest takeaways my team drew from the research we did for the book,
Flip The Script, is the big need Gen Z and Alpha students have for belonging. As a generation, they don’t trust corporations, denominations, institutions, or accreditations. They don’t listen to a teacher or adult leader just because they have a clipboard or a microphone. They need to feel seen, known, wanted, welcomed, and valued by their teachers and leaders. The old saying may sound trite, but it’s true: They don’t care what we know until they know that we care.
We need a different kind of leader to reach today’s students; leaders who will build relationships based on a TRI formula: Trust + Respect = Influence. Before a leader can have any real influence on a student’s life, the student needs to know and trust that leader. In light of our research, I have a strong opinion about what we should ask of our volunteers. I believe that having a cast of adults who serve on a rotation or out of obligation is counterproductive to discipleship. Biblical discipleship is a process of walking together and talking together (see the Shema in Deuteronomy 6). Paul told the church at Corinth to “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” Imitation cannot happen outside of a consistent two-way relationship. We need leaders who will talk with students, not preach at them.
I want to challenge you to cast a new vision for what you look for in your volunteers. I call them 5C leaders. I want my volunteers to be: Committed, Consistent, Connected, Christlike, and who genuinely Care about students.
The consistency of adult leaders is extremely important considering the attendance patterns we see. You may have some students who attend every other week, or just one week a month. As students become more inconsistent in their attendance patterns, we need our adult leaders to be more consistent in theirs. Teens need leaders who miss them when they’re gone and celebrate them when they return. This can’t happen if there’s a different group leader every time they show up.
You’ve seen my list of the leader qualities that I look for. What’s on your list? Identify and clarify the kind of leaders you’re looking for and keep your eyes open for people in your church who have those qualities.
Consider their reputation and qualifications, then approach them personally. “I see qualities in you that I want to develop in our students. Would you be willing to have coffee with me so I can share my vision for our ministry and see how our mission matches your giftedness and calling? God is doing big things in our students, and I think you would be a fantastic fit on our team.”
Don’t just take whoever you can get; choose who you want. Not just anyone will do. As Jethro said, we need to be selective.
2) Clarify the kind of leader you’re looking for.
One of the biggest takeaways my team drew from the research we did for the book,
Flip The Script, is the big need Gen Z and Alpha students have for belonging. As a generation, they don’t trust corporations, denominations, institutions, or accreditations. They don’t listen to a teacher or adult leader just because they have a clipboard or a microphone. They need to feel seen, known, wanted, welcomed, and valued by their teachers and leaders. The old saying may sound trite, but it’s true: They don’t care what we know until they know that we care.
We need a different kind of leader to reach today’s students; leaders who will build relationships based on a TRI formula: Trust + Respect = Influence. Before a leader can have any real influence on a student’s life, the student needs to know and trust that leader. In light of our research, I have a strong opinion about what we should ask of our volunteers. I believe that having a cast of adults who serve on a rotation or out of obligation is counterproductive to discipleship. Biblical discipleship is a process of walking together and talking together (see the Shema in Deuteronomy 6). Paul told the church at Corinth to “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” Imitation cannot happen outside of a consistent two-way relationship. We need leaders who will talk with students, not preach at them.
I want to challenge you to cast a new vision for what you look for in your volunteers. I call them 5C leaders. I want my volunteers to be: Committed, Consistent, Connected, Christlike, and who genuinely Care about students.
The consistency of adult leaders is extremely important considering the attendance patterns we see. You may have some students who attend every other week, or just one week a month. As students become more inconsistent in their attendance patterns, we need our adult leaders to be more consistent in theirs. Teens need leaders who miss them when they’re gone and celebrate them when they return. This can’t happen if there’s a different group leader every time they show up.
You’ve seen my list of the leader qualities that I look for. What’s on your list? Identify and clarify the kind of leaders you’re looking for and keep your eyes open for people in your church who have those qualities.
3) Recruit people of purpose with purpose.
One of the common reasons we don’t like to approach people is that we know everyone is super busy. Plates are full. Schedules are packed. No one has loads of extra bandwidth to take on something else. That’s 100% true except for one exception:
NO ONE is looking for more to do. EVERYONE wants to be part of something meaningful.
The way you approach and pitch people makes a huge difference in the response you get. If you find that you get a lot of “no,” you may need to change your approach.
Recruiting from a posture of need and obligation (e.g. “We need four more leaders or we won’t be able to run our middle school program. Any four people! Please!”), more often than not, leads to NO.
And let’s be honest, unless you’re recruiting close friends, your need isn’t a high motivator; commitments that look and feel like obligations are a drag to be avoided. If you want to recruit people of passion and purpose, you need to recruit by passion and purpose: “We’re looking for an elite person who has a deep personal passion for Jesus to walk with our 8th grade boys and build relationship with them with a goal of leading them to love and follow Christ. I see those qualities in you, and I’d like to ask you to carefully and prayerfully consider partnering with us on this mission.”
No pressure. All purpose.
Quality people know their time is valuable. They want to know that there’s a worthwhile ROI for the time and energy they invest. When you recruit from a position of Your giftedness, an Exciting opportunity, and a Satisfying experience, you will get a lot more high caliber people to say YES. Lead with the ‘why’ not the ‘what’. If a volunteer buys into your passions and purpose, they will be far more likely to stick with you and return year after year.
4) Never stop recruiting.
One of the most common mistakes leaders make in recruiting volunteers is to only do it seasonally. This puts a ton of pressure on generating results in a short window of time. I call this the ‘pledge drive’ approach. You know how it feels when the local Christian radio station stops playing music for a week or more to ask listeners to pledge donations. This may sound terrible, but TBH, when those telethons are on, I immediately change channels or switch to a playlist. The problem isn’t the idea of giving support; it’s the pushy,
pressury vibe it gives off. It’s uncomfortable. The same can be true when your ‘recruiting season’ comes around in your church. When people know you’re in recruit mode, they might just steer clear of you for a couple weeks.
The better approach is to never stop looking for potential partners so you can approach people from a position of purpose not pressure. Make a habit of having vision-casting coffee connections with current and potential volunteers throughout the year. Share with them your heart for ministry, your passion for investing in young people, and the joy of seeing students come to know Jesus and walk with Him. When you maintain a year-round campaign as a champion for youth ministry, you’ll find that people around you catch your enthusiasm and want to be part of the exciting things happening in your wing.
Recruiting volunteers doesn’t have to be a headache or a hassle. By changing your approach you may even find that great, passionate, purpose-driven volunteers will beat you to it—racing to knock on your door and join your mission.
One of the common reasons we don’t like to approach people is that we know everyone is super busy. Plates are full. Schedules are packed. No one has loads of extra bandwidth to take on something else. That’s 100% true except for one exception:
NO ONE is looking for more to do. EVERYONE wants to be part of something meaningful.
The way you approach and pitch people makes a huge difference in the response you get. If you find that you get a lot of “no,” you may need to change your approach.
Recruiting from a posture of need and obligation (e.g. “We need four more leaders or we won’t be able to run our middle school program. Any four people! Please!”), more often than not, leads to NO.
And let’s be honest, unless you’re recruiting close friends, your need isn’t a high motivator; commitments that look and feel like obligations are a drag to be avoided. If you want to recruit people of passion and purpose, you need to recruit by passion and purpose: “We’re looking for an elite person who has a deep personal passion for Jesus to walk with our 8th grade boys and build relationship with them with a goal of leading them to love and follow Christ. I see those qualities in you, and I’d like to ask you to carefully and prayerfully consider partnering with us on this mission.”
No pressure. All purpose.
Quality people know their time is valuable. They want to know that there’s a worthwhile ROI for the time and energy they invest. When you recruit from a position of Your giftedness, an Exciting opportunity, and a Satisfying experience, you will get a lot more high caliber people to say YES. Lead with the ‘why’ not the ‘what’. If a volunteer buys into your passions and purpose, they will be far more likely to stick with you and return year after year.
4) Never stop recruiting.
One of the most common mistakes leaders make in recruiting volunteers is to only do it seasonally. This puts a ton of pressure on generating results in a short window of time. I call this the ‘pledge drive’ approach. You know how it feels when the local Christian radio station stops playing music for a week or more to ask listeners to pledge donations. This may sound terrible, but TBH, when those telethons are on, I immediately change channels or switch to a playlist. The problem isn’t the idea of giving support; it’s the pushy,
pressury vibe it gives off. It’s uncomfortable. The same can be true when your ‘recruiting season’ comes around in your church. When people know you’re in recruit mode, they might just steer clear of you for a couple weeks.
The better approach is to never stop looking for potential partners so you can approach people from a position of purpose not pressure. Make a habit of having vision-casting coffee connections with current and potential volunteers throughout the year. Share with them your heart for ministry, your passion for investing in young people, and the joy of seeing students come to know Jesus and walk with Him. When you maintain a year-round campaign as a champion for youth ministry, you’ll find that people around you catch your enthusiasm and want to be part of the exciting things happening in your wing.
Recruiting volunteers doesn’t have to be a headache or a hassle. By changing your approach you may even find that great, passionate, purpose-driven volunteers will beat you to it—racing to knock on your door and join your mission.
Chuck Peters is Director of Lifeway NextGen. He is the co-author of Flip The Script and host of the ETCH NextGen Ministry Podcast. Before joining Lifeway, Chuck had a prolific career in television and video production. He is a 3-time Emmy Award-Winning producer, director, writer, and on-screen host.
For more resources like this, check out Flip the Script and lifeway.com/students.
