By necessity, ministry—children’s and family ministry, in particular—requires teams to lead in one of the hardest leadership arenas possible: the volunteer arena. While hard to lead, it’s also one of the most rewarding, empowering, fun, and engaged arenas.
The truth is, that whether someone is a volunteer or paid staff, leaders are leaders, and it’s important to focus our attention so that we can all run with the vision together.
Here are 5 ways to empower your team in their leadership roles.
1. Engage Your Leaders
Who wants to be a part of a team, but not actually be part of a team? It really doesn’t even make sense! When volunteers join your children’s ministry, they do it so they can be part of something bigger than themselves. It’s important that we engage them!
- Build relationships with members of your team simply to know and love them as people. Have a relationship with them for the sake of knowing them and walking through life with them.
- Figure out (and ask!) what keeps them going. What are the things that excite them in ministry? What skills do they have and how can they be used? What are their passions? What do they want to avoid at all costs?
- Align their passions, talents, and desires with the vision you are pursuing.
Volunteers aren’t working for you, they are walking in ministry with you.
2. Leader of Leaders: Equip, Equip, Equip
Too often we think of equipping as happening after volunteers have committed to serving. But it should happen before they join. It begins with casting vision for ministry and helping them see how their gifts, experiences, and passions align with that vision.
It helps them see where they fit and how they can grow!
- Link what keeps them going with how it can help accomplish the ministry vision.
- Be specific in calling volunteers to a commitment to investing their skills in that defined vision.
- Fill in any deficiencies in their skills, abilities, resources, etc. to help them be successful.
3. Empower Your Team
Our job as leaders is to build a team so that we can do the things that only we can do. It’s so important to utilize and rely on other people, just as in the Body as a whole. We can’t do ministry alone! So, to do this, we must empower our teams to do the things that only they can do.
- Give them what they need to be successful and then let leaders run! While you still need to maintain expectations, vision, etc., it’s important to give them ownership of their areas of service.
- Accept that volunteers will not always do things the way that we would do things (we’ve found they usually do them better!).
- Be available and intentional about keeping their efforts focused toward pursuing the defined ministry vision for the ministry.
4. Encourage Volunteers
This is key to ministry. We can’t just have ministry through volunteers, we must also minister to them. We can’t assume that our volunteers are ‘good’ and never follow-up with them or encourage them. Burnout is real, and if we aren’t careful, our leadership can play part in a volunteer wanting to quit in children’s ministry. We want to keep our volunteers inspired, encouraged, and empowered so that they don’t become tired, discouraged or frustrated.
Encourage them often, even when you don’t think they really need it!
5. Enjoy Life Together
Yes, enjoy! Volunteers are our brothers and sisters in Christ, they are friends, they are allies, and they are on your team! They are people just like you… with families, challenges, good and bad times, health, heartbreak, and so much more.
- Enjoy these relationships and treat them as peers, not employees. Because they aren’t working for you, they are walking in ministry with you.
- Remember that it’s about discipleship with the adults in our ministry, too! Parents and leaders are growing in their faith, and we have a tremendous opportunity to invest in them spiritually, and they in us.
- These people are your natural community, as well. Allow them space in your life and don’t let yourself live on a ministry island.
Wonder Ink’s 3-year, 52-week children’s ministry curriculum offers kids space to fully find their place in God’s Big Story. Children discover they are Known by God, Loved by Jesus, and Led by the Holy Spirit.
