Volunteerism: Are You Putting the Cart before the Horse?

In a series of posts over the next several months, Summit Satellite Operations leader, Rhonda Jenkins, and Global Leadership Summit Volunteer Champion, Charlene Armitage will share insights and best practices for leading a team of volunteers.

Over the years, our team has interacted with thousands of volunteer teams that do the hard work of putting on the Global Leadership Summit in churches around the country. And when we see a volunteer team thriving – we know it all comes back to the leader. Good leadership of a volunteer team involves a vision for helping volunteers grow and become more like Jesus and a passion for excellent service.

But more often than not, we’ve seen leaders of volunteer teams put the cart before the horse. It is all too easy to take your focus off the volunteer—and focus on the task instead.

Have you defined a preferred future for your volunteer culture?

Paul’s words in Ephesian 4 remind us what a thriving volunteer culture looks like. In this passage, Paul gives a clear explanation of how God has uniquely designed each of us and how he calls us to use our gifts to the glory of God and the benefit of others. He says:

• Lead a life worthy of your calling (v. 1)
• Recognize each of us is given a special gift (v. 7)
• Equip God’s people to do his work (v. 12)
• Build up the church (v. 12)
• Become mature in our faith (v. 13)

Using our unique God-design as we serve in the church, should encourage spiritual transformation. In short, by serving, we should become more like Jesus.  And isn’t that what we all want for our volunteer cultures—and for our entire church?

Does your current volunteer culture focus on doing tasks rather than becoming like Jesus? Are you asking volunteers to help before you even find out who they are or how God has uniquely gifted them?

Take a few minutes to make an honest assessment of the current reality of your church’s volunteer culture. Which of the following statements would best describe your current situation?  (Make a note of all that apply.)

☐ To be honest, we actually do focus more on tasks over helping volunteers become more like Jesus.

☐ We would like to focus more on spiritual development and implement the Ephesians 4 principles, but we don’t know how.

☐ We track people’s service – but don’t use a spiritual gifts assessment tool.

☐ We provide a spiritual gifts assessment class; however, we lack an effective placement/caring process that would ensure a volunteer’s continued service.

☐ We have an effective spiritual gift assessment process that feeds into a volunteer tracking system, which results in volunteers being accurately matched with serving opportunities and ultimately becoming more like Jesus through their volunteering.

If your current volunteer culture is defined by any of the first four statements above, perhaps you are putting the volunteer cart before the volunteer horse.

Working with the thousands of volunteers who put on the Global Leadership Summit, our teams have learned to identify the cultures where volunteers thrive. These effective cultures are filled with enthusiastic and fired-up volunteers, who increase their church’s effectiveness.

We have observed that the best volunteer cultures have leaders who enact the following three practices:

1. They get to know their volunteer as a whole person. This includes knowing their spiritual gifts, passion, abilities, personality and experience.

2. They use a volunteer tracking tool to keep good records and ensure volunteers are matched to serving opportunities where they’ll thrive. This includes an effective communication system and process to make sure no one falls through the cracks.

3. They identify one passionate volunteer champion within their church to lead their volunteer culture to its preferred future. These people represent the interests of volunteers in meetings and they refuse to default to doing tasks rather than developing people through volunteering.

Join us over the next several months as we dig into these three practices, sharing our experiences in matching each volunteer with his or her God-given design, and how, while serving, we can help people become more like Jesus.

This will ensure we do not get the volunteer cart before the volunteer horse.

Rhonda Jenkins is in her 12th year of leading Summit Satellite operations for Willow Creek Association. Her passion for the ministry of the WCA was ignited 20 years ago when she volunteered at a conference. Rhonda loves to inspire other leaders by how she leads with heart, passion and love.  

Charlene’s passion to see volunteers fulfilled, experience joy in serving and grow to become more like Christ while serving is reflected in every aspect of her leadership. As Global Leadership Summit Volunteer Champion, she releases leadership as she mobilizes volunteer team leads who in turn lead teams to serve guests at the Summit.