Recruiting student ministry volunteers can be a little difficult.
“Hey, do you want to be a small group leader?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because you want to give up every Sunday night for the next four years?
“I’m out.”
“Oh, and we’ll need you to give up a few vacation days for camps, retreats and a mission trip or two. Did I mention that you’ll need to have your students over for sleep overs, go to swim meets that last all day and then listen to them process their latest breakup for approximately 10,000 hours?”
“In that case, sign me up!”
The trouble is, we’re absolutely dependent on great leaders. With great small group leaders we will have a great student ministry–almost guaranteed. With sub-par leaders or not enough leaders we’ll have minimal impact–even with amazing programming. So how exactly do we recruit enough great leaders? Since our student ministry team is entering our recruiting season, I’m in the mood to talk about a few lessons we’ve learned.
Lesson #1 is the power of story. Let’s talk numbers. Last spring, our senior teaching pastor invited the people of our church to serve in our student ministry. He did this from the stage. Now, our senior pastor is fairly influential. He has written a few books and is a great preacher. Every week, around 10,000 people listen to his sermon. Wanna know how many people signed up to serve? Five.
Five people signed up to serve when our semi-famous pastor gave a well-crafted and impassioned plea to serve. 5 people. Ouch.
This year, we adapted our strategy and filmed a video of one of our all-star volunteers–a volunteer who has led the same group of girls for 7 years. Here’s the video we showed to our church a few weeks ago. Go ahead and watch it. I’m going to skip it because I don’t want to cry…again.
My Story: Molly Rayman from LifeLine Student Ministries on Vimeo.
This year, after showing this video, 65 people signed up to serve in our student ministry. 65! I’m not strong at math but that’s pretty close to a million percent increase from last year. What did we learn? Story wins. People resonate with stories. Everyone wants to be a part of something big and meaningful. People want to join a cause but aren’t motivated to get up out of their seats until they see it, hear it or experience it through someone’s story.
So, how do you get more volunteers? Tell stories. Get your best volunteers on screen on or stage and let them tell the stories of what it’s like to journey with students. Go ahead and try it but you better create enough positions to accommodate the million percent increase.
