3 Reason You Should Appreciate Your Team More

Courtesy of Loco Steve/ Creative Commons License

I have to confess I don’t thank my volunteers enough.  It’s sad because I call them my team, I love what they do for me; yet, I fall short in showing it.  Author William Arthur Ward once said,

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”  

It’s a personal goal for the upcoming year and writing it out here I’m hoping to keep myself accountable.
As the leader of your youth ministry you need to be thanking your leaders on a regular basis because what they do is more than you’ll ever know.  Thanking them can be hard because we find ourselves busy meeting with teenagers, calling back parents and everything else that happens in a youth minister’s life.  But, your ministers are busy too, they need to be thanked or else they might go somewhere else.  It’s not that they are looking for gratitude; however, if you don’t feel appreciated, then why stay?  There are many reasons to appreciate them, especially considering the fact that they are:

• Full Time Elsewhere: They have jobs on top of volunteering in your ministry.  They are full-time parents, employees and family members.  They have responsibilities that make you wonder if serving you is a burden; yet, to them it’s a chance to connect closer to God.  By acknowledging their schedules you should make sure what you do is clearly communicated and done at a level of excellence or they might feel like they are wasting their time.
• Not Paid: You might have a chief leader who is stipend; however, the majority of your team is working for free.  They aren’t expecting raises because they aren’t doing this in hopes of getting paid.  The fact that they love God, love the teens and trust you enough to do this with their free time should be motivation to thank them over and over again. As their team leader don’t be afraid to spoil them.
• Looking To You: Again, they trust you as the leader.  They are willing to follow your crazy schemes, participate in your wacky games because they want to make a difference.  You might be young in life; however, to them you are an expert in the field of ministry.  Show them that you are a leader worth following by serving them.  It might be as simple as getting to know their families or sending them a birthday card.  But, as their leader praise them when they succeed and comfort them when they fail.

Unfortunately, your ministers won’t be with you forever because life will happen (Other ways to keep your volunteers, click here).  While you do have them make sure they know that you appreciate all that they do.  It doesn’t matter if you have one or one hundred, make sure that they know how much you value them.  Let them know how much they support you.  Let them know that you couldn’t do what you do without them, after all they deserve it.

Thank you to my team for such an amazing year, I want you all to know how blessed I am to have you.

How do you love on your ministers?