I need about 10 more ministers until I can take over the world…or maybe it’s 50…or maybe I don’t know that number, because as soon as I hit a number, I find myself wanting more. I think every youth worker wants an endless flow of adults pouring into their ministry wanting to serve God and love on teens. Why? Because it allows us to make a greater impact and it can make our jobs a whole lot easier. But creating a system where adults are knocking on your office door at every waking moment seems impossible, but that’s probably because:You Aren’t Dreaming Big Enough
More times than not we are saying, “If I could only get one more, or two more ministers, I would be good.” It doesn’t matter if you say 5, 10 or 100 when we put a number on how many people you need what you are really doing is limiting the vision God has for your ministry. Don’t think of a number think of a system that keeps the doors open.
Your System Is Too Passive
When someone says, “We just need to pray more.” what they are really saying is, “I could really use a wish right now.” I’m not saying we shouldn’t pray, but sometimes we expect the perfect ministers to walk up and say, “Ooh choose me, I want to be a student minister.” We also can’t expect our ministers, coworkers and pastors to do all the work for us. When you don’t ask people to serve they’ll take it as if you don’t want them to serve. We need to find ways of asking people corporately and personally.
Your Expectations Don’t Exist
Would you walk into a building with no sign? Would you join a club with no name? Would you get married to someone with no vows? If you don’t have vision, mission, values, expectations, goals and all the other secrets of successful whatevers people will have no interest in what you do. You have to paint people a picture of why they should be in student ministry and what they can expect.
Your Ministry Has No Hype
You have to act like your ministry is the best ministry. In fact, much to the annoyance of some coworkers, I publicly announce to people that student ministry is the best ministry. And since it’s public, no one can take that from me…even if it isn’t. I want people to get pumped and to have fun. I want to people to want to be a part of student ministry, even if they are meant to be a part of the parking lot ministry. I’m not trying to mislead people, I’m just trying to show them that it’ll be worth their while to check it out.
In my experience the largest obstacle to people getting involved in student ministry at my church is me. I’m not trying to be hard on myself, I just think that if getting volunteers is a priority I need to continuously work on painting vision, creating hype, and being aggressive with going up to people. Ministers aren’t given, they are earned. God will give you what you need you just need to be sure that you are ready to take them in and lift them up.
What have you done that’s been successful in recruiting volunteer ministers?