the BLACKBOARD: the task of creating a volunteer culture

At New Life, we have been growing as a community.  We are up between 100-300 each week in attendance, year over year.  As we are growing in attendance, the needs and opportunities of the community have risen to minister to such growth.

I recently sat down with my Executive Pastor (recently meaning yesterday) and I shared with him where I would like to take the Family Ministry in the next few years.  It was a real good discussion as he gave me a lot to think about in regards to my structure and desires for the Family Ministry.

But, as we talked through the potential plan, there was one thing that he said to me made me think a lot…more than any other thing he said.  As we talked, we discussed how to get more volunteers he said we needed to change the culture of volunteerism in our church. In essence, he said more people aren’t serving now because we aren’t communicating the vision to them so they aren’t following it.

Again, this made me think a lot.  What could we do to communicate better?  What is the vision of the youth, children and family ministries that people are following?  What volunteer “teams” do we need to organize?  How could we get more buy in?

As I process this from a Family Minister viewpoint, I began to wonder how others are doing it.  After all, why re-create the wheel if there is something effective happening elsewhere.

So my question for the BLACKBOARD is: How do you create a volunteer ministry culture in your church?  What needs to be done?

The BLACKBOARD is open.  Grab some chalk and share your thoughts below as I think it would be a great discussion to have for all of us.