Blog
Keep it Short
Years ago I required my volunteers to attend monthly training meetings on Sunday nights. This worked well but eventually less and less people attended the Sunday night meetings.
If I am doing something that is having less success than it used to have, it may be a signal that I need to change. One thing that has changed is that volunteers do not have as much free time as they used to have. I don’t want to throw untrained people in a room so I had to figure out a shorter more efficient way to train people.
I found the answer at a business seminar. I overheard a conversation where a colleague was talking about the Ten Minute Huddle. I asked her “What is the Ten Minute Huddle”?
The Ten Minute Huddle is an opportunity for all employees to meet for ten minutes before the doors open to discuss what is happening that day. I did the quick math. Ten minutes of training for three weeks equals 30 minutes of training. The best part is that my volunteers do not need to come back to church for an extra meeting.
The Ten Minute Huddle transformed our KidMin. Volunteers started looked forward to the ten-minute huddles because they knew they were going to be short meetings and it gave them time to connect with each other before ministering to the kids.
Many people have a false idea that if it’s spiritual it needs to be long but that is not necessary the truth. We have all sat through long boring sermons that didn’t do anything for us. Some preachers forget that the scriptures say, “Blessed are the short winded for they shall be heard again.”
One thing I have noticed about growing churches today is that they have short services. If we want to have more volunteers we need to keep our meetings short and make it convenient for them to attend. The bottom line is we need to think of things from the point of view of our volunteers.
The same thing is true with blogs. I find if I keep my blogs short more people read them.
What types of things do you do to train volunteers in a busy world?
Hey Mark and Debbie,
My husband and I used to be children’s Pastors and we used your curriculum from superchurch. We are pastoring a church now and are looking for your old stuff. Basic foundatiins, divine healing, how to pray? Can you let me know if it’s possible to get it? Thanks so much.
Dixie,
The Classic Super Church is no longer available.
We have totally recreated Super Church for a new generation of kids. It’s called Super Church 2.o
Same Theology but All new lessons with Media Elements.
In Prayer 2.0 we cover the different types of prayer covered in “Learning to Pray”
The Core 2.0 is very similar to Christian Foundations.
Thanks for asking,
Mark, this is REALLY good! I absolutely LOVE the idea of the 10-minute huddle!
A lot of the work we do with volunteers is online, in prep for mission trips. We have a great network of people who want to help to spread awareness about the kids we serve in Africa throughout the entire year, not just for the trips. But I am finding that even my most committed volunteers are just not having the time to help these days. Do you have any suggestions of how I can ‘revive’ the spirit of community, even though our community is mostly online? {we have a FB group that is 500+ people, plus a FB page of 250+} How do I get them talking & inspiring each other to good works?