Training Volunteers in the 21st Century

People are busier than ever. I used to train my volunteers at monthly meetings on Sunday night, but it’s hard to get people to show up for extra meetings.

I had to figure out how to train my volunteers in small doses.

Now, I do all of my training in four bite-size nuggets.

1. The Ten-Minute Huddle
We have a ten-minute huddle every Sunday, thirty minutes before the service starts. The Head Coach does the training, because I want my leaders looking to their Head Coach.
 
They will cover the object lesson for that day, remind everyone about any announcements and policies, and pray with all of the leaders. We also provide donuts and coffee during this time.
 
2. VIT (Very Important Training) E-mail
This is five minutes of training, in an e-mail format, that is sent out weekly.
 
It usually is three paragraphs or less. I have found that if my teaching doesn’t fit on the screen, then most people will not scroll down to read it.
 
If you don’t have a lot of time to create your own training e-mails, you can find plenty of examples in my blog posts (www.superchurch.com), and then you can forward those posts to your volunteers.
 
3. Quarterly Meetings
I meet with my Small-Group Leaders for thirty minutes every month.
 
We do this during Large Group time. I pull my Small Group Leaders out of Large Group for training in a separate room.
 
Participation in my training went from less than 50 percent to 98 percent because I did it when they were already at church.
 
4. Teach Leadership in Kids Church
Recently I created a curriculum about leadership. It was designed to develop leadership gifts in our kids, but it did something else I was not anticipating.

Our Small Group Leaders grew in leadership as they taught the kids about leadership. It was a Double Dip! 

Our kids grew in their leadership skills, and our volunteers grew in their leadership as we went through the curriculum. It was a beautiful thing. 

If you would like to teach your kids and volunteers about leadership, you can order the Leadership Curriculum at this link: Super Church 2.0 Leadership

It’s a 12-week series that sells for $149. Right now, it is on sale for $99. 

Mark Harper
SuperChurch