Today’s Mission
Day 3
Partners Versus Helpers
Never try to teach a pig to sing.
It wastes your time and it annoys the pig.
PAUL DICKSON
Most youth ministers we’ve observed use a volunteer-development model we call “The Genius and A Hundred Helpers.” Here’s how it works: volunteers are recruited to help the youth minister do his or her job. It’s understood that real ministry is what the youth minister does. Everyone else just “helps out.” The favorite line of the helper is “Just call me if you need me.” Many youth workers assume that if they could just get more helpers in their ministries, they could get so much more done, be less tired and minister more effectively.
The big problem with this approach is that every helper is waiting for us to take the initiative. A helper says, for example, “I’d love to help out in Sunday school on an as-needed basis. Just let me know the week before if you need me.” So every week it is our responsibility to determine whether we need this helper. Then we have to call them every time we need them (usually requiring several attempts for each point of need). If the helper says yes, then we’re responsible to get the curriculum to them, as well as all the needed supplies and attendance sheets.
No wonder so many people say, “It’s just easier to do it myself.” If they work with the “genius and a hundred helpers” model, trying to delegate and coordinate the small tasks of dozens of helpers, they’d be absolutely right. It could be, in fact, that the last thing a youth pastor needs is more helpers.
We like a different model. We call it the “Ministry Partner” model. In this model, a partner volunteer owns a piece of the ministry. The partner, for example, might own the youth Sunday school class. She ensures that curriculum is in place, that attendance is taken, that the room is set up, that inactive youth are followed up with and that substitutes are found when needed. The partner volunteer knows more about her ministry setting (and often the youth in it) than the staff person does. The partner is not waiting week after week for instructions from the “genius” youth pastor. The partner knows his or her mission and manages it, and the staff person helps the partner succeed.
Building your volunteer team starts with understanding the available partner roles in your ministry. Here are a few possibilities to prompt your thinking:
Certainly, not all of these partner roles will apply in your setting, and there’s a good chance you’ll have a few more in your context that didn’t make our list. The key is to start by identifying all the partner roles that are needed in your ministry. Don’t worry at this point whether you’ve got the people in your church to fill those roles; just identify the roles.
Of course, you will have many helpers in your ministry—those who can drive or bring food or host an event. But if you are to best utilize the willingness of those helpers, you need partners who can coordinate their work, encourage them and celebrate with them. Today we start the process of locking in our partners first.