Today’s Mission
Day 4
The Trap of Terminal Vagueness
Inspiration is the windfall from hard work and focus.
Muses are too unreliable to keep on the payroll.
HELEN HANSON
Most youth ministries live in the fuzzy ether of terminal vagueness. Some ministry leaders feel queasy about setting definite targets. It feels too much like a business. But of course, the alternative to having clear targets is having fuzzy ones. So we flounder, often directionless, letting the screaming priorities of everyone else set the course for our work. Like sailors navigating by the current and not by the stars, we find ourselves repeatedly crashing on the rocks, wondering how in the world we ever got there.
When we don’t know what we want or what we need, we end up doing nothing to get there. We quickly embrace victim mentality, complaining that people in our church just aren’t committed. There are few areas where this pattern is more common than in the world of recruiting volunteers.
But there’s good news.
There is no magic formula for recruiting volunteers, no secret sauce that some lucky youth workers know. But there is a process. A process that almost always works. Building a solid volunteer team is as simple (and as hard) as this: Invest time in working the process toward a very clear target, and you’ll have all the volunteers you need.
Very few of us actually like to pick up the phone and ask for something. But being a leader means, well, that we actually have a team to lead. A shocking number of youth workers step into their positions absolutely astonished that there is no team in place for them to lead, and they blame the church, the previous youth director or apathetic parents. As leaders, it’s our job to build the team, and the first step in that process is to identify our needs. How many Sunday school teachers do we need? How many small group leaders? How many youth group leaders? How many major event coordinators?
Yesterday we developed your needs list. Today you take the next step: developing your “pool,” or potential leader list.
Today’s Mission
- Look through your church’s directory for people who might volunteer.
- Since it’s likely that you don’t know everyone in your church, reach out to ten or so folks who can serve as sources for you. We’ve actually included in the next section a sample email for you to send to your sources to give you a starting point. You’ll want to keep asking until you come up with as many names as your targeted potential volunteer number. Send an email to
- your colleagues on staff
- well-networked parents
- student leaders
- current volunteer leaders
- church leadership—elders, deacons, adult Sunday school teachers
- saints and pillars of your church
Sample email to sources
Hi [NAME],
It’s [NAME] from church. I wonder if I could ask a quick favor.
I’m beginning the process of putting my team together to work with our youth ministry next year. I want to do everything I can to make sure we don’t miss someone in our church who might be a great fit but whom I may not have gotten to know yet.
Could you float me a few names of folks you know in our church who you think might have gifts for working with our teenagers? These could be older adults, young adults, parents, college students—anyone you think may be a possibility. (You can even add yourself to that list if you might be feeling called to serve in the youth ministry, but this letter is not a backdoor attempt to ask you to serve!)
I’ll personally follow up with every person you suggest to see if they might be a fit and to explain in more detail what we’re looking for.
I’d be very grateful for any names you send my way (and if you happen to have their contact information, all the better).
Blessings,
[NAME]