I got another coupla reasons.

Sometimes they step back because their lives change and they just don’t “have the time” any more.

Sometimes they step back because we over-commit them beyond what we should have. (perhaps that’s part of poor leadership and poor management.)

Wow!  A top ten that I finally agree with. And I was always told it was just a lack of commitment and a measuring rod for the spiritual condition of people in the church (sarcasm intended).

Good tips.

Ed.

Excellent post, Todd. In regards to #’s 5-7, I would like to mention that maybe it’s just me, but trying to get volunteers to see the bigger picture is not always easy; they’ve been doing their ministry for years this way, and now we tweak it to become more effective and all they see is their turf being invaded. Efforts to communicate fall on deaf ears because once they perceive “Change”, they are threatened. Are we changing because I’ve been doing it wrong all this time? No, but it’s hard to get that out of their head. And in our case, it’s the younger ones who have more trouble dealing with change than the older ones.

Poor communication on our part? Sure, but in going so far as to even draw them a picture (literally) of where we’re going, it still meets resistance. When the big picture no longer fits on their agenda, we’ll lose them.

There is a lot more “meat” in each of these ten items that the article is able to communicate.  I think a theme (which I completely agree with) is that people quite (retention) or don’t sign up because we (the leadership) has a problem.  However, we’ve tended to point our fingers our lazy, self-indulgent congregations as the reason for poor volunteerism rather than looking in the mirror. 

Most of the items on the list have to do with discipleship.  Our structures however tend to make discipleship into a program that people go to (even classes and small groups).  So as a result, they overfill their plates.  They have to be in one type of activity to serve and use their gifts and another to grow and become discipled.

What if these were one and the same?  What if I could build community, learn about the bible, gain spiritual maturity as part of my serving.  If the nursery leader understood his/her role as a discipler of nursery workers rather than just filling the nursery slots and teaching workers how to care for babies.  If the lead usher saw his ushers as a small group and besides “ushing” together, they also had dinner at one another’s house and studied the bible together. 

Isn’t that how Jesus did it with 12 rag-tag guys?

Wendi

Both are intimately connected.  I used to have the phillosophy that if people area serving in their passion area and where God has called them, then they will just go on forever.  NOT!

A great resource that I have implemented into my equipping is “Grow Minister and Lead” (ten lifelines for volunteer leaders in the local church)…

It helped to open my eyes to being intentional with my volunteers about
1. providing for their own personal (spiritual) growth… we do not let people teach during Sundays and Wednesdays… they need to be fellowshipping and getting fed themselves too!
2. Accountability (for #1 and for their ministrty responsibilities)
3. Time management (nuf said)
4. Effective volunteer meetings and
5. Doing ONGOING training and ENCOURAGEMENT

There is a ton of great LEADERSHIP resource material available.  This is one I found revolutionary.

Nora,

You are quite right about members of serving teams sometimes not being all that interested in doing much more than the task at hand.  I think part of this stems from the way we (leaders) have created the culture.  Ministry is about getting stuff done or performing a task, Spiritual Formation programming takes care of our souls. 

Plus, as you wisely pointed out, sometimes these more intimate relationships need to grow more naturally and organically as people find their way to one another. 

One way I’ve addressed the need for discipleship on serving teams is to look at it on a case-by-case basis.  I once led a team of people who followed up with visitors and worked on their own from home.  Creating team and discipleship among members was challenging cause we didn’t do our work together.  I can think of two things in particular which I did:

1. I made sure meetings had less business and more relationship (and it meant I had to communicate business stuff in other ways).
2. I focused on those team members who did not have other activities where they were developing community and having their soul fed.  In other words, I didn’t really about those folks who were active in a small group or other Bible study.  For some, this group represented the only thing they did outside of worship services, so I made sure to invest in these folks in groups of two or three over coffee or lunch.  It prevented us from forcing discipleship into the lives of those getting it in other ways and their resistance causing the whole ministry team discipleship process to misfire.

Does that make sense?

Wendi

Nora –

Here are a few more thoughts about discipleship and community through serving.

I know of some churches that have had good success trying to create some ministry opportunities designed for already existing groups.  These include hospitality (parking, ushering, welcome ministries like the coffee and muffin area described on another article this week) or nursery and children.  These ministries are staffed by small groups and fellowship groups that rotate, taking one Sunday per month or quarter.  This way, instead of trying to force volunteer teams into relationships, already existing relationships are maximized. 

Some argue that this prevents people from serving in an area of gifting and passion.  I disagree for several reasons.  Doing something I’m naturally good at with people I don’t know is not nearly as fulfilling as doing something I can be relatively good at with people I love and have fun with.  Plus, I think it’s a misnomer that every single job in the church must be filled with a person who perfectly matches.  More often, when people with different gift-mixes fill the same role it takes on the shape of the person filling it.  An usher need not have hospitality gifts.  One of our best ushers has shepherding gifts.  He knows the names of the people who sit in his section, who their kids are, where they like to sit, when they’ve been missing.

My opinion is that we retain volunteers better by finding ways for them to serve with friends (new or old friends) than by trying to perfectly match people who have no natural affinity with one another.

Wendi