If you’ve taken St. Peter’s new member class in the past 10 years, you remember meeting with one of our volunteer ministry guides for a friendly conversation about your gifts and interests and ways they might be used at St.Read more…
The Jungle Cruise and Insubordination
What can we learn from Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise? What Laszlo Bock has to say here about employees is actually MORE true of volunteers. Empowerment can be key in keeping volunteers, particularly the highly skilled ones. How does a leader ofRead more…
A Question: What will a Volunteer Coordinator Do for Me?
The budget of our church’s volunteer program got a substantial bump this year. Thankfully, we are now able to hire a full-time coordinator. What are the most important parts of a volunteer program that we should shift to her, theRead more…
Good Stuff: Reasons a Team Lacks Joy
Enjoy your volunteering? In “Five Reasons a Team Lacks Joy,” Eric Geiger notes that each reason for lack of joy can be counteracted by the leader. Perhaps we leaders should be looking for, and measuring, signs of joy in ourRead more…
Paid or Volunteer?
Paid or Volunteer? What work is done by staff at your church? What work is done by volunteers? Usually, the line between the two is pretty clear. Some positions (pastor, secretary) are filled by employees. Others (Sunday school teacher, usher)Read more…
Going to the Dogs?
I’m not a dog person. Due to family allergies, we never owned a dog, much to my sons’ disappointment and my relief. But now my church owns a dog. Last November, in a “passing of the leash” ceremony, we receivedRead more…
The Power of Stories
Are you a storyteller? Of course you are. We all are. We naturally share the stories of what’s going on in our lives – the illness, the home improvement project, the cute thing the grandchild did! Stories are part ofRead more…
Video Clip Resources
A picture really is worth a thousand words. We are visual learners, naturally, and more so as the internet and the hundreds of cable TV channels multiply what we can view on a screen. Good communicators are always on theRead more…
Surviving as a Team Leader
“Teams are a lot of work.” I sighed heavily with this guilty thought. I’ve promoted the value of teams for years, within and beyond my own church. But I was feeling more frustration than love at the moment. I wasRead more…
When My Volunteer is Smarter than Me
I know a thing or two about databases. I love how they organize information and the flexibility they offer over a spreadsheet; I can build a basic Access database. When I was hired as Director of Equipping People to ServeRead more…
In the Store: Training Volunteers, a presentation toolkit
Training Volunteers A presentation toolkit for improving church volunteerism health “Training Volunteers” includes two PowerPoint presentations with supporting tool. You can use this kit for training yourself and for training others. Every church volunteer should be trained for their service.Read more…
DO Something with that Interesting Article
DO Something with that interesting article you read If you’re like me, you like to read, you like to learn and you care about the topics you chose to read about. If you’re really like me, when you read aRead more…
A Question: Too Many Volunteers
I’ve Got a Question “Our Angel Food Ministry has received a fantastic outpouring of people offering to volunteer. This ministry provides boxes of food at reduced cost to help families in our community. At our November distribution, we had 83Read more…
Hungry for Relationships
It’s no secret. People need people. They crave relationships. Sociologists, psychologists and theologians agree that they always have and always will. The need has become acute as hectic schedules, geographic mobility, consumerism and affluence pull us apart from others. Ironically,Read more…
Our Father Lutheran: A Commitment
How Our Father Lutheran Invites Members into Ministry, part 1 A Commitment to Connecting People “We have several strong women in charge of member integration.” That’s how Margaret Hinchey, Minister of Music at Our Father Lutheran Church in Centennial, Colorado,Read more…
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