How DO You Ask for Volunteers?

by Reba Collins

A few weeks ago William used a blog by author and church consultant, Tony Morgan, to raise awareness about why it’s so hard to get ministry volunteers. Morgan’s blog listed five reasons why church leaders struggle in this area. First on his list was: “You’re not asking correctly.” Amen, brother.

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve seen church leaders bungle this important entry into ministry. It happens every single week. Often multiple times when you count both verbal and written asks.

And what a shame because there is a lot at stake when a poor ask occurs. Not only are you hindering someone’s opportunity to grow spiritually through serving in ministry, but you’re in jeopardy of turning off a potential new member to the Body of Christ.

Unfortunately, Morgan stops short in his blog in giving any helpful suggestions for how to ask people to volunteer. So I offer up three BIG “Do’s” and “Don’ts” from some of my best and worst experiences in asking for volunteers. Then, at the end, I’ll give a behind-the-scenes perspective on what makes a really great ask.

• Don’t Plead for Help. “We need your help,” and “Please help us” make you and the situation look desperate. Desperation usually means chaos and stress. People have enough of that at work and home. They will avoid it when given the choice at church.
• DO Challenge People to Take a Risk. “We want to make something extraordinary happen, and we can do it with your help,” elevates the ministry need to a new level of risk. Any risk, with the potential for positive impact challenges people to do things they wouldn’t normally consider doing. BTW, if you can’t explain how a ministry leads to a significant impact for those serving and those being served, then you need to seriously question why you’re doing it in the first place. 
• Don’t Make People Feel Guilty. “We only need ___ more volunteers,” not only makes your ministries appear unsupported, unimportant, and obligatory, but it makes people feel guilty for seeming to be uninterested, disengaged, and shirking their duty to support all your church’s ministries.
• DO Make People Feel Empowered. “We need people with these certain skills, abilities, and interests to plug into a specific ministry,” lets people off the hook that they should be serving in every ministry area of your church. Connecting personal interests and gifts with specific ministries empowers people to use their strengths as ministry volunteers. 
• Don’t Overload People with Information. “Join our Sunday School teaching team. If you have an extra hour to serve on Sunday morning, we need help in the Kindergarten classroom” focuses too much on the What? When? Where? How? answers and totally forgets to answer the Who is it for? and Why should we do this? questions. By the time all the “need to know” information is processed, you’ve lost the connection with what is really important in ministry – the person-to-person and God-to-person relationships.
• DO Overload People with Inspiration. “Each week our children’s small group leaders help our children grow closer to a God who loves them with a group of friends who loves them,” paints an inspiring picture of worthwhile service that makes a difference in someone’s life. People like pictures, and they like to see themselves in really good pictures with other people. Asking people to serve in ministry should inspire first, then inform.

Church searchers are not daft. They know the difference between a desperate plea and a compelling call to action. And so do regular church-going folk. The difference between searchers and regulars is that searchers don’t feel as though it’s their duty to help. They simply and quietly leave, never to return again. Regulars help – for a while at least. Until they’ve been used up, frustrated to no end, or depleted in a spiritually dead-end volunteer role. Then, they crawl away or stay around only to complain. None of these scenarios are going to get you more volunteers over the long haul.

So, what makes a really great ask? When it’s time to ask people to engage in ministry, here’s a quick mental checklist that really good churches use to mobilize upward of 65 to 80% of their folks into volunteer ministry:

• Do we care more about who people are becoming than what they are doing? In other words, are you asking people to volunteer because you want them to discover their purpose through serving in ministry?
• Do we state clearly why we want volunteers to serve? Specifically, do your volunteer calls-to-actions express benefits to the volunteer (more peace, more fulfillment, more spiritual growth, more opportunity to make a difference in another’s life) over benefits to the church (more visibility, more welcoming, more outreach)?
• Do we ask from a position of: (1) serving helps us become more spiritually mature or (2) serving is a result of spiritual maturity? Are you intentionally making space available for new and immature Christians to volunteer? Is your language free of assumptions that new people wouldn’t know? Does your language connect volunteering to discipleship?
• Are we asking people to invest in something greater than themselves? Are you asking people for a commitment to a relationship that can have long-term impact for both the volunteers and the people being served?
• Are we personally inviting our high capacity lay leaders into volunteer leadership positions? Are you seeking the leadership potential in your congregation and intentionally asking people to step into a specific and critical leadership role?

In Tony Morgan’s blog, he ends his first point with, “If you want people to serve, you’ve got to learn how to ask correctly.” The flip side of his observation is that if you are finding it hard to get people to serve, then you’ve got some homework to do. Following are some resources to get you started:

• TheRocketCompany – a great resource focused on mobilizing church volunteers.
• Church of the Highlands – A church that shows an impressive percentage of volunteers in their volunteer corps, the Dream Team. Also, they host a leadership conference every year that dives deeper into how they’ve created a system for engaging volunteers. Conference details here.
• New Spring Church and Willow Creek Community Church – Great examples of language that mobilize people toward volunteering.

Want more perspective on how to ask for volunteers? Check out these two previous blogs:

• Why Won’t More People Volunteer? 
• Quit Using the “If” Word in Church!