A guest blog by Teresa Nixon, Children’s Outreach Worker at St John’s Church, Hartford, UK.
How can I better support those who volunteer year after year? When Teresa told me she was meeting one-to-one with all her leaders every year, I asked her to write this blog to help us understand why this is so important.
When I first read through my denomination’s guidelines on recruiting and managing volunteers, I have to admit that I was somewhat overwhelmed and disheartened. Not because I don’t think that it’s important, but because I knew the time it would take was something I didn’t feel I had to spare.
Like many of us, I rely very heavily on a large number of wonderful, servant-hearted, committed volunteers who give so much of their time to support me and enable the things we do. Of course, I have known for a long time that it is vital to train them, encourage them and show them love, but the sad reality is that much of the time, I have been so busy doing the ministry, that I haven’t had time to stop and look after my much-relied-upon volunteers.
Could I really meet each leader once a year?
As I started to be challenged by the requirements of the guidelines – to meet with each individual volunteer three times a year (two of which could be meeting as a team, but one of which had to be on a one-to-one basis), I began to chat with some older, wiser and humbler leaders who have been in ministry far longer than me. They told me what I knew would be true, that time spent helping our volunteers to reflect on their service was time well spent. I was still hesitant to consider how to actually carve out the time in reality – and to do it in a way that didn’t feel like I was an employer doing annual reviews on a staff team.
So, I did what I guess a lot of us do: I contacted various people I know in ministry who already had volunteer annual review forms, and together with my line manager, we put together an online review form that we felt most helpfully reflected what we wanted to achieve. Over the last academic year, I met with my volunteers for a time of training and prayer as a team, once during the autumn term and then again during the spring term. This gave me an opportunity to explain something of what we would need to do in terms of safer recruitment, but also to help them to understand that these team meetings, and the one-to-one meetings that I planned for the summer term, were good things, and not an administrative burden that we had to endure.
Loving my volunteers
I had felt like this was just red tape that I needed to comply with, but I was slowly realising how very valuable the safer recruitment process was and how this naturally fed into the ongoing people management aspect of truly loving my volunteers in a way that I had been too busy to see as necessary before. Having convinced myself and my teams of the benefits, I then had to prioritise doing the one-to-one reviews. In what is normally my quietest term, I felt that the summer term was the ideal time to look back with each of them on how they had found serving in their particular role over the last year, and to think about how they might like to continue serving, if at all, in the coming year.
I emailed each of the volunteers a link to the relatively simple form. It was interesting to note that I received a far higher response rate doing the form online, than similar forms sent as attachments. We do have a couple of volunteers who aren’t able to access things online, so I printed out paper copies for them as needed. I set aside two full days in my diary of back-to-back 30 minute slots to meet with the volunteers one-to-one. I really thought that I wouldn’t fill 30 minutes with each person, but the reality was that with many individuals, we could have chatted for a lot longer. I am fortunate that most of my volunteers are either retired, stay-at-home mums, or work part time. I did end up with quite a few who couldn’t make either of the initial days, whom I slotted in around my normal commitments and one volunteer who didn’t see the value to them personally, so chose not to meet with me.
Focused time without distraction
With the answers they had already provided on their completed forms as the starting point for each conversation, we simply worked our way through each question, chatting about their answer in a bit more detail. It was a delight to hear their encouragements, and helpful to listen to their concerns or problems. I know that I am guilty of rushing round in the midst of a group, hearing a concern raised by a volunteer, but not really having the time (or should that be, inclination) to attend to it there and then. So, having that focused time without distraction really helped me to realise how much I valued each individual member of the team.
The question we asked about how our volunteers were “feeding” themselves spiritually was probably the most revealing. Inevitably, there were the stalwarts of our church who were consistent and confident in their personal devotions, but the majority were far from doing what we as a ministry team might have expected or would certainly hope they were doing. From the person who admitted that all the Bible notes they’d tried using were just too academic, to the person who graciously admitted that they never prioritised spending time reading the Bible on their own. And yet, overwhelmingly, they all wanted to do more but were just stuck knowing how to do it. These are wonderful, godly people who we have been relying on to serve others, disciple others, witness to the lost, and yet are not being fed in a way that we naively assumed they would be. What a fantastic opportunity to show them love and concern and to help them practically to revitalise their love for private prayer and Bible study.
Humbled
At the end of our time together, I asked each volunteer how I could pray for them. By the end of the first day of doing this, I was completely humbled. Here were kind, hard-working souls, who give so much of their time, who I see regularly and would consider to be friends as well as dear brothers and sisters in Christ, telling me deeply personal things about their life about which I had no previous knowledge. The breezy, “Hello! How are you?” with the typical response of “Fine, thank you”, before plunging into a busy session of activities, obviously doesn’t cut it in showing real love and concern for these dear people. I came away feeling so blessed that time after time, people struggling deeply were so willing to serve alongside me, without complaining or burdening me with their worries. And yet, I wonder whether this has more to do with the fact that I appear to them to be too busy to care?
These one-to-one sessions were a real opportunity to say a proper thank you, to show them real appreciation, to help them practically to work through things they found difficult in their serving or in their personal devotions, and gave me the privilege of spending time praying for them – and continuing to pray for them out of real love and care, not just superficial niceness.
Making it a priority
Yes, it has taken a lot of hard work and time* to get this process set up. Yes, I was exhausted by the end of a day of back-to-back one-to-ones. Yes, I should have and could have been doing this many years ago. And maybe, if I wasn’t so busy doing ministry, it wouldn’t be so necessary to do it in this way. I am grateful that this framework has prompted me to do something that I will definitely be prioritising in my diary going forward.
Here is the link to the simple form we used, or if you have any questions, please contact me at St. John's Hartford.
*It is hard to quantify the amount of time this has taken, but for the approx. 35 volunteers I oversee, it has probably taken at least a full working week (spread over a period of time) to plan the reviews, liaise with the volunteers over meeting times, meet with them one to one and follow up queries etc.
Photos from top by: IqbalStock and Kay Lenze, both on Pixabay.
If you want to think more about this, read the chapter 'A healthy team' in my book, 'Raising the Bar: Nearly Everything You Need to Know about Christian Youth Ministry' which you can buy here. In it, you'll find other ideas about finding, training and growing leaders in your groups. You can find out here what other youth leaders think about the book.
VOLUNTEER ANNUAL FEEDBACK
Thank you for taking the time to fill in this form. Please don't be put off by the name - it is simply an invitation for you to feedback about how things are going. It's entirely voluntary and you can answer as many or as few of the questions as you like. We hope that you find it helpful to take the time to reflect on how you have served over the last year.
First & Last Name
What group are you currently serving in?
What have you enjoyed most about being a volunteer in this particular area of ministry this year?
What have you found most challenging?
What signs of spiritual growth have you seen among the group that you serve?
How is your Christian life going? How are you trying to "feed" yourself?
Would you like to carry on serving in this ministry next year? Yes / No
Is there another ministry area you think you might prefer to serve in?
Do you know anyone else who would like to be involved in serving in this ministry?
Any other comments that you'd like to add:
Thank you for answering these questions. Your time and service is much appreciated.
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