Did You Ask Anyone?

It seems every day we are bombarded by more and more fundraising requests on social media. I have seen people using fundraising sites to help pay for funeral expenses, adoption expenses, and in some cases, even vacations! If there’s one thing I’m super uncomfortable with, it’s asking people for money.

While I am definitely not going to light the world on fire with my record for fundraising, there is one question that I am not afraid to ask. I’m not afraid to ask someone to help in the kids ministry area. When I was on church staff, I work with my children’s committee to recruit workers for different areas. Our method: ASK PEOPLE.

It was a little more complicated than that, but it really is the general idea. In my line of work, I hear children’s minister lament frequently about how hard it is to recruit volunteers. Generally, if you ask them what they have done to recruit they will give you some of the following answers:

• “I put it in the church bulletin”
• “It’s all over my Facebook page.”
• “It’s on the church website”
• “The pastor preached about it.”

Friends, let me be real with you for a moment. Those recruitment methods are not really effective. In fact, they are ALMOST pointless. People can hide behind the veil of anonymity in each of these methods. They can placate themselves into believing that because everyone saw this request, someone will respond and there is no need for them to respond. It’s just not personal.

If you really want to recruit volunteers you are going to have to ask people. Here are a few recruiting tips I’ve found to be helpful.

• Pray for God to show you or give you several names of people you have found to be children’s ministry champions. Ask those people to serve on a volunteer recruiting committee.
• Meet with your committee and make a list of names of people known to be growing, solid Christians in the church. Use the adult Sunday School roles to see names of consistent Sunday School attendees.
• Assign each committee member 3-4 names to pray over and determine areas where those people might fit as great volunteers.
• Assign a date in which each committee member will complete his or her task of personally meeting with or calling that person and asking him or her to serve.
• Come back together and celebrate the successes. Thank your committee and remind them that you will help them follow-up with each new volunteer. Follow ALL church policies and procedures for volunteer background checks.

Remember that recruiting volunteers is personal. You can’t rely on a bulletin notification of a need in the 3-year-old class to be your recruitment method. You won’t know if a person is going to say “no” unless you ask him!

Jeff Land loves life! That’s pretty great, because his job here at Lifeway is the Team Leader for Bible Studies for Life: Kids. Jeff loves his life which is so blessed by his amazing wife, Abbey, and their four sons, Reed, Nash, Will, and Tuck. A natural encourager and fun-lover, look for Jeff’s posts about teacher appreciation and game ideas. When not serving at work, Jeff serves 2nd graders at his church, First Baptist Church, Joelton, TN.