Creating a “Volunteers Welcome” Culture - Part 3

This month we will focus on the final two areas of creating a welcoming culture for your CM volunteers; making your culture forgiving and faithful for volunteers.

Forgiving

Is your ministry forgiving and tolerant with volunteers? This of course does not apply to an offence like child abuse; there is no tolerance for that. This refers to the day to day mistakes we all make. Your volunteers are more likely to stick if they know that they will be forgiven. Here are three points to remember when creating this forgiving culture.

1.       Be gracious

Remember how it was when you first started in CM, the mistakes you made and the lessons you learned. Show your volunteers the same grace that you were given. Be the one that puts a hand on their shoulders and trains them and be gentle as you do so.

2.       Share stories about your own failures

Sharing stories of your past mistakes will let your team know that you understand messing up. It does not mean that you encourage mistakes but it assures them that it is not the end of the world.

3.       Have a sense of humor

As we have all heard time and time again, laughter is the best medicine. This is especially true in CM. The church won’t close down because you accidentally used salt instead of sugar to make the juice for the morning snack. It resulted in some very funny faces and a few messes to clean up when the children spit it out but it is not the end of the world.

What comes around goes around. Be forgiving and it will return to you over and over again.

Faithful

Trust is one of the cornerstones of any relationship and it is no less important when it comes to your volunteers.  Make sure that you have given them reason to trust you. Here are four ways to create that faithful environment.

1.       Deliver what you promise

When you say you will do something – do it. If you follow through nine times out of ten and then blow it on number ten, you will be forgiven. They already know you are not perfect.

2.       Give credit where credit is due

If someone stops me after church and says ‘My child is learning so much in CM, you sure run a tight ship’ and I simply say ‘Thank you’, I am doing a great disservice to my team.  I do not prepare every class, teach each week, change every diaper etc. Give credit where credit is due. My reply should be ‘Thank you for your kind words but please share them with my team, they are the reason the ship runs so smoothly’

3.       Use your magic words

The power of the words please and thank you cannot be underestimated. They tell your volunteers that they are being seen, heard and appreciated.

4.       Take your culture’s temperature now and then

There is no better way to determine how things are really going in your ministry than with an anonymous survey.  Once a year distribute a short survey to them using the points we have covered in this three article series. Have the surveys returned to someone outside of CM that you trust who will summarize the results and destroy the original surveys. This allows you to take the temperature of your volunteer culture, you may be surprised.

Until next month,

CJ Schindler

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