Well, hello. Welcome to this training epi-

sode of Church Fuel and I'm really excited

that you're here today and I'm really ex-

cited that you've taken time to watch this

master class. Today, we're gonna talk

about a new way and what I think is a bet-

ter way to do volunteer training in your

church.

I remember back to when I was pastoring,

you know, we used to say all the time that

our church had this mission that was

really driven, you know, by God, right, but

it was fueled by the volunteers. And so

without volunteers, nothing really could

happen in our church. We would never be

able to hire enough people or, you know,

do the things that we would need to do

without volunteers.

So volunteers for your ministry as well are

very, very important. They're really the life-

blood of a lot of our ministries and

churches. And so when we talk about train-

ing volunteers, people's eyes begin to

glaze over because it's like we're excited

about getting volunteers, and we're upset

when volunteers leave, and there's really

not a whole lot of energy and thought

around the idea of training and volunteers

themselves don't wanna come to training.

A lot of times, you say, "All right, cool.

You're a new volunteer. You're energized,

you're excited, you're ready to serve,

you're ready to make a difference." And

it's like, "Okay, well, we need you to do this

training." You know, it's like people, they

didn't sign up for training, they wanna

help, they wanna do stuff.

And so when we talk about training, I think

it's helpful to kind of break things down

into two categories. All right? What does a

volunteer need to know first? Like when

somebody signs up to serve, what do they

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A Better Volunteer Training

I N S A N E LY P R AC T I C A L | E V E RY M O N T H

need to know first? And we've talked in

the past about some different ways to ad-

dress this. In fact, I'll put the notes here for

you of some different alternatives and

some different ways to kind of address

that first learning. Like what do they first

need to know?

But then there's a second category of

training, like what do they kind of continu-

ally need to know? What do they need to

know now? Not first right when they sign

up, but just on an ongoing basis. And

there is a value in getting together face to

face. There is a value of pulling all your vol-

unteers together and saying, "All right,

here's what's happening. Here's what's go-

ing on. Here's what you need to know."

But the tension is that whenever you or-

ganize these things, right, people aren't al-

ways there. I remember it used to just

drive me crazy. It would just drive me nuts.

Because we'd organize this volunteer

meeting, right, and whether it was for a

ministry or church-wide, and, you know,

we'd plan for it, we'd prepare all these

things, we would get all these things to-

gether, it'd be really good meeting. We'd

work on what we're gonna say and how it

was gonna go.

And then the day after it happened, some-

body would text like, "Hey, sorry I missed

the meeting. What did I miss?" And I'm like,

"What did you miss? You missed an entire

meeting. It was like an hour's worth of

stuff and, you know, to recount it for you

individually would take me as long as it

did to, you know, to tell everybody."

And so it was a big deal and we'd have

these training meetings and I hear from

pastors all the time, they're like, "Hey, if we

get 50% of the people to show up at our

training meeting, then that's good." Well,

what about the other 50%? Do we just say

they're not gonna know or we're gonna

have to get with them individually? And so

it becomes a really tough thing to get eve-

rybody all together efficiently and inspira-

tionally and in a fun way to kind of do

training.

And so through the course of a lot of trial

and error, we stumbled into an idea that I

wanna share with you today. And so to-

day's master class is really gonna be a

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H OW N O R T H P O I N T CO M M U N I T Y C H U R C H G E T S P E O P L E I N TO G R O U P S

look at exactly how we did one specific

thing. I'm not gonna talk about a lot of the-

ory, I'm not gonna talk about the value of

training or the need for training. I'm gonna

assume that, "Hey, you got volunteers that

you wanna get trained and get inspired

and get on the same page, and I just

wanna share with you one idea of how we

did it."

And so this is really a pulling back the cur-

tain and talking about how we did this.

And so here's how we did it. We did a quar-

terly event in our church that happened

four times a year, once every three

months, and we called it a Leadership

Summit. It's not a very creative idea, it was

not a great name for anything. I don't

know how to name stuff. But it was called

a Leadership Summit.

And what we would do is we would simply

invite every leader, every volunteer, any-

body who served in any capacity to our

building four times a year for this event.

Now, the secret sauce in the event, this is

what I'm gonna break down, we had really,

really, really high participation levels.

Eighty, 90% was not uncommon. And so

we had...The majority of our volunteers

would show up for these events and

here's why I think it happened.

So first of all, a couple of things that we

did is we kind of set this up. We'd put

them on the calendar, we'd plan them out,

and we would invite every single volunteer

who served in our church. But we'd do it

two ways. We would invite them person-

ally. So their team leaders, their ministry

department leaders, whatever structure

and system that we had in place, they

would make sure that every volunteer got

a personal invitation, a text message, an

email, "Leadership Summit is coming up.

Wanna make sure you know about it."

We'd print them out sometimes, we'd mail

to their house sometimes. So a personal

invitation. But then also, we would an-

nounce it publicly. So from the stage, from

the bulletin, from a sermon, we would say,

"Hey, if you're a leader, if you're a volun-

teer, if you serve anywhere in the church,

this is coming and you're invited." So we

had that public invitation and then we had

a personal invitation and together, you

know, both of those methods of inviting

people kind of converged and I think it

really contributed to the attendance of

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H OW N O R T H P O I N T CO M M U N I T Y C H U R C H G E T S P E O P L E I N TO G R O U P S

these leadership summits.

So here's what happened at a Leadership

Summit. Every single time we gathered, it

was a regular thing, it happened quarterly,

but the agenda was the same every single

time. And so every single time we gath-

ered, five things happened and I think this

consistency really helped us build this cul-

ture over time. So first of all, every time we

did a Leadership Summit, there was al-

ways childcare. There was always child-

care. We made the commitment in our

church to say, "Hey, if we're gonna invite

leaders to come up here. We're gonna in-

vite volunteers to come up here and have

a meeting."

You know, 40% or 50% of our church had

kids, then we were going to take care of

those kids. We were gonna provide a

place for them. We said, "Hey, it is not real-

istic to ask parents of kids, single moms,

single dads, moms and dads, right, what-

ever, to figure out what to do with their

kids to come up to the church to have a

meeting." So if we were gonna have a

meeting, we were gonna provide childcare.

Now, that was a big commitment for us,

right? We had to say, "Is this meeting that

important that we're gonna go through

this? Are we gonna pay people to watch

kids? You know, how are we gonna do

this?"

One of the things that we did is we did a

swap with another church in town. When

our church was smaller and this was man-

ageable, we did a swap. We said, "Hey,

we'll use in some of your kids ministry vol-

unteers who are already background

checked and serving in your ministry to

watch our kids on this particular Sunday

night and we will return the favor for you."

Because we didn't want our kids workers

watching kids at our Leadership Summit,

we wanted them to attend the Leadership

Summit.

So we provided childcare every single

time we had one of these summits and it

was really, really, really important. The sec-

ond thing that we always did is we always

had food. We always had food. We said, "If

we're gonna invite people to come up to

the church on a Sunday night or a Tues-

day night or whenever it is, we're gonna

not only need to provide childcare, but we

don't want people to have to figure out

how to eat. We're gonna have food and

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we're gonna pay for it. There's not gonna

be a ticket. We're going to invest in that."

You could do a taco bar, we had barbecue

brought in, we had caterers come in and

provide food. We said, "If people are

gonna come up here, the least we can do

is ease the pressure for childcare and

feed them while they're here." Now, listen,

people aren't coming to a meeting be-

cause there's food, right? Probably. I

mean, some people do. But most people

are not coming because there's food, but

that's a simple way to honor and value vol-

unteers. If you invite them up to the

church for a meeting, for a summit, for a

training, for whatever it is, make sure

somebody is taking care of their kids and

make sure they have food.

Third thing we did, always, always had

childcare, always had food. The third thing

we did is we always had some worship

and here's the deal. We always had some

music, so a time of worship. And what was

cool about this is our band would do this,

but they didn't have to have a bunch of ex-

tra rehearsals because they played the

greatest hits. I mean, they just played the

songs that our church love. They played

the songs that our volunteers love. They

played the fan favorites.

So there wasn't a bunch of rehearsals,

there wasn't a bunch of set up. We did

ours on Sunday night, we typically left eve-

rything kind of set up ready from Sunday

morning, but our band would be able to

lead these songs and do them without a

bunch of extra rehearsals and our church

loved it, right? There's something powerful

when just the leaders of the church, just

the volunteers of the church kind of get

together and worship and sing the songs

that everybody knows and that every-

body loves. There's something powerful

and really cool about that.

In a way, these volunteer...what we called

Leadership Summits were like many nights

of worship and it was a really cool thing,

everybody's singing really loud because,

you know, it's the songs they love. And so

we always had childcare, we always had

food, we always had worship.

Then number four, we always gave out an

award. We had these awards printed

up...or not printed up, but made up. They

were heavy metal, you know...not heavy

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metal awards. That would be awesome if

there was like a heavy metal award. It was

a metal award that was heavy. That

makes more sense. And we would cele-

brate one or two volunteers who just went

over and above.

And so we'd ask through our systems like,

"Who's done an amazing job? Who's done

an amazing job?" And we would find a cou-

ple of people. We'd always take time to

recognize and celebrate a volunteer and

we would give them this award and every-

body would clap and give them a standing

ovation and we would take several min-

utes to kind of talk about why they were

awesome and what they've done and how

it connects to the mission and just lift up

and celebrate and honor a few individuals

who were just doing amazing jobs.

Now, when we talk about this, I always get

some pushback from people. It's like, "Well,

hey, we can't honor everybody. Everybody

is really important and if we just really call

out a few, isn't it gonna like offend some

other people?" Now, what we found was

the exact opposite. Was that when we

lifted up and celebrated a few, all felt hon-

ored, all felt [inaudible 00:09:28], all felt ap-

preciated.

And these cool awards, I would go over to

people's house and they would have them,

you know, in their house on a bookshelf,

up on a mantle, and they really meant

something to people. And so we would

give out these awards and we did it every

single time we gathered and kind of who

was gonna get it kind of became a thing.

And then number five, always did this

every single time, is to always gave out ad-

vanced information or key information. I

would make sure that I was always there

for these. I would make sure that I always

had a few minutes of very important infor-

mation to let people know. And it was stuff

that was coming in advance. It was stuff

that was coming down the line that the

rest of the church didn't know.

And this is a really important principle,

that information is really a form of appre-

ciation. Your volunteers and your leaders

in your church, they should know stuff be-

fore everybody else knows. I remember

one time I was working at a church, liter-

ally, on staff at a church, and in a sermon,

I found out that we were starting another

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service. And I was like, "Wait a minute. Like

I'm on staff, how did I not know that we

were doing this?" And I felt devalued. Like

how am I not important enough to know

this? I'm finding out with the same thing as

a [inaudible 00:10:31] guest.

But here's the deal. Your volunteers will

feel honored and appreciated when they

know advance or inside information. And

so I always made sure at our Leadership

Summit to make sure I say, "Here's what's

coming. Here's something big. You know,

here's something that I'm ready to unveil

to you because you're making this happen

and I want you to know first." And those

five things, we did every single time we

gathered.

Now, let me say this. I wanna pause right

here. None of this felt like training. None of

this felt like come up and have a training

meeting so you can learn how to volun-

teer better. But training was woven

through all of that. As we were giving out

an award, we were mixing in little trainings

about our vision and mission. As I was giv-

ing out information, I was mixing in very

important information that volunteers and

leaders needed to know in different areas.

We were mixing, we were disguising the

training inside of all these things. We were

building up people in an environment that

they enjoyed, that was relaxed. They

weren't coming and taking a bunch of

notes, feeling like they were in a seminar. It

felt like worship. It felt like a gathering of

family when we did this.

Now, those are five things that we did all

the time, but there was a sixth component

that happened and the sixth one rotated.

So the first five, we did every single time

we had one of these quarterly leadership

summits. We'd always have childcare, al-

ways have food, always sing our favorite

songs, there'd always be an award, and

we would always share key information.

But the sixth thing rotated around. The

sixth thing was kind of the meat of the

night, right, if you will. The sixth thing was

kind of the thing that got the most time

and it rotated around and we rotated

around between four different things, so

throughout the year, we would hit all of

these.

First of all, we would unveil the vision for

the year. So at the very first Leadership

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Summit of the year or the very last one of

the previous year, we would unveil here's

what next year is gonna be about. And it

was kind of a state of the union. I would

usually do these. It was kind of a here's

what's coming, here's our plan.

It was a detailed rollout of what we were

trying to accomplish in that next year and

our volunteers loved hearing that. They

loved hearing where we're going, you

know, here's what we're gonna do. And so

I would kind of do a state of the church ad-

dress. I would kind of recast vision for our

volunteers and I would build them up and I

would train them in the process, but it

would be a kind of a here's our vision for

the year.

Then the next one, we could bring in a

guest speaker. I remember a couple of

times we had a couple of different guest

speakers come in who are just pastor

friends of mine and they would do some

training, or they would do some inspira-

tion, or they would do, you know, a bible

study, or they would do, you know, almost

just an entertaining talk even.

But I found that there's people that would

love to come in and speak to your volun-

teers. I've even gone to some different

churches and spoken to those volunteers

and build them up and say things right to

build them up and encourage them that

maybe they've heard before, but it means

something a little different when it comes

from a guest. So we did a guest speaker

once a year.

Third thing is we did break out training.

Now, this looks a lot like training, right, be-

cause after the singing and after the wor-

ship and the award, we'd say, "All right,

we're gonna break up into some areas for

some ministry-specific training." And our

kids' people would go one way, our guest

services people would go one way, our

small group leaders would go one way,

and we would be able to do department-

specific training.

And this is really where these ministry lead-

ers could get down into the nitty-gritty.

"Hey, here's some new policies and proce-

dures that we need to know about. Here's

a new way of doing things. Here's some pri-

orities for the worship ministry. Here's

some small group issues that we're gonna

deal with." That really felt like training, but

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it was in the context of the Leadership

Summit, with the food and the childcare

and all the support that went along with it.

It wasn't like, "Hey, just come up and we're

gonna meet."

And then the last thing we would do, we'd

rotate this around, is we'd do something

fun. We'd just have something fun. We

would say, "We're not gonna have a

speaker. We're just gonna have something

fun." I know of some churches who have

done, you know, kind of like the Oscar

Awards or the Emmy Awards, or they roll

out the red carpet and they have an ex-

tended celebration. I know a church in

Texas that they did like an '80s style prom

and everybody got dressed up and it was

really weird and I'd be miserable at that,

but, you know, they loved it.

You can do...there's all these different

things you can...just fun, just something

fun. Like a fun event where you can cele-

brate your volunteers and just let them

connect relationally. Sometimes we de-

value that, but that feels and has the

same net effect of inspiring and so much

like can be more important than training

in certain environments. So we'd always

do those five things and then the sixth

thing, we would rotate it around, but it

would fit within this rhythm, we're having

the leadership summit.

Now, I think this worked for our context

and I think something like this may work

for your context for some really, really,

really powerful reasons. First of all, it was

fun and relational. Like this whole idea and

we're saying, "Hey, we're having a leader-

ship summit. You're invited," and I would an-

nounce it from the stage. It was really

light-hearted. It was really fun. It wasn't se-

rious. It wasn't, you know, deep. It was fun,

it was a relational.

People get to eat, they get to connect,

they get to see people maybe they didn't

maybe get to see on Sunday because

they were working. So it was very fun and

very relaxed and very relational. And the

fact that it regularly occurred, it was on a

rhythm, it meant that people knew they

had built-in times and if people had a posi-

tive experience of the last one, they would

project that forward to the next one.

Number two is it really helped us create a

culture. For us to do these things, to put

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them on the calendar, for us to commit to

say, "We're gonna do this every three

months. We're gonna always pay for food.

We're gonna..." We had a budget for this,

we had a plan for this. They were pretty

big deals. I mean, it was a big deal on our

calendar and even in our budget to do

this event. But what that did is it helped us

create a culture. It helped us create...

You know, culture is created by the things

you always say and the things you always

do. So you know how we always say

around here? That's a great way to create

culture. But the things that you repeatedly

do also help create a culture. And so the

fact that we gathered every quarter to

honor and celebrate and talk about how

to get better as volunteers, showed that

we valued volunteers in our church. Like it

was not just something we needed, it was

something we valued. And so that regular

rhythm of doing this every quarter...And

you may say, "You know, well, that's...We're

gonna do it twice a year. We're gonna do

it once a year." But for us, the quarterly

rhythm was right and that's why it worked.

And then the third thing I think this worked

is because people attended because it

was a training event that wasn't a training

event. Why do people come? Because

they get to connect, they get to eat, they

get to hang out, they go to worship, they

get to hear information. It wasn't like we're

having a training meeting. That sounds

boring. That sounds like there's gonna be

PowerPoint. But this didn't feel like a train-

ing meeting, but it was training. It didn't

feel like a Rara session, but it was that. It

didn't feel like just a night of worship.

That's only gonna appeal to a certain seg-

ment of your church, but there was wor-

ship at it.

And so the overall feeling of it, because it

didn't feel like a training event, really al-

lowed us to kind of intentionally below

those lines and push training out in a way

that was much needed, but also well re-

ceived. And so this event worked really

well for us. We called it a Leadership Sum-

mit. You may call it something else. You

may do it in a different rhythm. You may

put different elements in place. But one of

the things that...

What I would encourage you to do is to

create an environment where you inten-

tionally celebrate leaders, where you inten-

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tionally celebrate your volunteers, and you

can mix training into that. But sometimes,

it's helpful just to gather people together

and kind of hide the training in there. You

know, it's like we're gonna hide some vege-

tables in the milkshake. We're gonna do

training, but we're not gonna call it train-

ing.

And so this is how it worked for us and I

just wanted to kind of unpack that a little

bit and show you how it worked. I've got

some resources and some more stuff you

can read on how this worked for us, but I

encourage you to take this idea, process it

with your team, and say, "Hey, would some-

thing like that work for us? Could we train

our volunteers by doing more of an event

or a gathering that didn't feel like a class

or a seminar? Would these ideas work in

our church?"

So if you've got questions as to how this

worked, I'd love for you to hop into the

Facebook group, ask those questions. You

know, one of the things I love about our

community is there are so many different

kinds of churches, large churches, smaller

churches, churches in the city, churches

out in the country, churches in big cities,

you know, churches in small towns, differ-

ent denominations, different traditions are

represented. And I love hearing how our

churches are taking this information, con-

textualizing it, and changing it up to suit

their needs.

And that's a really a cool thing about the

Church Hill community. Is that you can not

only just learn, but you can share. So we'd

love to hear how you're training your vol-

unteers. We'd love to hear how you're put-

ting these things into place. Because if

you've got a great idea, we need to know

it, we need to hear about it. And so encour-

age one another, share ideas with each

other, and the Facebook group is a great

place to do that.

But, of course, if you've got any questions

about any of this, you can email us, you

can reach out, you can call us anytime. So

process this idea, leadership summit, kind

of will this work on your calendar? Will this

work in your rhythm? And we'd love to

hear back from you and see if something

like this can help you train your volunteers

at a much deeper and a much more fun

way. So thanks for watching. I hope you

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have a great rest of the day and God

bless.

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