100 Best Ideas to Turbocharged your Preschool Ministry (18 page)

“Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.”

—(Ephesians 4:12)

If you’re going to build an excellent preschool ministry, you have to know how to build a strong team of preschool volunteers.
You can be great with preschoolers, but until you build and lead an excellent volunteer team, your preschool ministry will never reach its full potential.

Your responsibility is to equip the leaders who in turn minister to the preschoolers.
Your ministry to your volunteers is just as important as your direct ministry to the children.
Does that mean you don’t have any classroom time with preschoolers?
Absolutely not.
But if you’re the primary person doing the preschool ministry on weekends, you’re greatly limiting the ministry, and you’ll quickly hit a wall.
Show me a great preschool ministry, and I’ll show you a great team of empowered volunteers who are doing the work of the ministry.

As you equip and lead your volunteers, here are four things they need.

1.
Connection
—People want to serve in community.
They want to be known and build relationships with the people they serve alongside.
Joining your team is like becoming part of a family.
Start a Facebook page for your team.
Encourage your team to connect outside of the time they serve.
Get together and participate in fun activities.
No training allowed at these times.
Just hang out and enjoy each other.

When people are connected, they grow together in their faith.
When people are connected, they stick around.
When people are connected, they look forward to serving because they get to be with friends.

2.
Care
—Life is messy...full of ups and downs.
And when you do life as a team, you go through things together.
The people on your team are going to experience hurts, heartaches, tragedies, loss, and turmoil.
When that happens, they need to be cared for.
They need a shoulder to lean on...a hug...a prayer.
There may be times they need meals brought to them or even financial support.
They’ll need your care.

But remember, you can’t do it all.
One person can only effectively care for four or five people.
It’s important to create a culture where your team cares for and supports each other.
In our church we’ve raised up volunteer coaches.
They call volunteers each week and check on them, support them through prayer, and encourage them.

Another great way to care for volunteers is to have a prayer huddle before the children arrive.
Spend time each week sharing prayer requests and praying for each other.

3.
Celebration
—Your volunteers need to feel valued.
Celebrate them!
Let them know how much they mean to you.
Celebrate not just what they
do
but who they
are.

Every week in our staff meeting, we each take time to write a personal note to a volunteer.
We let volunteers know what they mean to us and what we appreciate about them.
At Christmas, we have a big party in their honor.
At the end of our ministry year in May, we have another big party to celebrate them.

4.
Challenge
—Your volunteers want to grow in their faith and ministry gifts.
You’re called to help them grow.
Make sure they’re attending adult worship.
Encourage them to be in a Bible study.
Provide quality leadership opportunities that will propel their faith and gifts to new levels.
Challenge them to step up in leadership responsibilities as you see them developing.

Your goal isn’t to plug them into a spot where you have a need.
Your goal is to help them grow in their faith.
When you help them discover their gifts, equip them to do ministry with their gifts, and challenge them to continually grow, you’ll fulfill Ephesians 4:12.

Once a quarter we send out an email survey to our team, using
surveymonkey.com
.
We ask these key questions to see how we’re doing: Do you feel connected?
Are you being cared for?
Are you challenged?
Are you celebrated?

We also ask for input and ideas on how we can serve them better in these four ways.
We’re doing well in some areas, and in other areas we have work to do.
It’s all part of the journey of helping our team of volunteers grow in their faith and gifts.

—Dale

Verizon Wireless once coined the phrase, “Can you hear me now?”
If your family is anything like mine, you wore that line out.
We still use it from time to time.

In my first few years of ministry, I’d get to the point of complete frustration because I didn’t think anyone could hear me asking for help.
We were growing at a rapid pace and didn’t have a sufficient number of volunteers.
The volunteers we did have were overworked and getting to the point of burnout.
I wanted to march myself right into the worship center and yell at the top of my lungs, “Hey, we’re dying here.
Does anybody want to get up out of a seat and help?
Yeah, I’m talking to you—can you hear me?”

But over the years I’ve learned that there are better ways to ask for help.
I hope the following ideas will inspire you as you begin to get the word out to your church family that you’re here and open for business.

• Pray. God’s Word says, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields” (Matthew 9:37-38). His Word is clear. Pray for workers. I pray year round for workers, not just when we’re in recruitment mode. God is faithful and true to his Word.
  
• Get up-close and personal. One-on-one is the best way to recruit volunteers. I rarely get helpers from an ad in the Sunday bulletin. Why? A 30-word ad can’t communicate my passion; only I can clearly communicate my passion to another human being. This is key in recruiting.
  
• Watch your vocabulary. When asking for volunteers, refrain from using words such as “Volunteers wanted,” “We’re desperate,” “Need help,” “Looking for anybody,” or “A caveman could do this, for crying out loud.” When you use a negative approach, you project an attitude of desperation and the idea that any warm body could do this.
  

  Instead use words such as “Our preschool ministry is growing,” “We have exciting service opportunities available,” “We have a place for you on our team,” and “Want to make a difference on the next generation?” When using these words you’re saying, “We’ve got it together, and we know where we’re going. Want to go with us?”
  

Do you see the difference in this approach?
People don’t want to jump onto a sinking ship, but they just might hop onboard a ship that’s going somewhere.
It’s all how you say it—but I know what you’re thinking!
You’re thinking,
We are desperate!
I totally understand.
But you can’t let that be your battle cry.
Your battle cry must be something like this...

“I’m called to influence an entire generation for Christ.
I will not beg, kick, or plead.
But by God’s grace and the gifts he has given me, I’ll put together the most passionate, sold-out team of preschool volunteers that ever walked the planet.”

Now
that’s
what I like to hear!

—Gina

You can have every policy in place, the grandest facilities in the country, and a supply room that looks like the local craft store, but if you don’t have volunteers who are passionate and qualified to serve preschoolers, your ministry foundation is shaky.

The key to laying this solid foundation is to understand the importance of enlisting the help of the right people.
So what’s the profile of a passionate preschool volunteer?
Look for these five characteristics.

1.
Christ Follower
—Know for certain that this person has a relationship with Christ.
You don’t just want Christians; you want Christians who love God with all their hearts, souls, and minds.
You want leaders who are passionate about getting God’s Word into the hearts of children.

During your initial meeting, ask potential volunteers to tell you how they came to know Christ.
Ask them to tell you how Christ has changed their lives.
Look for excitement in their faces as they tell their faith stories.

2.
Dependable
–When I visit with preschool leaders across the country, over and over again they ask me, “How do you get people to show up?
We have so many people bail out on us on Sunday.”
This is an unacceptable situation; you’ve got to be able to rely on your volunteers.

During the interview process, make sure people understand what’s required of them.
Sometimes leaders are afraid to raise the bar for fear potential volunteers will back away.
Be clear about your expectations.
Help them understand how chaotic it can be for preschoolers and parents when volunteers are late, and then ask this simple, point blank question, “Will you give me your promise that I can depend on you?”

3.
Trustworthy
—Parents are leaving their children in your volunteers’ care, and parents need to feel absolute trust.
Don’t overlook this huge issue when you’re looking at potential volunteers.
Taking time to do background checks and reference checks is nonnegotiable.

You also need to ask every new volunteer if he or she has ever worked with preschoolers before.
If so, get the “when” and “where” info, and make a follow-up call.
It’s important for you to know everything you possibly can about volunteers before you allow them to be with preschoolers.

4.
Genuine love for children
—When people have a natural love for children, it shows in the way children are drawn to them.
They know how to get down on preschoolers’ level and talk with them.
I’m not saying this can’t be taught.
I’m just saying there are plenty of people out there who have a natural love for children and the ability to communicate with them.

One way you can determine if potential volunteers have this quality is to allow them to assist in your preschool ministry for a few weeks.
Put them with your best teachers.
Let them spend time interacting with children, and then ask your volunteer leaders to give you feedback.
This one practical application has helped me more than anything else in determining how well someone will fit our preschool ministry.

5.
Joyful heart
—Have you ever received service from a cashier, waitress, or salesperson who looked as if he or she had just eaten a sour pickle?
It always makes me feel like these people are bothered by me
personally
and wished they were somewhere else.
Parents and preschoolers feel the same way when they’re greeted by a volunteer who has no joy and looks as if he or she has no desire to be there.

Make your preschool ministry the happiest place in the church by filling it with the most joyful volunteers in the church.
Don’t compromise on this very important character trait.
This is a quality that should be evident from the first moment you meet with a potential volunteer.
You don’t need to ask people if they have joy; you’ll see it in their eyes and in the way they share their faith stories with you.

Stay true to this profile of characteristics, and you’re sure to have a fired-up, passionate volunteer staff.

—Gina