Wednesday, June 18, 2008

How To Recruit Volunteers - Free Book

[From Ministry Best Practices by Bill Reichart]

Do you want to recruit more volunteers for your church or ministry?

Agile ministry has just put out a new FREE eBook to address that issue. Here is some more information about the eBook from Agile:

No matter where you may be in your leadership, recruiting volunteers can be one of the most difficult tasks you will encounter. Even if you are able to teach a room full of kids, design a website, or manage hundreds of youth, recruiting may not come easy.

This FREE, easy-to-read electronic book (”eBook”) provides a simple approach to recruiting more volunteers for your church ministry. Whether you are a new leader or have been leading for years, there is something new and fresh to learn about recruiting volunteers. A simple process to volunteer recruiting.

This book is designed to open your eyes to new ways of thinking about recruiting. It will provide some ideas, inspiration, and a 5-step process that will help you to improve your ability to recruit new volunteers for your town.

Click here to get your FREE copy of this ebook now!


Volunteer Recruiting Step 1: Prepare

Before you can recruit new volunteers, you need to prepare the way through your actions, attitude, requirements, and prayer. Learn how to create job descriptions, put time limits into your team structure, and develop a contagious attitude that will help you recruit more effectively.

Volunteer Recruiting Step 2: Find

Finding new volunteers is often the largest source of frustration for team leaders. In this step, we’ll find fresh ways of thinking for more effective volunteer recruiting. You’ll learn how to recruit by focusing on passion and relationships, becoming others-focused, finding connectors within your church, and recruiting through structure and one-time service opportunities.

Volunteer Recruiting Step 3: Interview

Don’t skip the interview step! This step is essential to make sure both the candidate and the leader are comfortable to work together. You’ll discover how to conduct a simple, relaxing interview as well as when to include gift and personality tests.

Volunteer Recruiting Step 4: Integrate

The volunteer’s first impression is what will shape their view of your team for weeks and months to come. Your first priority is to get them trained and integrated into the team. Find out how to pick the right person to train your new volunteers, how to conduct a follow-up interview, and how to deal with volunteers that just aren’t a good fit.

Volunteer Recruiting Step 5: Retain

Recruiting doesn’t end with training. Recruiting is an ongoing process that requires you to learn how to retain your volunteers after you find them. Find ways to reward your volunteers and how to deal with letting go of volunteers when the time comes. Learn how to create example job descriptions, training materials, and more!

This free book also includes a 5-step action plan for applying this simple volunteer recruiting process. View examples of job descriptions, create simple training materials to help your new volunteers, and create a recruiting plan to guide you through your recruiting process.

Click here to get your FREE copy of this ebook now!

Church Volunteer Training

Does your church volunteer training really hit the mark?

Here is an excerpt from Group Volunteers - Tuesday's Tip to answer that question:

1. Make sure your volunteers know your ministry's overall mission. Never assume your leaders know your goals if you haven't told them (or told them recently) what they are. People who don't know how they fit into the big picture quickly lose their enthusiasm. Also, always tie your training in to a specific ministry goal.

2. Leave time at the end of each training session to make sure they understand what you taught. Encourage, prod, and beg them to ask questions about what they're learning. Never end a training time without asking them to repeat, somehow, what they've learned. Group activities can help reinforce spoken teaching.

3. Tell your volunteers where they can get more information on a training topic. Refer your leaders to printed and video resources that can give more in-depth information on a particular topic. Church Volunteer Central members can point their people to thousands of free resources on our site, including online training.

4. Don't assume your volunteers "got it" the first time. Don't be afraid to hit a crucial training topic more than once. For example, if you train your adult leaders on building relationships with teenagers, hit the same topic at your next meeting with a lab experience. Invite youth group members to the meeting and have your leaders use them as guinea pigs to try out their new skills.

5. Give volunteers a booklet of important training tips. It's important for your adult leaders to have an ongoing reminder of what they learn in training meetings.

[Adapted from Group magazine, the world's most-read youth ministry resource. See www.youthministry.com for more information. This post is from Group Volunteers: Tuesday's Tip. These tips can go directly into your inbox, and you can click here to go to their site to receive them.]

How Pastors Can Use Facebook

[By Leadership Network]

We found this free e-book that gives a bunch of great tips of how pastors and other ministry leaders can use Facebook to multiply ministry. You can download the e-book here (PDF). Topics covered in the e-book include:
  • How to make the most of your profile information
  • Tips for Networking with People in Facebook
  • All about groups, messages, poking, etc
  • Meet prospects for your church
  • Learn more about the members in your church
  • Testimonies from Pastors who use FaceBook

Chris Forbes of MinistryMarketingCoach.com put this easy-to-read e-book together, some of its content comes from his series of blog posts last September, several highlights I'll mention:

Ministry Shift

As we continue to move from the Gutenberg world to the Google world, Dr. Albert of the Anglican Church, India, points toward seven strategic shifts for pastors in particular and ministers in general to ponder:
  • Shift 1: A Power Shift from Self to God
  • Shift 2: A Priority Shift from inreach to outreach
  • Shift 3: A Program Shift from events to relationships
  • Shift 4: A People Shift from ministers to equippers
  • Shift 5: A Provision Shift from consumers to contributors
  • Shift 6: A Perspective Shift from a church mentality to a Kingdom mentality
  • Shift 7: A Process Shift from the older to the younger

When you and your organization are able to make these shifts in the years ahead we can be sure the baton will not drop on the ground of time. Let us capitalize on global and local opportunities before they are lost forever!

[http://www.billion.tv/]