Episode 0003 - Rich Birch on Great Ideas to Encourage Volunteers and How to Set Up Your Team to Succeed

Welcome to Episode 3 of the FOUR12 Canada Podcast

Listen and access the show notes here or search for FOUR12 Canada Podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts and listen for free.

Rich Birch is the founder of unSeminary and we are excited to have him on this episode. Rich has a wealth of knowledge and we can't wait for you to hear him chat about setting up volunteers to succeed, the importance of communication and great ideas for thanking volunteers!

Connect with Rich

 UNSEMINARY | EMAIL | INSTAGRAM

 

Links from the Podcast

 unSeminary Podcast 

Recommended Reading

The Volunteer Project: Stop Recruiting Start Retaining by Darren Kizer, Christine Kreisher and Steph Whitacre

 Church Growth Flywheel: 5 Practical Systems to Drive Growth at Your Church by Rich Birch

 

PODCAST HIGHLIGHTS

Changing the Way You Do Ministry

• Ask questions and find out what other churches and leaders do
• Consider how you could reach more people so they come to know Jesus

 Moving People Forward

• Embrace change; leaders should be moving people to somewhere new
• Volunteers push a ministry forward
• Look at how this experience will benefit the people we lead and explain why it’s so important
• Be aware that we underestimate the time it takes to get things done; stick to it because change takes more than one season
• Consistent effort in the same direction over time yields amazing results

Getting Volunteers to Stick and Stay

• Remember to communicate and encourage
• Create a volunteer care team run by volunteers
• Provide coffee, breakfast and/or lunch
• Surprise and delight people
• Offer food or drinks on occasions when they’ll be serving for a long time
• Thank volunteers regularly
• Understand their love language; not everyone feels appreciated by a thank-you card, so consider what works best for them 
• Be creative: think outside the box and create a story or memory

Finding New Opportunities

• Recognize that volunteers can serve not just on Sundays but throughout the week
• Find ways that people who aren’t available on Sundays can serve at other times
• Look at new opportunities to serve (e.g., digital media that drives people to the church’s website or database management that keeps people from slipping through the cracks)

Creating a Healthy Team Atmosphere

• Find out what volunteers are looking for (e.g., building or strengthening relationships)
• Make serving experiences more relational
• Provide information and structure that sets people up to succeed (e.g., what to wear, where to park, time to arrive, basic training)
• Have co-leaders: one to be relational and one to be structural

Thanks for listening! We hope this episode has equipped you for greater influence through serving. We don’t want you to miss a single episode so if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Help us reach more people by writing a review for the podcast! The FOUR12 Canada podcast is a ministry of Faith Baptist Church in Huntsville Ontario. Explore everything FOUR12 Canada at four12.ca. Thanks for spending some time with us. See you next time!

 

Up Next Season 1 Episode 4: Chris Vacher

Leading with Heart and Hand, the Uniqueness of His Role at Sanctus and How to Celebrate Character on Your Team