I started a series last week on some pretty easy things we as Youth pastors can do to keep our Volunteers happy. I don’t think any Youth Pastor would argue the importance of volunteers in youth ministry, and as result, one of the best things we can do is to minister to them.
So the third thing we can do to keep our volunteers happy is listen to them.
Be it a complaint or encouragement, we need to hear them out, and make them heard. It’s easy to sit in a room with a Volunteer nodding your head in agreement for 10 minutes while they talk about who know’s what, and your mind is elsewhere thinking about more important topics.
The reality is that at that moment, the most important topic in your ministry is your volunteer.
I had a few examples of this during this past weekend that I let down my volunteers. The first was before service, I was trying to type of some final notes in time to get my lap top to the sound board for our A/V guy to be able to put in the slides for worship (we are in the process of replacing our sound board computer and having to use mine).
So as I am sitting in my office trying to get that done, a few volunteers asked to talk to me about some ideas they had for the retreat. They were great ideas, but I instantly saw that they had them all written down and I tuned out because I kept thinking “I have to get back to finish this so the service runs smoothly tonight.” I did not make sure they knew they were heard, and instead, probably came off as though I was blowing them off. This doesn’t help keep the lines of communication open.
I want our volunteers to feel comfortable coming to me with any number of issues, again, be it a complaint about something I am doing or a suggestion. This past Sunday, I did not do my part to instill that confidence in my volunteers, and I regret that.
If I want to minister to the Volunteers God has entrusted me with in a way that enables them to better minister to our students, I need to make them just as heard and their input valued as the students they minister to.
