What if I could “pay” volunteers what they’re worth?
Last year I completed a survey which asked on the basis of paying a volunteer £10 per hour how much would it additionally cost your church. We worked out our youth ministry (11-18 year olds) would have cost more than an extra £252,000!
Every year at this time, I think about how we can express gratitude to our volunteers who lead our youth ministry so fantastically. It’s clear to me that our ministry is only as good as the calibre of leaders we have for these young people. I was talking with someone about using some of our annual budget to buy a treat for volunteers – the amount was so small, for an investment so big, that their hourly rate would have been a tiny fraction of the minimum wage!
Of course we all know that volunteers aren’t in it for the money (and for that we’re glad!) But I have been thinking how can we show appreciation and thanks to our phenomenal volunteers, without breaking the bank, here’s some of my ideas:
Write hand-written notes: Receiving a hand-written note through the post can really encourage someone, and yet it doesn’t take very long to write. Even better get young people to write a psotcard to one of their leaders.
Special celebration events: at the start of the Christmas and Summer holidays we host special thank you events for our volunteer leaders – normally we eat a meal together, and play some games, and just take a moment to say thank you for what they’ve done.
Praising them in front of others: it can be anything from praising a leader in front of the rest of their team to when we come back from residentials we take over a chunk of the service to share what we’ve been up to – it’s great to highlight some of the amazing things our leaders do in front of hundreds of other people.
Telling stories of God at work: it’s great in the leadership teams to look back and remember the places where we saw God’s hand at work in our ministry this year. That can be things we’ve noticed as a team of leaders: a young person who seems more confident, the first time a young person prayed out loud to the “big” things like young people who’ve decided this year to follow Jesus for the first time.
I’m sure you can think of loads more ways, drop them into the comments, I’d love to do new things for and with our volunteers.
Good for you, Chris! It cheers me enormously to read what you have written and know I am not alone. What you say is common sense and ordinary good manners according to you and me both. Would it shock you to know that I was told off for saying thank-you to someone for what they were doing for the church on the grounds that since I was not God it was not for me to thank them?
I see the reasons for saying this – up to a point – but I doubt that the person whose eyes lit up at this unusual recognition of their efforts thought I was claiming to be the Almighty.
At the time I took my rebuke (from one of the clergy) meekly, and thought I had obviously got it wrong. But the more I think about it, the more I think it is the Church (if indeed it is official doctrine) who is wrong on this point.
We are having a discussion at the Lay Anglicana website on ‘clericalism and laicism’ (http://bit.ly/kgJphX) where some clergy have said it is difficult to recruit lay helpers. I do think one of the reasons may be the universal need for appreciation if the clergy really feel prohibited from offering it.
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