Ask any church leader if volunteers are important to the success of their ministry, and you will hear a resounding yes. Churches of every size rely on people to give their time and talents in service to others. Not only do volunteers help behind the scenes and make church programs run, they often are a visitor’s first impression of a church.
But all churches can struggle to recruit and retain volunteers. In a 2022 survey, Lifeway Research asked 1,000 pastors about their greatest needs. Results showed 77% said developing volunteers is an issue they need to address, coming in even ahead of fostering connections with unchurched people (76%).
What does it take to attract, develop and retain volunteers? It’s a complicated challenge affected by many factors, not the least being budget and attendance numbers. Building a good volunteer program begins with a strong foundation of the basics, so we asked several Outreach 100 Fastest-Growing Churches (Outreach100.com) to share what they have learned.
A Culture of Service
When we look in God’s Word, it never speaks of “volunteers” but of those who understand they have an obligation to serve others and do so willingly. “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Peter 4:10). Making that connection between serving and discipleship in the minds of people is an important first step.
Lori Newell, kids ministry director at The Church of Eleven22 (Fastest-Growing, No. 33) in Jacksonville, Florida, says, “When someone serves, they’re not just helping out; they’re growing in their relationship with Jesus. Serving stretches us, helps us put others before ourselves, and gives us opportunities to share the gospel. It’s one of the most practical ways we take steps forward in our discipleship journey.
“Every time someone welcomes a family, leads a kids’ group, or helps park a car, they’re living out what it means to love all people,” she adds. “It’s not about completing tasks—it’s about people being disciple-making disciples through the act of serving.”
To emphasize the discipleship aspect of serving, Trace Church (Fastest-Growing, No. 22) in Colorado Springs, Colorado, employs the term “servant team member” instead of volunteer.
“We really try to avoid the word ‘volunteer’ because it almost communicates that it’s more about what you’re doing versus serving,” explains Lead Pastor Aaron Pennington. “‘Serving’ almost immediately makes you think of the recipient, the person that’s going to be served. That’s why we call them serve team members. We want to tell them what they’re doing in that title.”
For Pennington, every church needs to cast a very clear vision of what it means to be part of the body of Christ. “You have to remind people first: ‘This is what you signed up for when you signed up to surrender your life to Jesus. It was to be a life of serving. This is not about something you do at church. This should be the posture of your life. You should be a servant.’”
Russell St. Bernard, who is over operations at Calverton, Maryland-based Kingdom Fellowship AME (Fastest-Growing, No. 36), says they use the title “servant leaders” because it communicates the commitment people are making to God, not the church.
“Sometimes people can equate volunteerism with it being voluntary, like Well, OK, if I have time, but if something comes up, it’s no big deal. When it comes to church, I really like people to think of it as serving,” he says. “When you get that, you realize this is kind of a unique space God has put you in. You’re a servant leader here.”
Recruiting
Getting people to serve at Eleven22 always begins with praying and matching a person’s gifts to the right role.
“We pray for God to bring the right people for the right roles. And then we spend time building relationships with the people God has placed around us. Whether in disciple groups or at events, we are building relationships with others and encouraging them to take their next step in their walk with the Lord,” Newell says.
The approach the church takes to recruiting shifts depending on the need. For example, in the kids ministry, “we emphasize consistent, weekly serving because strong relationships lead to effective discipleship, and those relationships with kids and families are built over time,” Newell explains. “For outreach, parking or one-time events, we focus on short-term opportunities that let people step in quickly and experience serving.”
At Kingdom Fellowship, recruiting servant leaders is built into the DNA of the membership process.
“Members are being encouraged all the way through to join the ministry, to get involved, because this is one of the ways that the big [church] becomes smaller,” says St. Bernard.
One of the approaches Liquid Church (Fastest-Growing, No. 49) in Parsippany, New Jersey, has successfully used to get their “dream teamers” on board is “try before you buy.”
“I think that when you lower the bar—not on your expectations but actually on the entry point—you will get more people,” says Executive Pastor of Ministries Kayra Montañez. “Our Summer Serve is a great example of try before you buy: ‘Hey, we just want you to serve three times this summer. You choose your dates. And if you do that, we will give you this tote filled with swag.’
“And usually what ends up happening is, because they have such a great experience serving, they say, ‘I actually would be open to doing this at least once a month.’ And once you get somebody to come once a month, you will continue to increase their serving frequency.”
That bag of swag ends up being important because of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Gamification theory, she explains, which applies game-like elements to drive people’s engagement, plays a role in getting volunteers, and one of the concepts of gamification is FOMO.
“If you didn’t get your tote now, you’re not ever going to have it. There’s not going to be another opportunity. People really respond well to that—we have research that backs this up,” Montañez says.
At Trace Church, they empower their volunteers to find other volunteers. Anytime someone new joins a serve team, that team leader says, “We believe that one of the best ways to get more people to serve is by using your influence. And so would you partner with us to go find at least one more person that could step up and serve?”
“That does two things,” Pennington says. “It hopefully gets us another person to sign up and serve, but it also shows the first person that we’re asking them to be a part of the process. If we’re going to do this well and we’re going to act like we’re an actual church family, we need [the volunteer] to feel some responsibility in that.”
Newell agrees that relationships attract volunteers. “The most effective way to communicate serving opportunities is still a personal invitation. When someone you know and trust asks you to join them, it carries a lot of weight.”
Communication and Equipping
Communicating needs and expectations clearly and positively, and helping people match their gifts to the right place to serve, goes a long way in attracting and retaining new volunteers.
“When we do these recruiting campaigns, we [do something] very obvious,” says Montañez. “For example, for Summer Serve, we had people dressed up in Hawaiian shirts. People would naturally be like, What is this? Plus we promoted it. And we’ll always have an assigned space where they can go, and on the website as well, and find out all the information.”
The Kingdom Fellowship website (Kingdom.global) features a prominent Get Involved section. Clicking on it leads to a downloadable ministry guide that details the different areas of service available under the church’s four “pillars” of Gather, Grow, Give and Go.
At Trace Church, in the foyer is an area that clearly communicates what a person’s next discipleship steps are, including serving.
However opportunities are communicated, Newell says the vision the church should cast is always the same: “Serving is not just about filling a need or helping out; it’s about discipleship and inviting people into the bigger vision of following Jesus and serving in a way that allows them to use the gifts and abilities God has created them with to build his kingdom.”
For people who are introverts or may not feel comfortable stepping into a particular volunteer position, Newell reminds them God designed the body of Christ with many parts.
“When people step into serving, they often discover more of who Jesus is and how he’s gifted them,” she says. “Not everyone is wired to stand at a door and greet, and that’s OK. There are serve opportunities that fit every personality and gifting. Serving should be life-giving, not draining. Our heart is to make sure everyone has a way to live out their calling to serve, no matter what season of life they’re in or what their capacity looks like.”
Newell isn’t put off if someone declines an opportunity to serve, seeing it not as a closed door but as an opportunity. “We take time to hear their story and help them find a role that fits their gifts and their season of life. Sometimes that means serving in another ministry area, sometimes it’s just waiting for the right time. Either way, we always follow up with a conversation to listen and help them discover where their gifts might fit best.”
Retention
Keeping volunteers coming back means taking care of them and listening to their needs. St. Bernard believes that at some point all churches have to put dollars toward people who serve.
“You do need to budget [for] what you care about. One of the bigger things that I think many churches miss on is not supplying the leaders with the resources that they need to do what they need, or the freedom to be able to say, ‘Hey, what if we reimagine this?’”
Making the entire volunteer process easy also encourages return volunteers. At Liquid Church, their dream teamers use an app to volunteer and manage their schedules.
“It’s pretty easy for them to sign up, then manage notifications. Like, ‘Yeah, this Sunday works, but not the next one.’ They can constantly look at how the schedule is being set up,” notes Montañez.
Volunteers, of course, want to have their work noticed and acknowledged, which will encourage them to keep on serving. According to Newell, appreciation isn’t a retention strategy but an important part of church culture.
“We want serve staff to feel appreciated in both big and small ways. That might be through a handwritten note, a coffee conversation, a volunteer huddle where we celebrate individuals or personal wins, or a larger appreciation event,” she says. “But most of all, it is making sure people feel seen and valued every week. Those moments matter.”
Pennington believes what gets celebrated gets repeated. “We let [volunteers] know that we couldn’t do what we do without them. We want them to know that we see that what they’re doing is making a difference. We celebrate people that serve through both a huge serve team party that we go all out for every year. And then we also have individual team parties twice a year, where the team leader will celebrate the accomplishments that have happened and reiterate that we couldn’t do this without [the serve team].”
A couple times throughout the year Kingdom Fellowship shows their appreciation by acknowledging volunteers from the pulpit and in small groups, plus every February they throw an appreciation event at the church.
“From ushers to greeters to parking lot attendants to online ministry to kids ministry to dancers, everybody literally came,” says St. Bernard. “We showed a video on the work of the last year. We had every type of food you could imagine. We had DJs. We had a photo booth. It was just a half day [for volunteers to] enjoy.”
Serving in the church is an important part of discipleship that not only benefits the ministry, it builds God’s kingdom.
“We want people to feel the purpose of serving is not just like they’re a remedy to a problem,” underscores Pennington. “This is a statement we make a lot: ‘We don’t want you to fill a gap—we want you to fill a purpose.’”
