Children's Ministry

10 Ways To Make Meetings with Your Volunteers Productive (and bearable)

I have a confession, I love meetings. I love real meetings. Real meetings are when things are discussed, dissected, torn down, built up, and planned. Real meetings lead to great outcomes. I have no problem attending meetings all day long. I enjoy it, if they’re real. I’m in the minority, though. Most people don’t like meetings, even if the meetings are productive. Most people are tired of having to meet over every little thing. Therefore, the last thing one of your volunteers wants to do after being at work in pointless meetings all day is then go to a ministry meeting at your church.

These 10 ways to make meetings better are specific to your volunteers. After-hours meetings with volunteers have specific needs. People will come to your meetings at work because they’re being paid to do so. So don’t think that just because employees attend meetings all day at with you at work means you know what makes a meeting with volunteers bearable. On the contrary, I often find the opposite true. The more accustomed you are to work meetings, the more likely you are to think that everyone is accustomed to (often pointless) meetings. Still, if you have a large amount of volunteers, organized meetings are necessary.

20 Simple Ways to Show Gratitude to Your Volunteers

By Pedro Leave a Comment

65% of volunteers say they haven’t heard the words, “thank you” in the last year. I don’t think that’s that big of a deal if you follow these rules. Still, showing gratitude to your volunteers is a big deal. Here are 20 simple ways to show your volunteers that you appreciate them!

Big Church or Nah?

By Pedro 4 Comments

I’ve read many articles debating the topic of whether children should sit through adult services or have their own. One in particular from a well known Pastor who believes children should sit with the adults the entire time. This has been a controversial topic in Children’s Ministry for some time, with many theologians, like this well known pastor, believing that children should sit with adults the entire time.

There are three approaches.

There are only adult services, everyone attends them.
There is mixed worship, after worship children have their own classes/groups.
Children have their own service, including their own worship.

“Let the children come to me” is the verse they often quote or misquote to suggest the first approach. By using this to justify their position, they’re implying that children can’t meet Jesus in Children’s Ministry. I believe in the other end of the spectrum. I believe children deserve their own service for three reasons.

[Read more…] about Big Church or Nah?

Don’t Say “Thank You” To Your Volunteers

By Pedro 4 Comments

I recently heard someone quote a statistic about church volunteers. Apparently, 65% of volunteers say they haven’t heard the words “thank you” in the last 12 months. Some may think that’s sad, but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. Let me be clear, saying “Thank you” to your volunteers is just about pointless. Anyone can utter the words, it doesn’t mean anything.

For the record, I have no problem with saying “thank you”, on the contrary, I think it’s perfectly fine to say thank you. The problem is, saying “thank you” often becomes mindless appreciation and we say it instead of showing it. It’s far better to show gratitude than say gratitude. Anyone can say it, however, the key to appreciating your volunteers is showing it. Or at the very least displaying it in a meaningful way.

So, instead of the mindless “thank you”, do these three things instead.

The first time I heard someone say “Don’t Say Thank You to Volunteers”, I thought it was crazy. I was in Colorado Springs going through the Executive Course in Volunteer Development Ministry Level 1 taught by Al from Newell and Associates. It was a part of my initial training with Operation Christmas Child. I was kind of surprised to hear a Volunteer Management expert say those words. As he explained what he meant, though, I realized that my entire experience leading volunteers fell right in line with what he meant.

1. Be specific in what you say and how you say it

“Thanks for all you do.” – Me, as I walk past you after a long day.

How does that feel? That may happen to you all the time, and therefore, you won’t think twice when you hear it. However, although you may appreciate it, you won’t ever think of it again. It’s transactional versus transformational.

Transactional is like when a cashier at McDonald’s says “Hello” and leaves it at that.

Transformational is like when an employee of Chick-fil-A greets you with “How may I serve you?” and then follows up by really serving you!

Do this instead.

“Hey ___, I appreciate all of the hard work you put in today. I know it’s not easy to give up your Sundays like this but I want you to know what you’re doing here is having not only an eternal impact, but an impact on the lives of these families right now.” – Me, as I stop what I’m doing, stand right in front of you and look you in the eyes.

See the difference?

You might think that you can’t do that for everyone and you certainly can’t do that every week for everyone. You might be right in that, but when you begin doing that, your volunteers will begin to feel supported and appreciated more than ever before. Doing this is a transformational act.

2. Gossip positively

Gossip may not be a good word to describe this but I think you get the picture. If you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, don’t say anything at all. On the other hand, if you have something nice to say about someone, tell people.

If you’re a pastor and one of your volunteers did something awesome, let the other church leaders know. Bring it up in a leadership or Pastor’s meeting, bring it up with your leader volunteers, or give a group of volunteers a shout out on social media. Do you have any idea how excited a volunteer gets when they see their name and picture on the social media profile of their church or organization where they serve?

Better yet, if you see someone else’s volunteer do a great job, tell that staff member/leader. Too often, we only hear complaints and/or bad news. It feels good to have people talk about how great your team is.

3. Give them something

It doesn’t have to be something that you buy, but it could be. You can hand write a thank you card or a note, you can give them a gift card, take them out for coffee or lunch, bring them something they like, have a pizza night or a donut day. If you decide to buy them something or take them out for coffee or lunch, pay for it yourself! You may have a budget or get reimbursed to treat your volunteers to a coffee or lunch but don’t use it! Pay for it yourself and don’t tell anyone what you did. Yes, it may not make sense but I believe God honors that. Not in the sense that if you spend $10 God will repay you $20, but in the sense that your ministry will be blessed by treating others like that. If you don’t have the money, then think about ways you can show appreciation that don’t cost any money. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

I’ve written notes, given shout outs on social media, gave meaningful thank you speeches, and bragged about volunteers. I once had a Children’s Ministry volunteer who loved Milano cookies. I didn’t even know what they were, but I decided to buy some and bring them in. He was blown away. It only cost a few dollars but it made his and his family’s day. Totally worth it!

If you need more ideas, read the 20 Ways to Show Gratitude to Your Volunteers.

10 Simple Things You Can Do For A Safer Children’s Ministry

By Pedro Leave a Comment

Physical safety is paramount in Children’s Ministry. Nothing else is more important. If you thought that solid teaching, or great kids worship, or charismatic teachers was most important, you’re wrong. If parents don’t trust you to keep their kids safe, none of those things matter because their kids will never find out since the parents won’t ever drop them off.

I can’t begin to tell you how many churches my wife and I decided not to attend because of their Children’s Ministry. It’s our one deciding factor. If the Children’s Ministry is great, we’ll go. If it’s not, we won’t. And a large part of that has to do with safety for our daughter. We won’t compromise on that.

The good news is, you don’t have to be a security expert to keep your ministry safe but you do have to think through some situations. It’s likely that you have room to grow in this, all ministries do.

Here are 10 simple things you can do to increase safety……

6 Characteristics of High Performance Teams

By Pedro Leave a Comment

high performance teams - pedrocarrion.com

Are you looking to take things to the next level? You must start with your team, you need a high performance team! What characteristics do high performance teams display? These 6 Characteristics of High Performance Teams will guide you in taking your teams to the next level!

3 Reasons Pastors should encourage their Churches to volunteer with Operation Christmas Child

By Pedro 2 Comments

Am I biased?

With so many churches struggling to meet their weekly needs in terms of finances and volunteers, why on Earth would a Pastor encourage his congregation to apply to volunteer year round with Operation Christmas Child? After all, won’t they give Operation Christmas Child all their time? Doesn’t this take away from the Church?

What if I told you that we never leave a man behind? What if I told you we have incredible leaders, great staff members, and great volunteers? Does that convince you? No? Ok.

If you’re a Pastor, you need to read this. By the end of this (short) post, I’m going to convince you that encouraging your people to volunteer with Operation Christmas Child is the best thing that you could do.

1. Operation Christmas Child volunteers don’t stop serving in their church.

We conducted a survey of our volunteers and one thing really surprised me. Over 90% of our over 8,000 year round volunteers serve in other organizations. The most common place they serve is their church.

I get it. I was a Children’s Ministry Pastor. I know what it’s like to have a big hole in your weekend schedule. But I assure you, someone volunteering with Operation Christmas Child isn’t going negatively affect your schedule!

2. Operation Christmas Child volunteers are very aware of what God is doing around the world.

Operation Christmas Child volunteers not only become better volunteers for you, but they become more aware Christians. We’re a Christian international relief organization. We’re constantly communicating the impact that our US volunteers are making across the world. That’s right. That little old grandma who has been serving with Operation Christmas Child for 10 years is probably responsible for THOUSANDS of children coming to faith in Jesus Christ, and she knows it.

This can also be intimidating for many Pastors. People in your congregation can know more about the work of the global church than you. There is so much to do week in and week out, that it’s impossible for Pastors to keep up to date with everything. You worry about your family, your staff, your church, your community, your city, and many other things. Do you really need to know exactly where that cyclone hit in the Philippines and what the response has been?

No, you probably don’t. But I guarantee you that most of our volunteers know exactly where it hit and what the international response has been.

3. Operation Christmas Child volunteers become even better leaders.

We invest in our volunteers like no one else. Seriously, I’ve never seen anything like this. Conferences, monthly calls, eLearning, workshops, you name it. We even have an entire website, full of resources, solely dedicated to our US volunteers. Yes, I know some churches have them. I’ve seen them. The Operation Christmas Child website blows them away in terms of resources available.

Do you know that our volunteers serve in dedicated roles with ministry descriptions that they sign? Do you know that their roles are part of an org chart that covers a specific local area? Do you know that these areas end up covering the entire United States?

Our volunteers have the opportunity to become experts in recruiting, selecting, equipping, leading, and developing other volunteers. We have volunteer leaders that lead teams of other volunteers. Sounds good, huh?

What if I told you that I could give the people in your church a crash course in international ministry, train them to recruit and lead volunteers, take on incredible responsibility, teach them practical things like how to set up a booth, how to put together a presentation, or how to lead millennials in ministry, all while they continue to serve in your church?

Have I convinced you?

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