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Building Your Volunteer Team: A 30-Day Change Project for Youth Ministry
Do you find yourself again and again wondering what it would take to get some new volunteers onboard for your ministry? And yet does it seem that you are never able to focus your energy on recruitment? Maybe you find yourself saying things "It?s just easier for me to do it myself." At one level, of course, this is true. Almost always, it is easier to "do it ourselves." We avoid the hassle of having to coordinate and communicate. We avoid having to follow up with people who drop the ball. Youth leaders Mark DeVries and Nate Stratman have heard dozens of reasons why leaders choose not to build a solid volunteer team. But faithful ministry is not a do-it-yourself project. It?s more than just recruiting―it involves changing the culture of your ministry so that volunteers want to become involved.That's why they have developed this 30-day change approach. In these pages you will find the step-by-step support you need to actually make one of the most important changes you want to see in your ministry. DeVries and Stratman are so commited to the ideas that they offer the following If you work this 30-day process for one to two hours a day, six days a week, for 30 days, and it does not create significant change in your ministry, Ministry Architects will gladly refund the cost of this book and offer a credit of $20 toward any downloadable resource in their online store at ymarchitects.com. You have so little to risk and everything to gain. It's time to put together that team you've been longing for!
155 pages, Paperback
First published January 5, 2015
20 people are currently reading
46 people want to read
About the author
Mark DeVries
39 books12 followersMark DeVries (MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary) is the founder of Ministry Architects, a consulting team that helps churches and ministry organizations build sustainable ministries for children, youth, young adults, and entire congregations. He served for twenty-eight years as associate pastor for youth and their families at First Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. He has trained youth workers on five continents and has taught courses or been a guest lecturer at a number of colleges and seminaries. DeVries is the author of Sustainable Youth Ministry and Family-Based Youth Ministry, coauthor of The Most Important Year in a Woman's Life/The Most Important Year in a Man's Life, and he has been a contributing writer for Josh McDowell's Youth Ministry Handbook, Starting Right, and Reaching a Generation for Christ. In addition, his articles and reviews have been published in a variety of journals and magazines. He and his wife, Susan, have four grown children.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 3, 2022
This was a very easy read, especially with a lot of repetition. I think there were some good points here and there, but altogether it seemed geared towards a large church setting and the methods would apply to a large group of people. Generally it was unhelpful for someone in a "normative" size church and especially not in a church revitalization context. I honestly thought the authors were joking a few times or being sarcastic and was surprised to find out that they were serious...👀... but I was also reading to apply to my particular context. It was made obvious that the authors believe that if someone has a volunteer shortage, it's the youth pastor's fault entirely in one of many potential ways.
May be helpful for bigger church contexts and may give some nuggets of advice to others looking to gain more volunteers in youth ministry.
May be helpful for bigger church contexts and may give some nuggets of advice to others looking to gain more volunteers in youth ministry.
June 17, 2018
Great book for anyone wanting to transform their volunteer enlistment process in a ministry setting.
February 27, 2024
This was a helpful practical guide for any youth leaders looking to build a volunteer team. Practical steps each day help break down the process to be much less intimidating.
February 9, 2015
I have been a part of an effective youth ministry team. I was not the pastoral leader but a team member, so I wasn't responsible for creating and building the team, but it was great. We met together, did retreats together and did team building exercises.We called ourselves the 'Youth Support Team' (insert your favorite jock strap/bra joke here, we made them all). As the Youth Support Team (YST) we planned our weekly youth worship service, we mentored, we prayed with and for kids and planned special events. On a whole, we did effective and fruitful ministry together. I have been part of youth ministry before and since when finding an adequate ministry team was difficult and appreciate resources for building teams.
These days I don't directly work with youth, but as a solo senior pastor in a small church I am invested in seeing the youth of my church thrive. Mark Devries and Nate Stratman of Ministry Architects have written Building Your Volunteer Team to help youth ministers raise up volunteers for their church. The book is a 30-day Change project for youth ministry and DeVries and Stratman guarantee that if their program is followed, it will build your volunteer team.
DeVries and Stratman organize tasks for each day to help youth leaders to approach recruitment systematically. Much of what they give you to do amounts to calling and follow-up with people in an organized way. The goal isn't just to get new warm bodies into youth ministry to serve, but to build a team where people are serving in their gifts and passions (the right people on the bus). DeVries augment the practical steps with instructions for prayer partners and weekly sabbath days (AKA reflection days).
Each week begins with a 'balcony day,'--a day to set the agenda for the week, and ends with a day reflecting on the process. The idea is to approach ministry recruitment systematically, thoughtfully and to follow through for a month. If you do that, DeVries and Stratman claim that the results are assured.
Because this is a book about 'recruitment' more than it is a book about youth ministry, much of what DeVries and Stratman say is applicable to building a volunteer team for any ministry. They offer lots of practical advice and because this is an organized approach, there are practical steps here that will be helpful to leaders. I also appreciate the places where DeVries and Stratman help retool our thinking about raising up volunteers. For example, day three talks about how we are not aiming at getting 'helpers' who will jump in where needed, but partners who take ownership in ministry. They also share other phrases to strike from our vocabulary:
"It's just easier to do it myself" (56).
"I Called but they Haven't called me back yet" (59).
"I don't know anyone else!" (62).
"What do I say on my fourth message?" (65).
But most of this book isn't about attitude and vocabulary, it is about working the steps: creating lists of names, calling potential volunteers, interviewing past volunteers, creating documents, organizing, recruiting, crafting a team. The chief value of DeVries and Stratman's book is how practical and hands on they are.
When I look at the possibility of applying this book to building a youth team for our church, I am not exactly sure how well it will work for our context. I think a lot of their suggestions work better in a mid-to-large congregation. My congregation is less than sixty and predominantly older. I feel like I would have to do some reworking to follow their steps verbatim. But I did gain a practical approach to raising up volunteers and will be looking at how to implement their suggestions faithfully in my context. Team ministry is the way to go and if this book can help get us there, that is great. I give this book four stars: ★★★★
Notice of material connection, I received this book from IVP in exchange for my honest review
These days I don't directly work with youth, but as a solo senior pastor in a small church I am invested in seeing the youth of my church thrive. Mark Devries and Nate Stratman of Ministry Architects have written Building Your Volunteer Team to help youth ministers raise up volunteers for their church. The book is a 30-day Change project for youth ministry and DeVries and Stratman guarantee that if their program is followed, it will build your volunteer team.
DeVries and Stratman organize tasks for each day to help youth leaders to approach recruitment systematically. Much of what they give you to do amounts to calling and follow-up with people in an organized way. The goal isn't just to get new warm bodies into youth ministry to serve, but to build a team where people are serving in their gifts and passions (the right people on the bus). DeVries augment the practical steps with instructions for prayer partners and weekly sabbath days (AKA reflection days).
Each week begins with a 'balcony day,'--a day to set the agenda for the week, and ends with a day reflecting on the process. The idea is to approach ministry recruitment systematically, thoughtfully and to follow through for a month. If you do that, DeVries and Stratman claim that the results are assured.
Because this is a book about 'recruitment' more than it is a book about youth ministry, much of what DeVries and Stratman say is applicable to building a volunteer team for any ministry. They offer lots of practical advice and because this is an organized approach, there are practical steps here that will be helpful to leaders. I also appreciate the places where DeVries and Stratman help retool our thinking about raising up volunteers. For example, day three talks about how we are not aiming at getting 'helpers' who will jump in where needed, but partners who take ownership in ministry. They also share other phrases to strike from our vocabulary:
"It's just easier to do it myself" (56).
"I Called but they Haven't called me back yet" (59).
"I don't know anyone else!" (62).
"What do I say on my fourth message?" (65).
But most of this book isn't about attitude and vocabulary, it is about working the steps: creating lists of names, calling potential volunteers, interviewing past volunteers, creating documents, organizing, recruiting, crafting a team. The chief value of DeVries and Stratman's book is how practical and hands on they are.
When I look at the possibility of applying this book to building a youth team for our church, I am not exactly sure how well it will work for our context. I think a lot of their suggestions work better in a mid-to-large congregation. My congregation is less than sixty and predominantly older. I feel like I would have to do some reworking to follow their steps verbatim. But I did gain a practical approach to raising up volunteers and will be looking at how to implement their suggestions faithfully in my context. Team ministry is the way to go and if this book can help get us there, that is great. I give this book four stars: ★★★★
Notice of material connection, I received this book from IVP in exchange for my honest review
December 22, 2014
I still remember the day youth ministry got fun.
It was during a meeting with my adult leaders in my rookie year in youth ministry. As we went through our upcoming youth ministry gathering, I remember sitting there thinking, “You guys are fun. You make this job fun. I cannot do it without you.”
Ever since then, I've greatly valued adult leaders. Yet, like so many other youth workers, I've found it difficult to recruit and train them.
For that reason, I was excited to read Building Your Volunteer Team by Mark DeVries and Nate Stratman.
The underlying premise of Building Your Volunteer Team is that most youth workers struggle with building their team because they simply do not invest enough time in doing so. Mark and Nate remind us that “creating a habit requires sustained investment day in and day out for several weeks.” In Building Your Volunteer Team, they attempt to help youth workers create such a habit, challenging them to spend one to two hours a day for 30 days focused on this important part of youth ministry. They're so confident in their methods that the book even comes with a money back guarantee from Ministry Architects.
To be sure, Building Your Volunteer Team is a book filled with wisdom. It reminds youth workers that “faithful ministry is almost never meant to be a do-it-yourself project. It's a do-it-together project.” It also offers practical, step-by-step instructions for building your volunteer team. To help you do so, the book is packed with resources you can use. The ones found in the appendix are, even by themselves, worth the price of the book.
Because of how practical Building Your Volunteer Team is, this is the book I wish I would have had my rookie year in youth ministry when I realized how important adult leaders were to the success of ministry but had no idea how to build a quality team. It's also the book I wish I would have had each time I started a new youth ministry position and once again found myself having to build a team from scratch. Even now, as a veteran youth worker with a fairly well-established volunteer team, it's the book I have and will continue to use both to remind myself of the importance of strengthening my team and, more importantly, to actually do so.
I encourage you to do the same.
It was during a meeting with my adult leaders in my rookie year in youth ministry. As we went through our upcoming youth ministry gathering, I remember sitting there thinking, “You guys are fun. You make this job fun. I cannot do it without you.”
Ever since then, I've greatly valued adult leaders. Yet, like so many other youth workers, I've found it difficult to recruit and train them.
For that reason, I was excited to read Building Your Volunteer Team by Mark DeVries and Nate Stratman.
The underlying premise of Building Your Volunteer Team is that most youth workers struggle with building their team because they simply do not invest enough time in doing so. Mark and Nate remind us that “creating a habit requires sustained investment day in and day out for several weeks.” In Building Your Volunteer Team, they attempt to help youth workers create such a habit, challenging them to spend one to two hours a day for 30 days focused on this important part of youth ministry. They're so confident in their methods that the book even comes with a money back guarantee from Ministry Architects.
To be sure, Building Your Volunteer Team is a book filled with wisdom. It reminds youth workers that “faithful ministry is almost never meant to be a do-it-yourself project. It's a do-it-together project.” It also offers practical, step-by-step instructions for building your volunteer team. To help you do so, the book is packed with resources you can use. The ones found in the appendix are, even by themselves, worth the price of the book.
Because of how practical Building Your Volunteer Team is, this is the book I wish I would have had my rookie year in youth ministry when I realized how important adult leaders were to the success of ministry but had no idea how to build a quality team. It's also the book I wish I would have had each time I started a new youth ministry position and once again found myself having to build a team from scratch. Even now, as a veteran youth worker with a fairly well-established volunteer team, it's the book I have and will continue to use both to remind myself of the importance of strengthening my team and, more importantly, to actually do so.
I encourage you to do the same.
May 17, 2017
If you want to build a complete volunteer team, you should definitely read this book.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews