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Church leaders know that volunteers are the church's most vital work force. In The Volunteer Church, Leith Anderson and Jill Fox offer guidance to church leaders on how best to minister to these essential workers, and provide a complete handbook for them to recruit, inspire, train, and maintain volunteers in congregations large or small.
List of contents
1. Churches Need Volunteers! (Leith)
2. The Role of Leaders (Leith)
3. Create a Volunteer-Friendly Culture (Jill)
4. People Want to Volunteer (Leith)
5. Teams are Tops (Leith)
6. Fit the Volunteer, Don’t Fill Positions (Leith)
7. Have Clear Expectations (Jill)
8. Volunteers Recruit Volunteers (Jill)
9. Keep It Simple (Jill)
10. Support, Support, Support (Jill)
11. Attention to Details (Leith)
12. ‘Paying’ Volunteers (Jill)
13. Tell Stories (Jill)
14. Trusting Volunteers (Leith)
15. Celebrating (Jill)
16. The Priority of Prayer (Leith)
About the author
Leith Anderson serves as president of the National Association of Evangelicals. For thirty-five years he was the pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. He is a graduate of both Denver Seminary and Fuller Theological Seminary. Anderson is the author of more than 20 books.
Summary
Working with volunteers can be a rewarding and exciting experience—for them as well as for those who recruit, train, and maintain their services. However, if church leaders are honest, they know there are times that it can be frustrating. They know that volunteers are essential, vital to creating growth and new ministries, and are the key to introducing youth and children to Jesus Christ. They have the welcoming smiles at the door, they serve the food, pray for needs, stuff bulletins, organize missions trips, and on and on. If they want to see their church grow, it must be a volunteering church, a church that runs on volunteers.
The Volunteer Church was developed out of the ministry of Leith Anderson at Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, where a vital and vibrant volunteer program boasting 4,000 participants grew under the leadership of Jill Fox. The principles and training have been applied in churches of all sizes and denominations in seminar settings across the country as well as at Wooddale Church.
In The Volunteer Church, leaders will
- Learn how to effectively recruit and train volunteers
- Discover how to build sustainable, long-lasting ministries led by volunteers
- Find methods for encouraging and maintaining your volunteers for success
- Know how to build teams of volunteers
- Understand how to find the right service that fits a willing volunteer
If you lead a church and are exhausted by the lack of volunteer help, or if you are a volunteer and dream of adding numbers to your team, this book is for you. If you are on a church staff and know that a new ministry is needed but volunteers and training are required to make it happen, here you will find the resources to recruit, inspire, train, and maintain the church’s most vital workforce.
Additional text
'This book should be required reading for all desiring to develop and maintain a volunteer culture in the local church setting.'
