when i quit begging for volunteers.
Every year we have a big church conference and every year I’m reminded of the time I quit begging for volunteers.
Let’s rewind… It was July 2018 and we’d just gotten back from our overnight kids camp. Camp was amazing, it was incredible, God moved and kids had a blast! But if you do camps, you know that literally nothing compares to the post-camp level of exhaustion you feel. For whatever reason we ended up in a meeting the very next day after returning from camp.
“Mal, we’re going to have a kids conference this year alongside of adult conference. Kids camp was so powerful, we know you guys can do it!” our lead pastor told us.
I’d love to tell you that I had the best attitude and walked out of that room ready to go but I would absolutely be lying to you. I had a fuuuuuuull on pity party.
“Conference is literally in SEVEN weeks! How are we going to do this?”
“How in the woooorld am I supposed to convince people to miss adult conference? It’s everyone’s favorite thing!”
I gave myself about 24 hours of pity before I laced up my proverbial boots and said “If we are going to have a kids conference (which we were, I didn’t get to choose that part) then it is going to be the best kids conference and the most powerful kids conference there ever was so that people don’t feel like they’re missing out.
In fact, I’m going to make sure they feel like they’re missing out if they aren’t in kids conference.
And that was the beginning of this backwards FOMO idea that I’ve spent the last seven years leading from.
So what did we do?
We spent the next 7 weeks planning, praying, and casting vision for what God would do. I may have spent half my nights in amazon carts and google docs, but I also spent my days telling the team that God was going to move, planning speakers and worship that I knew God would use, and letting them know we’d love each of them to serve at least 1-2 sessions.
As kids conference began, God moved and the texts started coming.
“Hey Mal.. can I serve again tonight?”
“Hey Guys! I’m coming back to kids, I just can’t help it.”
“I tried to sit through adults, but I can’t… I’m coming back!”
It wasn’t just one or two people, it was a ton of them! God was moving and nobody wanted to miss what was happening!
Post-Conference, I knew the next steps were crucial!
This was one event and we all know people will rally for an event. The reality was that God was moving each and every week in kids church. People were getting prayed for and healed, kids were learning their authority, worship was amazing and breakthrough was happening… weekly.
And from that moment on, creating buy-in has been simple (notice that I didn’t say easy). I needed to continue to cast vision, continue to make sure we were creating a space for God to move, continue to give people roles that matter, and continue to tell the stories of why people wanted to be at kids church!
I don’t beg, I cast vision.
I don’t beg, I create roles that give people purpose.
I don’t beg, I create backwards fomo.
I’ve seen it work. The people are there, they ask to serve more, they love the kids they serve and the team continues to grow and I believe every single kids church in the world can have a thriving, growing, bought in team!
If you struggle to create buy in, or want to get away from begging and haven’t yet gotten my Volunteer Buy-In Blueprint, snag it today! I’ve linked it here on sale for blog readers!
(P.S. I could spend a million hours telling you the importance of making sure your team can sit and receive in adult services too, but that’s for a different day!)