The Volunteer Church: Mobilizing Your Congregation for Growth and Effectiveness

by Leith Anderson, Jill Fox

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 volunteersDiscover how to build sustainable, long-lasting ministries led by volunteersFind methods for encouraging and maintaining your volunteers for successKnow how to build teams of volunteersUnderstand how to find the right service that fits a willing volunteerIf 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.

Genres: Church, Leadership, Nonfiction

151 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 4, 2015

Reviews

[CrabbyPatty · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good discussion of the art and science of developing a volunteer culture within a church, how to recruit volunteers and train and care for them. I felt the first 25% of the book was too long and focused on the theological, while the remainder of the book was filled with good practical information on how to effectively find and develop volunteers. The appendices are very helpful.

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Volunteer Church is an excellent and accessible guidebook for church leaders on how to create a volunteer culture in their church and lead volunteers. This book fills a gap in education for many pastors who have substantial training in theology, preaching, and history (all important subjects!) but have not been well instructed in practical matters of recruiting, training, and retaining volunteers.

The book excels in the first two chapters where it points out two things that should be obvious but can be so easily overlooked. First, it is vital for leaders to understand that people really do want to volunteer. Leaders can be crippled by feeling guilty for trying to recruit volunteers if they do not understand that volunteering in some capacity is in the heart of every believer. Second, the book rightly points out that churches are volunteer based. The church is the body of Christ and each member has a role to play. Pastors can too easily fall prey to thinking that they need to be constantly on the move in order to accomplish everything that must be accomplished for the church, without stepping back to see and make use of the gifts God has placed in the church. The book also provides thoughtful and helpful advice for recruiting volunteers, especially on the topic of finding the right fit for a volunteer.

While no one can master leadership of volunteers simply by reading a book, those who read The Volunteer Church and put its principles into practice will be on their way to unlocking the volunteer potential of their church and establishing a volunteer culture where God’s work can be multiplied and the burden of ministry can be shared.

[Robert Bogue]

I wanted to understand more the dynamics and the practicalities of increasing volunteerism. I picked up The Volunteer Church: Mobilizing Your Congregation for Growth and Effectiveness based on a search. I was trying to address a cluster of challenges. The church doesn’t have a coordinated way that volunteers are managed, and it overuses some people while locking out others who want to participate. We’re painfully aware of the loneliness epidemic. (See Loneliness.) We know that engaging volunteers reduces their loneliness across a variety of dimensions. We know that volunteerism is important to social capital, yet, like most organizations, we fail to systematize engaging people individually. (See Bowling Alone, Our Kids, and The Upswing.)

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[Lisa Burns · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book underscores the significance of understanding volunteer dynamics, by diving into the motivations and challenges of volunteers, it offers insights into fostering meaningful engagement and retention. Anderson offers simple tools necessary to attract and retain volunteers effectively through practical leadership principles and recruitment strategies. This book stresses the importance of nurturing a culture of appreciation and inclusion, where volunteers feel valued and connected to the church's mission.

This book could be a helpful tool for those new to a volunteer coordinator role, and intuitive for more seasoned leaders.

[Jonathan Brooker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A relatively quick read, "The Volunteer Church" helps to offer compelling insights on what motivates people to choose to volunteer, what helps make the volunteering experience more beneficial, and how to operate your church in a way that is more mindful of volunteers.

I feel like there was more that could have been said or developed at times throughout the book, but it still offered up enough worthwhile pieces to make it worth recommending to any pastor or person who leads volunteers in a church context.

[Casey Summers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I run a small food pantry for my church and managing volunteers is a big part of my job. I believe Fox and Anderson come from larger (mega?) church contexts so going into reading this, I wasn't sure their approach would help me but it did. Reading this book, I felt challenged to work to make sure my volunteers are cared for and reminded of the impact they're having on a regular basis. It's caused me to reflect on the many ways I could do better working with volunteers in ministry. For this reason, I'm thankful I read it.

[Ashley Maden · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book the authors do a great job at presenting some of the most fundamental and helpful ways of thinking about recruiting, retaining and growing a strong loyal team of volunteers working towards the same mission and getting others involved along the way.

A mission-focused team of volunteers is crucial to the success of any organization or cause, led by an empowering, inspiring, selfless leader.

[Dennis Thurman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real Help!

I found this book easy to read and practical to apply. There are inspirational stories and many helpful applications. It is a training manual for one of the most important areas in the church— volunteers. I wish I had such a resource many years ago. I commend it highly!

[JT Stead · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was some helpful things in the book, but I am very suspicious of pragmatism and this book is filled with it. All methodology and no theology. I would recommend starting with 9marks by Mark Dever.

[Chad Wilham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me rethink everything I’ve been doing. It’s both philosophical and practical, packed with tools for implementation. A must-read for anyone leading a church or volunteer-based organization.

[Elijah Beltz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple, concise, clear, and practical. The book gives you scripturally supported practical advice for equipping volunteers. It's nothing amazing, but it accomplishes exactly what the title says.

[Sara Gorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book with some practical ideas of how to engage volunteers effectively!

[Molly Ericson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy read. Great resource. A great reminder that small changes can add up to a big diffference.

[Will Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a simple to read, yet effective book centered on creating and atmosphere of volunteerism working the local church.

[George P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leith Anderson and Jill Fox, The Volunteer Church: Mobilizing Your Congregation for Growth and Effectiveness (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015). Paperback | Kindle

_____, Volunteering: A Guide to Serving in the Body of Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015). Paperback | Kindle

“At their core churches are volunteer organizations,” write Leith Anderson and Jill Fox. The issue, then, is not whether a church has ministry volunteers but how well it mobilizes volunteers for ministry. The Volunteer Church offers guidance that will help church leaders:

effectively recruit and train volunteers;
build sustainable, long-lasting ministries led by volunteers;
encourage and maintain volunteers;
build volunteer teams;
and find the right ministry fit for volunteers.

Anderson and Fox were colleagues at Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota—he as pastor, she as director of the Volunteer Development Ministry. In addition to being biblically sound, the advice they offer in this book is undergirded by pastoral experience.

If you are a pastor or church leader looking for help improving your volunteer ministry, this short book is a good place to start. The book’s two appendixes—“Volunteer Development Training” and “Your Plan for Volunteer Development”—are especially helpful. They provide bullet points and discussion questions leaders can use to plan an effective volunteer development program.

Anderson and Fox’s Volunteering is a companion to The Volunteer Church, written primarily to address the questions volunteers have about signing up for ministry in the local church. Chapter 2, “Finding Your Fit,” is especially useful. It helps potential volunteers assess their spiritual gifts and talents and skills to more closely align who they are with what they do.

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P.S. If you found my review helpful, please vote “Yes” on my Amazon.com review page.

[Kyle Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is well written and not a difficult read. While nothing in it is groundbreaking, it does offer good points for identifying specific individual spiritual gifts, as well as the best ways to utilize volunteers in your church. A church in itself is primarily composed of volunteers that help it survive and thrive. Seeking out and retaining volunteers in your church can be very difficult, but this book discusses ways to avoid pitfalls and burnout. I would recommend it to church pastors, worship leaders, youth and children pastors, and of course volunteer leaders. I received this as a free ARC from Zondervan on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Daniel Warne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good content, but it feels like this could have been a series of blog posts rather than a book. It would benefit from another editing pass to clean up phrasing, focus the message, and cut down redundancies.

[Kris Browning · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, practical, and applicable guide to improving volunteerism in a local church.

[JR Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great principles on volunteer management in a church setting. Focused on the experiences of a mega-church pastor but applicable to many other scenarios. I appreciate Leith's desire to honor and recognize the role of servants in the church.