4 Pitfalls to Avoid When Building A Production Team

More and more, I’ve noticed that the biggest obstacle churches face in creating online services isn’t technology.

it isn’t budget.

And it isn’t vision or leadership, either.

What’s the #1 thing holding them back?

People.

More specifically, a lack of people.

You can build out a six-figure camera system with all the switchers and graphics in the world, but without a TEAM to run it… it’s not much better than a beginner setup.

In this post, I’m going to show the 3 biggest mistakes I see when church leaders are trying to recruit and train volunteers, and how you can avoid these pitfalls in your own ministry.

4 Pitfalls to Avoid When Recruiting Volunteers

1. LEAD WITH NEED

This one trips up a lot of leaders, and understandably so - we usually don’t go looking for new volunteers unless there’s a problem.

The following scenario illustrates the issue:

• Prior to a ministry event or new semester, you count up your volunteers and realize you need more

• At the next staff meeting, you explain your dilemma, and decide to solve the problem by taking up space in the bulletin, and MAYBE (if you’re lucky), getting some airtime during announcements.

• You write up copy for the bulletin and announcements that says something like, “HELP! VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!” and then goes on to list an email address to “learn more.”

• After 2 Sundays, you have no new leads, and decide that your church just isn’t very “service-minded,” and you need to address this in an upcoming sermon series.

Sound familiar? I know it’s definitely never happened to me… ; )

Why does this approach fail more often than not?

Because people are not attracted to NEED, they’re attracted to OPPORTUNITY.

When you go around desperately crying for volunteers because you are JUST SO IN NEED, you paint a mental picture for folks of something that’s not working.

Sure, some people will rally to help you out of duty or concern. But a lot more people will see a ministry that’s disorganized, poorly managed, and just needs more warm bodies, and decide to pass on the “opportunity.”

People are not attracted to NEED, they are attracted to OPPORTUNITY.

2. DON’T CAST ANY VISION

Similarly to #1 above, if you don’t create any excitement about what you’re building towards or accomplishing with your ministry, it’s a lot less compelling.

If you want committed, enthusiastic volunteers, you need to paint a clear picture for them of what their efforts are going to achieve. Too often, our pitch focuses so much on the service itself, we fail to communicate the end goal.

In fact, if you can paint such a compelling picture of the impact that they say to themselves, “This seems like a really cool opportunity, I’d hate to miss out on it,” … YOU WIN. It’s that simple.

First and foremost, commit to communicating and recruiting based on the RESULTS that your ministry is aiming for, and people will honestly sign up before they even know what you need them to do.

This shouldn’t be that hard to do with production in today’s world - but if needed, remind them that their talents and efforts are allowing 50-90% of their church to worship during this pandemic. Without them, the church struggles to fulfill its most core objective.

3. DON’T TAKE ONBOARDING SERIOUSLY

So, let’s say you find success in recruiting a few volunteers to show up and start serving in your ministry.

You tell them when the next opportunity to serve is, and when they show up, you greet them, and immediately give them stuff to do.

if this is a ministry event that needs people to inflate balloons and set up chairs, that might be okay. But when it comes to building a production team that serves consistently in high-impact areas, a hands-off approach just isn’t going to get the job done.

if you want people to start looking for the exits, don’t give them a roadmap to be successful, just drop them in somewhere and expect them to figure it out on their own.

if you want to build a TEAM, and leverage people’s gifts and talents, you have got to create a process to onboard them successfully.

Provide a training opportunity before they actually need to run a Sunday service. Have a social gathering (of some kind) so they feel welcomed into a community, not just assigned to a task. Create (or find) training materials they can watch/read at home to prepare with and get better over time.

A key element of onboarding is the simple fact that your volunteers are testing YOU out, as much as you think you’re trying to see if they’re a good fit. First impressions matter, and if a high-capacity volunteer shows up and feels like they just got dumped into a bucket of chaos, they probably aren’t going to stick around long.

Set clear expectations, provide as much hands-on training as possible, and keep pointing them back to the overall purpose, and pretty soon they’ll be more bought-in than even you!

If a high-capacity volunteer shows up and feels like they just got dumped into a bucket of chaos, they probably aren’t going to stick around long.

4. DON’T RESPECT THEIR TIME

I hope you can hear my heart on this, but this might hurt a little: Just because you run a ministry does NOT mean that you are entitled to volunteers or their time.

As church leaders, especially if we haven’t spent time in the marketplace, we can start to take peoples’ time for granted.

When you’re blessed with some eager volunteers who love to serve, make life easy on you, and show up all the time… you start to expect that kind of behavior.

And because they’re “free,” and you’re not contracting them for money (btw, I am not opposed to this, but that’s another post), you start to treat them like their time isn’t valuable. When someone gives you something for free, you tend not to place as much value on it.

A deeper issue at work here also is that, honestly, most church leaders I’ve worked with don’t value their OWN time very much. Long meetings with no clear purpose, a haphazard work schedule, rehearsals that are unorganized… I could go on.

Time is our most precious commodity. You can find more money, people, resources… but you’ll never have more time.

if you can’t value your OWN time, and take it seriously… what are the chances you’re properly respecting the time of your team?

Set a clear, repeatable schedule for when people serve. Schedule out at least 4 weeks, and 8 weeks if possible. Don’t ask someone to be there every single week, unless you want them to burn out in 3 months and stop serving altogether.

When they show up, have a plan. If they don’t NEED to be there… don’t schedule them just as a safety blanket for your stress.

And most of all, communicate often that they are valuable, that you appreciate them, and that they are making a big difference in the church and in peoples’ lives.

Recruiting and training a team is hard work - but it’s more necessary than ever.

Avoid the pitfalls above, and you’ll start seeing better results when it comes to recruiting, training, and retaining great team members.

Do you have any other tips for building a great team? Leave a comment below!