We would never apply for a new job without a description of what the job actually is. If we did, we would never know if we were hitting the mark and doing a good job.
Unfortunately, many churches are unclear in their expectations for volunteers, which creates confusion. However, handing someone a volunteer job description before they step into a new role in your church or ministry allows them to know the expectations before they commit. It also keeps them from having to guess what success looks like as they serve each week.
Each volunteer job description should include the weekly ministry responsibilities for the role and the core competencies required to serve.
Weekly ministry responsibilities will vary from ministry to ministry. For example, a kids ministry volunteer’s checklist will likely include teaching a Bible story while a guest services volunteer will hold open doors, assist someone finding a seat, or help first-time guests get to the welcome center.
Core competencies include things that reflect a person’s character, regardless of which ministry they serve in. These things don’t change between ministry teams. For example, your volunteer core competencies may be growing in spiritual disciplines and working well with others.
Please keep in mind that the average volunteer serves in multiple ministry roles. By creating volunteer job descriptions from the same template for all ministry teams, you can streamline core competency training for volunteers, saving you and your people valuable time. Again, this clarity and consistency across ministry teams helps your volunteers know how to succeed.
If your church already uses volunteer job descriptions, now is the time to evaluate and make sure they are up to date and reflect current ministry responsibilities and core competencies.
If creating volunteer job descriptions sounds overwhelming to you, take a deep breath. We created a free ebook to help you onboard and train your new volunteers. You can download it here.
