V.E.T. your Youth Ministry Volunteers

To "vet" is to make a careful examination of something or someone. When it comes to finding youth ministry volunteers you need to both vet your program as well as your prospective volunteers. It also makes a handy acronym for three crucial components of working with volunteers in youth ministry:

Vision
Expectations
Training

People are best recruited to a vision, not just a job. Help your prospective volunteers to see their responsibilities as a means to an end, not an end in themselves. Help them to see that they are a meaningful part of a team that is fulfilling Gods purpose among your youth. What you are excited about in your youth ministry that you can share with potential volunteers. What are the benefits and "payoffs" you can share? Present your vision of youth ministry and why volunteer leaders are needed in fulfilling that dream.

• Be honest about what you expect, about time demands, and responsibilities. While we often want leaders badly, we should not minimize the responsibilities. Trust that God will provide people who will be able to rise to the needs of the ministry.
• Create a variety of positions and roles to match the needs of your ministry with the variety of gifts, talents, and interests of volunteers and considering the amount of time each volunteer has to offer.
• Make a list of all tasks that need to be done to achieve a successful youth program, regardless of the size of the task or the significance along with the time required for each to be accomplished.
• Prioritize - rate them according to importance and whether they are required or optional. Some tasks may be ad hoc and other tasks may require someone to fill a position for a predetermined length of time in order to fulfill them.
• Develop job descriptions for your leaders that summarize expectations and provide estimates of how much time it will take to fulfill their particular responsibilities.
• Make a list of those ad hoc, or event specific roles that could be handled without a long term commitment. Those who cannot commit to long term service might be able to take on a specific event, project or task on an ad hoc basis.

Be clear about what kinds of people you are looking for. The old acronym F.A.T. suggest that you should look for people who are:

Faithful
Available
Teachable

It is important that they are faithful both to Christ and to the youth ministry. They need to be available and ready to commit a portion of their availability to the youth ministry. And finally, they need to have a teachable spirit. They should see themselves as both teacher and student, leader and follower.

Adequately prepare your new volunteers for service and then continue to train them and provide a supportive and nurturing environment.

• I DO -YOU WATCH
  (Observed leadership)
• I DO - YOU DO
  (Shared leadership)
• YOU DO - I WATCH
  (Trained leadership)
• YOU DO - I GO DO SOMETHING ELSE
  (Owned Leadership)

This model requires time to train and develop your volunteers. It also needs to me personalized for each volunteer as they each will need varying amounts of time to work through the process based upon experience, gifts, and familiarity with the youth and youth program. Some can move to owned leadership in a relatively short time, while others will take much longer. Be patient. As long as there is a love for youth, it is worth the efforts to nurture them in this journey! There are also many good volunteers who have no desire to function at the owned leadership level. Remember that training is not just dispensing information to a group of people; it’s helping people to develop into servants who are more effective in their ministry with youth.