Volunteers are a crucial part of any ministry. They bring passion and gifts to share. If you have volunteers that love what they are doing, and who are serving with their God given-gifts, it will be contagious to other adults who might be on the fence or apprehensive about volunteering. Happy volunteers recruit without asking them to do anything. If they love what they do, they will want others to be a part of it.
If you want people to volunteer, you must know what you need and why you need it. Most people do not respond to being asked to simply “come hang out with the youth” (though if they are on the fence it is a great idea to invite them to come join you all one night). They need to be inspired and have the feeling that they are needed, as well as knowing specifically what their job will be.
Volunteer job descriptions are important for communicating the responsibilities and clear expectations of your various volunteer needs.  For someone to give of their time, they need to understand the commitment, know what skills it takes to accomplish the need, and acknowledge how much time is expected. 
To help, we’ve created two downloadable tools for you:

  1. First, a free downloadable sample of what you can say during your initial meeting with a volunteer. After identifying some potential volunteers, invite them to coffee, schedule a meeting after Church, or give them a call and invite them to consider volunteering in the youth ministry. Make sure to cast the vision rather than simply recruiting a warm body to fill your needs; check out “How Shifting your Perspective Helps You Recruit and Retain Amazing Volunteers” for help with this.  You are inviting them to be a part of a larger mission and vision, not to simply fill an open hole. Use this free downloadable transcript to guide your invite conversation.
  2. You’ll find a $0.99 downloadable bundle of 5 sample job descriptions. These volunteer job templates can be edited and tailored to aid you as you develop volunteer job descriptions, or improve your current volunteer processes. The job descriptions included are: Youth Leadership Council/Team Member, Youth Greeter, Sunday School or Bible Study Teacher, Special Events Coordinator, and Small Group Leader.

We hope these tools help you in your recruitment efforts and organization logistics of volunteers in your ministry. Let us know in the comment how they’ve helped you!