Full-time youth ministers know there is no way to have a successful youth ministry without the help of qualified volunteers – people who are gifted and talented in many different areas. These are people who could easily charge a church for their services, but would rather work for free because they love students (and don’t want to give up their day job). In many areas of ministry, they are more qualified than the paid youth minister – which is why youth ministers know they need volunteers to have a successful ministry. But youth ministers also know that having a qualified volunteer is not enough; you have to provide training so they can become better youth workers.
Training volunteers can be tricky. They may be older, have more schooling and training in many areas than you do. How can a 22 year old youth minister train a 50 year old volunteer, with three grown children, on how to work with students? How does a youth minister with only a Bachelor’s degree train a CEO of a company who has a Master’s? And if we (youth ministers) are completely honest there are a few areas we claim to know about that we really are pretty unknowledgable about.
With all of this in mind, I want to look at three different approaches to training volunteers: lecture, discussion and hands-on. These approaches are used regardless of what the content of your training is.
Lecture:
Most lectures involve the teacher doing all of the talking and the student listening and taking notes. In the youth ministry context, this approach is taken when the youth minister stands in front of the group of volunteers and just starts talking. You just spew lists, facts, ideas and quotes like a fountain of knowledge bursting with too much information.
On some topics, this method of training is useful. There are certain topics (ie. dealing with suicide or teen pregnancy) that might lend themselves to being taught from this approach. Granted, you will need to offer time for interaction once all of the facts are shared, but in order to get the whole picture it might be helpful to avoid breaking up the content with extended clarification. With this approach to training, I would suggest you make sure that the person lecturing is an “expert” (whether it be you or someone else) on the topic being discussed. There is nothing worse than a lecturer who does not really understand the topic.
Discussion:
The second approach is to use more discussion in your training. You might sit around a round table or in a circle of chairs to provide an atmosphere of sharing. Training with discussion would begin with the youth minister sharing information on a certain topic, followed by discussion from the volunteers on their thoughts or knowledge about the topic. You would ask questions, provide scenarios, connect the topic to students in the ministry and look at it from many different angles.
One big positive to this method is the ability to gain knowledge from the group and not just from one person. You can learn from one volunteer’s personal experience and from another volunteer’s professional training. During some discussion-based training you might even venture into an area of discussion you had not thought about bringing up, but needs to be discussed. As the youth minister, you will need to moderate the discussion and keep the meeting moving (just like you would when leading a discussion with your students).
Hands-on:
The third approach is when your training leads to (or is surrounded by) hands-on application of the material being taught. It is not enough to teach your volunteers how to start up conversations with students – give them an “immediate” opportunity to apply this new knowledge. If you meet with your volunteers before a weekly event, it would be a great opportunity to apply this method. Show them mentods to having a conversation with students, then allow them time to apply this knowledge before/during/after your youth meeting. Allow the volunteers to immediately try a new method; this helps them solidify the information and prevents them from assuming they will never need to use it.
This is the same approach you need to take when you meet with your volunteers before a trip or retreat. During this meeting, train on aspects of the upcoming trip. Equip your volunteers to be ready to minister to the students, so they will not expect you to do all of that. Equip them to be ready to handle various situations that will occur. Apply your training to real needs the volunteers will face, instead of providing good, but useless information about teen culture or how to prepare a small group curriculum.
Your goal as the paid youth minister is to help the volunteers improve their skills and become better ministers to the students. Remember the more your volunteers use the training they have been given, the more they will remember. And the more they remember, the better the youth ministry will become in its ministry to the students.
As you think about your volunteer training, which approach do you use more often? What benefits have you seen from your volunteer training?
[Photo by James Sarmiento]
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Mike Kupferer has been involved with youth ministry since he graduated high school and he loves to see God work in the life of students. Currently he lives in southern IL with his wife and 3 children. You can read more of his thoughts by visiting his blog,www.reflectionministry.blogspot.com.
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I think more often than not, I tend to do a mash-up of two or even all three of these methods. Of course it depends on what the topic is though.
it def. depends on the topic. but in my ministries, I've found that I tend to not be so good at the "hands-on" approach. Maybe its due to the time of our meetings or our settings, but it's never seem to come as easy as I want.