The most foundational way to create community among your volunteers is to build your programming in a way that allows opportunities for connection, sharing, and friendship. Of course, most of us who lead volunteers have seen the imbalance of volunteers who spend so much time connecting that they forget to focus on the mission. That’s why it is imperative to build in moments during programming that are designed for volunteers to connect.

One of the best ways to do this, I learned from Sue Miller in her book, Making Your Kids Ministry the Best Hour of Every Kids’ Week.  Sue, an amazing volunteer guru who has over 20 years experience recruiting, training, and leading volunteers, encourages ministry leaders to start every volunteer time with a V.I.P. Huddle.

V.I.P. stands for Vision, Information, and Prayer. At GT, volunteers come 30 minutes before programming begins, so we can gather for 15 minutes. I know what you’re thinking already, “My volunteers don’t even arrive on time, so there’s no way they’ll come 30 minutes early!” I know how you feel because I felt the same way but do you know what I found?  Like anything worth doing…it takes a little time and a lot of vision for this to come to fruition.  It doesn’t happen overnight but it does happen if you include a few ingredients… coffee, grub, fun, connection, prayer, last minute details, and did I mention fun!

As your volunteers get to know one another inside of your V.I.P. Huddle, you will begin to notice them connecting in your hallways too. They will begin e-mailing during the week to follow-up on prayer requests, and meeting up during the week to pursue hobbies they discovered they have in common.

One of my volunteers, Brinda, was going through an especially difficult time with family concerns at home. when I asked her if she needed to take a break from volunteering, she exclaimed, “NO WAY!  These people (her fellow volunteers), are what keep me going.  They’re my support system, they’re the ones who pray for me each week and have made meals for our family, they love me and support me better than my own biological family sometimes.  I don’t know what I would ever do without them.  I’m not going anywhere!”