It take a boatload of volunteers to make weekend services happen [especially when the church hits intense ministry seasons like Christmas and Easter]. Making sure that those volunteers are cared for and pastored/ministered to is a critical issue in maintaining the health of the church. This includes relational health, physical health and spiritual health. Build relational health by knowing who they are, not just what role they fill. Insure physical health by not overwhelming them and giving breaks and/or recovery time in the heaviest times of service.
The spiritual health part can be more difficult. One of the critical pieces in building and maintaining their spiritual health is input – they need to hear and be challenged, inspired comforted and directed by the Word of God. Part of this is on them – they need individual time in the Bible. In addition, volunteers need to attend a service. You would think that’s a given, but you would be surprised how many churches I’ve seen where people who are serving miss the service. I’ll call myself out here – there have been times when, in the name of busy-ness, I’ve completely missed the service [or at least part of it] as I was working on something else. Not good…
Please understand, I get it – in some churches, there is no choice – there is only one service, so those serving during that time are going to miss. Ideally, those serving have an online option to be able to at least catch the message after the fact. If there is more than one service, make a strong effort to steer your team members towards taking part in one. Kids ministry does this very well in many churches – they encourage people to SOWO [serve one, worship one], which works great, even though it’s an additional time commitment. With worship teams, it’s a bit different, but the concept is similar – even though you’ll likely lead in all services, make sure that one of the services is your “message service.”
creativeworshipideas 