Breaking the Burnout Cycle
Imagine this. It’s Sunday morning at your church. The parking lot has an attendant in each row. There is a greeter at every door and an usher assigned to every aisle in the auditorium. The cafe team is happily brewing fresh pots of coffee and manning the coffee stations to ensure that not a single sugar packet is out of place. The nurseries and kid’s classrooms are fully staffed with experienced teachers and helpers. The worship team has a full band of talented musicians, and the tech team has more volunteers than they’re able to use in a single weekend. The small group ministry has an abundance of group leaders, and the youth ministry is stacked with high-caliber college-aged leaders who want to reach the next generation.
Sounds lovely, right?
Let’s take a look at what’s often the real world of the local church.
Last week you had eight greeters, but this week you only have one and they have an attitude problem. The team lead for the cafe overslept so the coffee still isn’t ready, and the first service begins in seven minutes. The children’s pastor is on a never-ending quest for anyone who can pass a background check so this week he’s recruited all the pastor’s spouses to come and serve. Today’s camera operator is the pastor’s 12-year-old son with no formal training or experience, but he thinks the cameras are cool and is the only one who knows how to stream the service to YouTube.
Does this sound more accurate?
If your church is like mine, then it probably lies somewhere between these two extremes. The “volunteer gap” is a real issue and it often feels like we’re playing ministry “whack-a-mole”. I’ve spent about four decades in the local church, and I’ve never met a pastor who wasn’t looking for more volunteers. In fact, most church leaders will tell you that recruiting and maintaining volunteer teams is one of their top frustrations in ministry. There is always so much to be done and, as the saying goes, “Sunday comes with alarming regularity.”
Volunteer engagement has become increasingly difficult in our post-pandemic world. Volunteerism had already been on the decline for nearly a decade, but there was a pronounced drop-off in 2020 - a whopping 28% decrease in volunteer involvement in the U.S (barrons.com). This has created a gaping hole in many churches whose systems depend on volunteers to achieve their mission.
In a perfect world, new people would eagerly step up and serve when needed. Experience has taught me (and probably you too) that the 80/20 rule is pretty accurate. What’s the 80/20 rule you ask? The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, says that (generally speaking) 20% of your congregation will do about 80% of the work. If you work with volunteers, you probably don’t have to think too hard to come up with your list of twenty-percenters. They are the faithful few. Your dependable core. Your go-to volunteers. Here is the problem with the 20% - if you’re not careful you’ll burn them out.
Volunteer burnout can be a real dynamic. It’s easy for the church staff to forget that most volunteers are balancing full-time jobs, family commitments, kid’s sports schedules, doctors’ appointments, etc. while also giving some of their precious free time to help build the Kingdom of God in their community. Healthy volunteer cultures don’t just happen – they’re built by intentionally stewarding the people God has put in our churches.
How do we prevent Volunteer Burnout?
Look to the 80%. There is untapped potential sitting in our pews. A promotion from the pulpit, clever video announcement, or mass email can never replace a personal invitation. Forty-two percent of people who volunteer do so because they were personally asked to get involved (nonprofitssource.com). Take time to have some one-on-one conversations with your members and encourage your current volunteers to do the same. Get some fresh faces in the game! You might be surprised at how many positive responses you get.
Stop trying to do it all. This may be painful for a lot of pastors and leaders to hear, but you don’t have to do everything that you see other churches doing. If you don’t have the resources (either financial or personnel) to run programs or launch new initiatives take some time to ask yourself why you’re doing it in the first place. Vision is good. Daring to do great things for God is good. But don’t crush your staff and volunteers in the process.
Find a healthy rhythm. Implement and encourage the rhythm of Sabbath and rest for your volunteers. Your 20% might say “yes” when you ask but give them permission to say “no.” Ask them what a healthy serving schedule looks like for them and their families. Empower them to create boundaries around serving and then respect their limitations.
Helpful Tools for You and Your Volunteers
If you know where to find them, Planning Center Services has some built-in tools to help volunteers communicate a healthy rhythm that works for them, preventing burnout.
Blockout Dates:
Encourage your volunteers to utilize Services’ Blockout Dates feature to communicate when they’re unavailable to serve. These dates can be added via Services or in the Church Center app. Planning Center even has a built-in Blockout Request email template that you can send to your teams asking them to add their unavailable dates to the calendar. Once added, Services will prevent the volunteer from being scheduled on their blocked-out dates.
Scheduling Preferences:
Help your team members set up their scheduling preferences in Services. This often-underutilized Services feature is a powerful tool! Volunteers can determine how many times they want to serve each month, set up which weeks of the month they are available, and even facilitate household serving schedules making sure that family members are scheduled to serve at the same time even if they’re serving on different teams. These settings can be set up and managed by either the volunteer or the team leader.
Tools like these help us break the burnout cycle of our volunteers and ministry teams so our churches remain healthy communities where members stay involved for the long haul. If you need help understanding, navigating, or implementing any of these features in Planning Center Services our team would love to help you! Reach out to us at info@threefold.solutions to start the conversation.
Alicia Osgood
