Transforming Ministry with Discovery-Based Volunteer Teams
I'm excited to talk about something close to my heart - helping volunteers find their perfect fit in ministry. While I served at my previous church, I observed how ministry worked behind the scenes, and what I witnessed there totally transformed how I think about volunteer ministry.
Now, as I work with churches, one of the biggest challenges I regularly see is volunteer placement. Often, churches handle volunteer recruitment by simply announcing, "Hey, we need people to serve in children's ministry" from the platform or in the bulletin. Then we cross our fingers and hope people sign up. But the church where I served for years, including being a part of their volunteer leadership team, had a different way of thinking about and approaching volunteer onboarding. Let me explain what made this church's approach completely different.
The Discovery Path: A Game-Changer
They had developed what they called a "Discovery Path" – a super simple yet powerful concept. The idea here is that before anybody starts serving, they take time to really understand that person's unique combination of gifts, talents, and passions. Now, I know what you're thinking – it sounds like it takes a lot more time than just filling slots. But let me give you a quick example of how this saves time in the long run.
I remember this lady, who we’ll call Sarah, who served on our team - she had an interesting story that really brought this to life. Sarah had been faithfully serving in the nursery for about three years because, you know, that's where we needed help. But she was burning out, getting frustrated, and thinking about stepping away from serving altogether. Through our Discovery Path process, we discovered she had this amazing gift for training and development - something she used to do in her corporate job before becoming a stay-at-home mom. With that insight, we were able to move her into a role more suited to her skillset and passions. Now, instead of changing diapers, she's training other volunteers and developing leaders, and she's totally energized by it. The transformation in her attitude toward serving was incredible to see. She’s now serving in her gifting and the church is better off for it.
Okay, so let me walk you through how this church did this. They started with what I consider to be three important assessments:
They did a spiritual gifts inventory to understand how God has specifically gifted each person
They used StrengthsFinder to look at natural talents and abilities
They wrapped it up with a DISC profile to understand how people interact and communicate
Finding the Sweet Spot
Now, here's what made this effective - they didn't just ask people to take the assessments and say, "Good luck." They actually sat down with them and had a ministry coach help interpret all this information. The idea is to find that sweet spot where your gifts and the church's needs come together. The ministry coaches knew all the volunteer opportunities and could help walk alongside the people once they had their results.
Each of the assessments was part of the Discovery Path classes. There were opportunities to take the assessments during the classes. The results were recorded to the people’s profiles within Planning Center People using a shared form with custom fields. They put the QR code for the form on a slide so people could easily access it from their own mobile devices.
Let me show you another example of how this worked. They had this guy, Tom, who was super introverted, and he had been trying to serve as a greeter because that's where they needed people. However, once they discovered his technical mind and attention to detail through these assessments, they asked him to move to the media team. Now, he's thriving in the production booth, and you can see the joy on his face when he's serving. That's the end product of helping people find their perfect fit and place to serve.
The Power of Perfect Placement
The results of this approach were amazing. They saw volunteers stick around longer and enjoy what they were doing. It wasn't just about filling slots anymore – they were building sustainable ministry teams with people who loved what they were doing. And here's something interesting - when people served in roles that matched their gifts, they got energized rather than drained or burned out. The premise is simple: when people were serving in their perfect place, they experienced more fulfillment, creating more ownership in the role and much less turnover.
So, nowadays, when I help our clients with volunteer teams, I always recommend a discovery process. I recommend these same tools - spiritual gifts assessments, DISC profiles, and StrengthsFinder. Our goal is to make orientation sessions feel more like personal growth workshops rather than traditional training meetings. People will get excited about going through the process because they're learning about themselves while finding their perfect place to serve.
The transformation in our volunteer culture was incredible. Instead of constantly struggling to fill positions, we started seeing people get excited about serving. They were finding their sweet spot in ministry, and both the volunteers and the church were being blessed by it. And you know what's really cool? When people served in their areas of strength, they naturally started mentoring others with similar gifts. It created this amazing multiplication effect in our ministry.
Lasting Impact
Let me wrap this up by sharing something really powerful that a former lead pastor used to say. He said, "When we help people serve from their strengths, we're not just filling positions - we're fulfilling God's design for His church.” That really stuck with me, and it's changed how I approach volunteer ministry ever since.
If you've tried something similar at your church, I'd love to hear about it. Also, drop a comment below if this content was helpful. We love helping churches develop healthy volunteer cultures, and we'll keep creating content like this to support you in your ministry journey.
Jason Silbernagel
Co-founder, Threefold Solutions
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