I'm new! Can i serve?

I'm new to the church and I want to plug in to your ___________ ministry. You fill in the blank. When you lead in a church setting you get asked this question often and it's a good question to be asked! We love new volunteers but we always want to make sure we help them find the right ministry setting. Ministry "fit" is so important if any volunteer is going to thrive and not just go through the motions of serving. Here is how we try to help volunteers make sure our ministry is the right area for them to connect with.

• Test Drive // when we have new volunteers step up we ask them to come check out the environment first. We never give people a role until they see what we do and can decide if they want to partner with us. You can solve a ton of problems by simply asking people to take a test drive before they commit.
• Background Checks // you just have to do this in any Family Ministry environment. Protect both the volunteer and the kids / teens from future problems.
• Mentoring and Training // Before a volunteer flies solo we try to make sure they have seen it done by one of our key leaders. We are finding mentoring goes a long way to pass on ministry DNA and it helps new volunteers make friends in the ministry.
• Follow up // new volunteers need to be checked on. A quick call, email or card goes a long way to encourage new volunteers and answer questions.