Nick Blevins: How to Recruit Volunteers
What if the volunteer shortage isn’t a people problem, but a systems problem?
In this episode, I sit down with Nick Blevins, one of the most trusted voices in kids ministry when it comes to building healthy volunteer teams. Nick shares his story and unpacks what actually works when it comes to recruiting, retaining, and caring for volunteers over the long haul.
We talk about why having too many volunteers isn’t the goal, how raising the bar can increase commitment, and why culture matters more than clever recruiting tactics. Nick also shares practical strategies for setting clear expectations, handling hard conversations, and leveraging moments like Easter, VBS, and campus launches to jumpstart your team.
If you’re tired of scrambling every weekend or carrying the weight of your ministry alone, this episode will help you lead your volunteer team with clarity and confidence.
Quick Links:
KIDMIN U (next session starts in February)
The Volunteer Playbook by Nick Blevins
Transcript:
KIDMIN U Team (00:00)
Well, Nick, welcome to the podcast.
Nick Blevins (00:01)
Hey, thanks for having me.
KIDMIN U Team (00:02)
All right, man, I'm excited to have you on partly because you are a total expert and a total pro when it comes to this whole idea of building a volunteer team, recruiting. We're going to get into all of that. But first, I'd really love to hear about your origin story. Every time we have a guest on, I love hearing how you got your start in kids ministry. So take us into how you got to where you're at now.
Nick Blevins (00:25)
Will do. I'll give you the short version of the story. I've only been in two churches my whole life. The one I grew up in started going there. My mom took me when I was two years old. I always joke that, you know, she probably felt like this, this kid is a spawn of Satan. We need to get some Jesus in his life. And, and then, you know, while growing up at that church, I was there through my young twenties, met my wife there. I married the pastor's daughter and then her father took another job at a different church in a different city.
KIDMIN U Team (00:38)
Ha ha.
Nick Blevins (00:51)
And about this season when we were in our young 20s, finishing college, starting career, I never thought I'd work for a church. I was working at Northrop Grumman, a defense contractor, but always knew I'd be involved as we were. volunteered in the youth ministry, a young adult thing. We led our upward sports thing at my church as a volunteer. We had our hands in a bunch of things. And at that time, knew about church planting.
And the idea of starting new churches, our church had done that six times before, but all before I was a teenager. So nobody really talked about it anymore. But there was an emphasis where I lived in the Baltimore DC area. And I just read some different books and through reading some different books about church leadership and ministry, felt like God was calling us to help a church plant. felt like we Baltimore area needed a bunch of new churches that would be healthy and thriving and be the kind of church you could invite your own church neighbor to.
and would make sense to them, and they would find Jesus. And through those prayers, I heard about a church starting and got connected. in the middle of that was talking to my former youth pastor about a job at his church. And that was probably the first time I ever thought, you know, I might want to actually work on staff at a church. And this church, the new one that was launching, needed a kids pastor part-time. And I was like, and if it launched and was successful, it was going to be full-time.
And we went to the lunch gatherings and felt like it was an answer to those prayers that we'd prayed for 18 months for a new church. And here we are now, that church, our church will turn 20 years old here soon and celebrate 20 years. And so that's kind of how I got into it, led kids ministry to start. And then, I don't know, five years in, moved into a next gen pastor role overseeing kids and student ministry. And then now I also have operations on my plate as well. You know how it is in church. You just got to wear multiple hats.
So our listeners will appreciate that. Sometimes I joke that I approve my own budgets. It's not true, but it's not not true either. You know, that's the benefit of, you know, living, living in both worlds, you know, ⁓ living the dream. Yeah. I wish I could tell you the kids ministry budgets, the biggest budget in the church, but it's not true. But you know, working on it, working on it. Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (02:42)
Hahaha.
Sure.
Yeah, not, yet. We'll get there.
Yeah. Well, listen, I'd love to talk to you about this whole idea of building our volunteer teams. And I've heard of a few like magical ministries that they're like mythical to me who claim that they have more volunteers than they actually need. Right? I'm sure you've like come across a few. If these people really exist, what is it they that they do that actually puts them in a place where they have more volunteers than they need? Because the rest of us would love to know the recipe.
Nick Blevins (03:21)
that's great. Well, I do think it's a little bit of a, it does happen. It's very rare and I don't even think that's the goal. I guess it's probably the way I'd start off by saying it. and I can explain that I was at a conference breakout years ago, one time at a church, a large church that everybody would recognize that host their own conference. And I, one of the, the guy literally sitting like in front of me, two seats over during the Q and a time, people were asking questions about volunteers and everybody in the room is the same. It's like, we don't have enough.
KIDMIN U Team (03:29)
Hmm.
Nick Blevins (03:47)
And he's like, I actually have too many waiting lists. And you could feel the hatred in the room for him. Like everybody looking at him, like you stink, get out of here. So it does happen. just, we're working with the church with our volunteer recruiting coaching, where this one ministry, their food pantry has more than they need. And so I literally told them, I think you should not include that as part of the, I'm a big fan of people serving wherever they feel best gifted, but there are roles in a church where it's just easier.
we're just being honest. It's easier for people to say yes to, it's easier for them to jump into and check a box. And sometimes those ministries can get over full. So sometimes it's the ministry, like in my church, it would be guest services. If you want to serve on that team, it's the easiest way to serve. And it's really important. I would never downplay the importance of it. It is literally the first impression once somebody gets there. By the time they experience your guest services team, they already have a picture of what your church is like. It matters a lot.
And it's also the easiest thing. So people pick it like everybody picks it, you know, cause it's the easiest place to serve. It's the lowest commitment. So, but to have a team that's 90 % full to 95 % full, I think that is the goal. And you can do that. You can absolutely do that. And I think it just takes a good culture where you don't lose too many. You'll always lose volunteers, but you can't lose too many. A recruiting plan where you're actually recruiting, you know, kind of all the time, every month, all year long, not just in spots.
And then even what I would describe as like a care structure, a leadership structure within that team, because most churches, they're larger than, if they have more than 20 volunteers, you need some type of other levels of leadership and care so that every volunteer is cared for. If you have those pieces in place, you can get to that 90, 95 % range and sure, three or 4 % are going to call out every week. You know what I mean? Like as it does. But you'll be fine. Cause you know, you'll have 95 %
3 % will call out and you're 92 % staff that day. And I know these numbers might not mean anything to anybody, but if you knew 20 volunteers on a Sunday and two call out and you have 18, we all know you're probably fine. You're going to be fine. You're like, you're going to make it, you know? So that's, that is reasonable and attainable. And I think that's how you get there.
KIDMIN U Team (05:54)
Yeah, I love it. Okay, so you mentioned a plan. run me through those three. And then let's break them down individually. Because I think for most people, they heard you say that they're like, give me more details right now.
Nick Blevins (05:58)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh
yeah, sure. Yeah. And I just made them up sort of, cause like, mean, if you, if we have more time, I'd give you 20 things, you know, that we need to make work. But the most important is I think in my head, it's like, need retention is built on culture. So like, is it a good, healthy volunteer culture? So go back to my 20 volunteers. If I have 20 volunteers, how many could I lose in a year? Well, probably two or three. That's probably normal to lose 10 to 15 % of your volunteers in a year. I would say it's very normal.
KIDMIN U Team (06:08)
You
Nick Blevins (06:32)
churches lose 10 % to 15 % of their attendance in a year. So certainly, if you were losing 10, 15, 20 % of your volunteers each year, that's fairly normal. But if you're losing 30%, 40 % not normal. So now we have a volunteer culture problem. And what is it? Are they burnt out? Are they work too hard? Is the bar so low that you're attracting less committed people? And so that they're just turning over that way.
So that would be one thing is like retention. Then are we recruiting regularly with a plan, which nobody's ever taught how to recruit volunteers. So I feel like that's most of what I get to do now when I help churches is let's teach you a plan to recruit volunteers. Cause nobody ever taught you that even if you went to seminary or know, Bible college or whatever. And then the other part was that coaching care structure. I think that really doesn't matter until you get, I think it always matters, but it matters more.
once you get to like 20 or more volunteers, because like in my story, what happened is we had 60 volunteers at one point in our kids ministry and we kind of were stuck there for a couple of years and this was the issue and it was hidden. I didn't know it was the issue. I couldn't see it. I didn't realize that that was the problem. And then put in some volunteers that led other volunteers and now it wasn't me leading 60. It was now me leading three that led 20. And boy, that changed everything. And sure enough, it grew.
you know, after that. And the most important part about it is the 60 volunteers were more cared for than they were when it was me, you know. So those three pieces, if I had to narrow it down, I'd probably pick retention, recruitment, and a structure of care and leadership.
KIDMIN U Team (08:12)
Yeah, retention is interesting. It's funny. I'm beginning to develop this like love hate relationship with that word. I love the idea of it. I love the idea of building a healthy culture that people want to be a part of. But there's something about the word retention that feels more about like me and serving my needs than actually meeting theirs. And so even now I'm almost catching myself using like more intentional language because the concept we're talking about 100 % valid, we've got to figure out how to have healthy teams.
Nick Blevins (08:29)
Sure, yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (08:39)
healthy cultures, people should feel like they belong that they're having an impact. That's really what we're getting at. So people don't leave our team for all the wrong reasons. But it's all about the culture. And you even mentioned something that I think a lot of people don't consider, right? So obviously, we understand burnout, people are overworked, we're putting too much on them. But you mentioned there's another part, the sneaky little thing of what happens when the bar is too low. Did you ever hear about back in the day,
Nick Blevins (08:45)
Mm-hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (09:06)
Nike did this campaign called Breaking 2. Did you ever come across that? Okay, so their whole documentary was we want to try and break this mythical barrier of can you run a full-length marathon within two hours? It had never been done before and so they tried to do everything that they could. They, you know, they cheated essentially, you know, they would have runners in front of them like breaking the wind, they'd have a pace car in front of them. They literally tried every possible advantage and
Nick Blevins (09:10)
No, I don't remember that. No.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (09:35)
including nutrition, what you wear, your shoes, and probably the biggest innovation that they came up with was the shoes. And the whole time they were trying to figure out how do we make it lighter? Because theoretically, you're riding a marathon. If it's lighter, that's less energy. You'll move faster, all the obvious things. And so they got to really light shoes that didn't really actually have a big difference until they stumbled onto something different. Instead of trying to make the shoe lighter,
Nick Blevins (09:46)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (10:03)
They actually changed the shape of the shoe. So what they did with the bottom, if you're on the video, you can kind of see this, but I'll try and describe it best I can. They had like an arch on the shoe. was like kind of curved. So as you were running, it would kind of like carry you and build momentum. Now here's the catch. In order to do that, you couldn't have the lightest shoe possible. You'd sacrifice the weight thing. But what they found is we're going to sacrifice the lightweight for what they called the right weight. And it became such an advantage.
Nick Blevins (10:13)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, sure.
Yeah. Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (10:31)
that actually it's not legal to wear that shoe in actual marathons now because it's almost like a performance enhancing apparel. the bottom line is sometimes we look at things as if how do I make it lighter? That'll help me go faster when sometimes it's what is the ideal weight right now that's actually the sweet spot. Take us into that a little bit. How have you seen this on the teams that you led and how have you like found certain areas where you could raise the bar but not too high?
Nick Blevins (10:33)
So funny.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I would say, I'm going to tap into your analogy too there of the shoe in a second, but this is probably, I mean, this is an epidemic among children's ministries is that the bar is too low. So you do get a number of volunteers, but they're not as committed. And, and, and I can, and we all know this is now you might, you whoever's listening might think, well, that's not our case. And that certainly could be true, but it is a lot of cases. And the one way you know, it is how often do they serve? Like if your church has multiple services and people serve once a month in kids.
KIDMIN U Team (11:13)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Blevins (11:27)
That's a commitment issue. And again, some people will get mad at me and will disagree about this, but you know, you get, then you, and then we all know this is true too, because like if we had like a lot of children's ministries, it's a mix. A lot of people are serving once a month. was a lot of some people were serving every other week. Some are serving weekly. Well, if I asked, you know, if somebody had 80 volunteers and it was like 40 were once a month, 20 were every other week and 20 were weekly. If I randomly was just like, Hey, I need you to name for me your top 10 most committed volunteers. Which list do you think they would come from?
they would come from the weekly list. You know, why is that? Cause they're already that level committed. And we could talk about hacks for like, if you only have one service and things like that, but there's a correlation for sure between commitment expectation and commitment of the volunteer fulfilling that expectation. And then like with the shoe, you talked about the fit and how the shape and all that. I actually think that fit and if they're serving in a role that fits on a team that fits has a lot to do with retention. Cause nobody wants to do a role they don't love.
or and they only want to do a role they don't feel like they're winning it. Right. So I like I love the idea of leading kids. But every week when I'm done, I feel like I survived, you know, a chaos free time on the playground or whatever. You know what mean? Like if that's what the environment felt like, or is just really stale and boring, you know, like, I like they would think I'm not winning. That's not how they would think about it. But in, in, in however they thought about it, they're thinking, this isn't working. I don't love this. I'm not winning.
And so, you know, they need to fit in the role. They got to do what they love and they need to be really committed to it. So it's kind of counterintuitive, but like, you know, if I had the volunteers, I just mentioned it was 40 once a month and 20 every other week and 20 weekly. Um, if I, guess doing the math on that, I need 40 a week. I think if my math is right, I would rather I've got 20 weekly already. I would rather try to see if the other 60, if I can get 20 of them.
to show up weekly and have 40 weekly, I would take that over that 80 who are serving in different frequencies, I would take the 40 every time. Does it introduce new problems? Yes, because the nice thing about every other week is if you, Jeremy, if you and I rotate, if I'm out, I can have you serve. And if you're out, I can serve. And that does make it easier for me as the leader, because I don't even have to talk to you about it. You all can just solve it. But maintenance isn't.
KIDMIN U Team (13:43)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Blevins (13:52)
you know, we're not in this for the best efficiency or the lightest amount, right? So if I have 40 weekly, if one calls out, I need a sub, but guess what makes a great sub? Those 40 people that aren't serving weekly. You know what I mean? So it's just a mindset shift of, know, Hey, it's hard. We can't get people to serve. Let's lower the bar, make it easier. It's like, nah, not really. We can't get people to serve. Let's raise the bar, lose the people that are not serving.
at the level we want. And now a new culture is created where yes, it's not as full as we want right now, but it is the culture we want. It is the people we want. It's the kind of volunteer we want. And then when we are bringing new people into this team, they are now assimilated into that culture. Assimilate is not a great word, but you know, as long as Star Trek or something, isn't it? I'm like a Star Trek guy, but you know, they, what happens is now the culture is predominantly made up of those high committed people. So when somebody comes in, even if they're not that committed themselves,
KIDMIN U Team (14:42)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Blevins (14:44)
they're more likely to raise to that level as opposed to people will always generally speaking, the culture, the commitment level will always go to the lowest common denominator. You know what I mean? Like, so if you have a mix of different, which every church does, different committed level volunteers, the overall culture is going to go down towards that lowest level commitment. So you need to make sure that lowest level commitment is high enough that it's really good.
KIDMIN U Team (15:10)
Yeah. I feel like it's that beginning initial effort. It's the hardest, but if you can get that core group, like you're talking about bought in consistent, like those are your best people and they set a new standard, then it becomes self-managing, you know, it's almost like it doesn't take a lot to keep it going, but to start it is actually really hard. You you talked about fit and I think we all kind of understand, like we want people to be in their sweet spot.
Nick Blevins (15:16)
yeah.
Totally is.
KIDMIN U Team (15:36)
And it's really easy when people tell us what that is. If you tell us you like preschool kids and you don't want to teach, but you just want to like be a helper in the classroom. Great. I know exactly where to put you. The problem is a lot of people end up in our ministry and they don't even know what they like, what they don't like, what they want. ⁓ how do you go about finding somebody's sweet spot if they don't even really know what it is from the jump?
Nick Blevins (15:53)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And a lot of nice people will say, put me where you need me, which is a great attitude. However, I always say no, because unless they really do have no idea and they just need to try some stuff out. But I do believe, you know, in the long run, I'd rather have it be overstaffed here, but everybody's doing what they feel like they're made to do and called to do and gifted to do and understaffed here as opposed to it's even, but people aren't serving. Now for a season. Sure. Can you do this for six months? Why?
KIDMIN U Team (16:10)
Ha ha ha.
Mm-hmm.
Nick Blevins (16:29)
you know, try to recruit more people here. Yeah, absolutely. That's no problem. ⁓ but I think two simple ways to help people find their fit is one, they do some type of observation where they see it all and you talk through it all. And then two, I don't, we don't actually do a lot of this with volunteers, at least not in the entry, like when they're coming on board, but you can do simple assessments, you know, of style and then kind of relate that like, are you more of a relational people person than you're probably gonna like being a small group leader?
Are you more of a systems administrative person? Well, then you might want to do resources or do you have a knowledge about tech? Would you want to do that? Would you, you know how it is? mean, in kids ministry, we're one of the hardest roles to find is people that'll do something on stage, leading worship, teaching the Bible, hosting. And so the, you know, let's find out, do you have any hint in you of, you know, ability? I was doing a tour with a potential volunteer one time and we're talking and just talking to her, walking around, looking at all the stuff.
KIDMIN U Team (17:11)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Blevins (17:25)
we end at the arcade of three space during the large group. And just from talking to her, I thought she's pretty dynamic. Like you seem like you could probably do something on stage. And I just said it. I was like, hey, I feel like you might, people are usually scared to death of doing something on stage. Like what is it? The number one fear, the number two fear in the country is death. The number one is public speaking. So, you know, people are usually scared of that.
And, but I saw in her, saw this, you know, it's like a little bit dynamic. And I thought, I said, I feel like that might be something you could be good at. And she's like, yeah, I would consider that. And you know, sure enough, that was a thing and she's doing it. She's great. So now some people need to be trained to it though. She already, you could tell she had a measure of it. A lot. There's a lot of people in volunteers who've not been called to their potential yet. ⁓ in this, this is true across the board, but certainly in specific roles and we need.
We need to do that. We need to call them to their potential, but giving them a chance to observe it all. And then this is the other one. This is the other key, I think, is have a meeting with new volunteers two months or so in six weeks, eight weeks. And, and, and they know that part of the meeting is to decide if this is still the right fit. And that helps you in a couple of ways. One, you can have this conversation. You've been leading in a small group, let's say for two months.
KIDMIN U Team (18:39)
Hmm.
Nick Blevins (18:46)
You've seen people lead on stage. You've seen people do tech. You know that people are doing the resources. You know there's people helping families check in. How do you feel about it? Does this feel like the right fit? Also, what if it's not a fit from our side? You know what I mean? Eight weeks in, hey, this isn't really working. This is the meeting where we decide where we feel like if it's working. I gotta tell you, I don't think it's working. How are you thinking? You know, what do you feel about it? You know, like nobody wants to have that conversation, but every now and then that has to happen.
KIDMIN U Team (19:00)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I love it because it's kind of an out if somebody needs it. And even if it's not an out, even if they have no intention of doing that, if you tell them on the front end, hey, we're gonna check in in two months. And then after that, there's no pressure either way. If it's a different role, a different team altogether, that's okay, we just want to help you find your fit. It relieves a ton of pressure on on people. I wonder, do you tell people that on the front end?
Nick Blevins (19:33)
Yeah.
If you say it, if you say it early too, I was gonna
say, if you say it early, it helps recruit them too, because that's one of the fears people don't think of, but deep in the recesses of their mind, they're thinking, do I have to this forever? What if I don't like it? What if I look stupid and I don't know enough? Like these are the questions people are asking without actually asking them. And so you almost have to answer them before they ask them. And this is one of the ways to do it. You say, Hey, when you start serving, it's essentially a two month commitment that will become a year commitment. But
KIDMIN U Team (19:48)
Yeah.
Nick Blevins (20:04)
that two months we're going to have a meeting. If it's not a fit from either side, will make a change, find a different role. If it is great, you're in for the remaining 10 months. Because I know in children's ministry world, we do one year commitments like a lot of churches do. And a lot of kids ministry leaders are scared to do that because they're afraid of people saying no when that re-up time comes. But it is a little bit of reverse psychology. Having it in there gives them enough of a relief. And do people take it? Yes, but people quit anyway.
You know what I mean? So even if you don't have year to year commitments, people quit. So yeah, I'm a big fan of that. Tell them on the front end and it can help them say yes. Remove as many barriers as possible for a volunteer to say yes, but not the barrier of commitment. You know what mean? Not this is what we need, you know.
KIDMIN U Team (20:48)
case.
totally get that. Okay, so this is interesting because I've actually never done the year to year thing. I've actually never done terms. I've always done ongoing serving and that is its own animal its own pros and cons. But maybe make a case for us like why do a one year commitment? I know a lot of people do it and they're already like sold but for those people who are trying to figure out do I want it to be open ended or do I want to set term? What is your case for why that's valuable to do with your team?
Nick Blevins (21:02)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean, it really goes back to what we just talked about. It's easier for people to say yes to when it's a one year thing. Now you could, you could say like in our student ministry, for example, which I know that's outside this realm, but like we are upfront about the fact that we want you serving minimum six through eight and nine through 12. But within that it's, one year at a time you're saying yes to and, in kids ministry, it's like how long, and even in the beginning, if I, you know, done a whole observation with somebody, they saw everything. We talked about all the roles. If they said how long,
KIDMIN U Team (21:37)
Hmm.
Nick Blevins (21:50)
do I serve? I would probably joke till Jesus comes back. So there's, it is two things that are true at the same time. Like one, I want you to serve here forever. But two, what you're actually committing to right now is one year. And so I think the reason you do that is because it's easier for people to say yes to, and it's, and I don't mean easier to say yes to, because it's easier to say yes to like, I'm going to serve once every three months, but that's not the kind of yes you're asking for. You're saying, what you're saying is,
KIDMIN U Team (21:55)
Ha ha ha.
Nick Blevins (22:18)
I would describe it like this, like think about the gym membership. Could I say yes to go into a gym, to a gym membership and I'm supposed to go every day or five days a week or whatever it is. And, and I say yes to it, but it's kind of easy to get not go and there's no commitment. There's no accountability. There's no community versus if I could just say yes for a month and knowing that I could do that. And if I do that and I see results, I'm probably going to do month two. That's
better because actually I do it and I can I be all in for a month as opposed to maybe I'll go. Does that make sense? So for a year, it's easy for me to be like, I will raise to this level of commitment that you need. I will reprioritize my life around this volunteer role, which is quite frankly what people have to do. And and I will do that because I can do that for a year. And then the other benefit is it just gives you that built in time to kind of start again. Momentum is just the starting.
KIDMIN U Team (22:54)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Blevins (23:13)
of something new or the relaunch of something new. Like momentum comes from like a stop and a restart. And so you get that, obviously you probably want to time it with the school year kicking off or the new calendar year kicking off. And so that re-up time gives you that momentum and you can also recruit towards it. can just build a lot around it as opposed to people are quitting at different times of the year, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then in our world too, we are, I,
believe strongly in kids ministry small groups, like actual small groups with the same leader who comes every week and leads those kids. You can do that more if you know the people are committed to that year on that schedule versus if they're coming in and stepping off the team all the time is a little hard.
KIDMIN U Team (23:55)
Yeah, yeah, totally. The consistency on the end of a kid is huge, you know, and so we we cast that vision a lot, but there are also strategic benefits to it as well. I think my favorite part about it, the reason I think someday I probably could see myself doing something like that.
Nick Blevins (23:59)
Mm-hmm.
KIDMIN U Team (24:10)
is that there actually is a commitment. There is something that I'm agreeing to do. There's a standard that I'm committing to do. And I know we're talking about like a timeframe commitment, but you can include some other things in there. know, most ministries are gonna have, you know, here's our guidelines. Here is, you know, the commitment that you're agreeing to when you agree to serve on our team. And listen, I used to not care a ton about that. I usually used to like skip through that pretty quick, you know, when I'm onboarding volunteers and we'll cover it.
Nick Blevins (24:22)
We do. Yeah.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (24:39)
But then you run into issues and especially like in my own coaching journey, ⁓ probably a couple of years ago, I had a coach and he's got some frameworks that he teaches. And at the core of almost all of it is this idea of keeping your commitments, like to an insane degree. like, if I were to show up late, Hey, I committed to showing up on time. So we would have a long conversation about how come I couldn't keep my commitment to being on time. You know, was big things, small things, whatever. And it was also great with your team too, because
Nick Blevins (24:53)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (25:09)
I think sometimes we operate out of expectations instead of agreements. And I think it creates all kinds of mess and tension and whatever in any kind of relational dynamic. But as a team, I think sometimes we have these expectations, whether we voice them or not. And then if somebody breaks them, it creates kind of an uncomfortable thing where we're going to have to put the pieces back together. A hard conversation is going to be had. But when you've got an agreement, like they know what they've committed to,
Nick Blevins (25:13)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (25:37)
Makes it way easier to have that conversation with somebody. Take us into that a little bit. How do you actually maintain accountability with it? Like it's one thing to have a commitment, to have a standard and to communicate it, but when it's broken, what do you do?
Nick Blevins (25:48)
Yeah.
You got to talk about it. And we're pretty bad about this in the church world because they're volunteers. So we look at it like I'm, you know, like they're giving their time. And as my pastor, David Robinson would say, serving is a privilege. Like we have to stop looking at volunteering is like this thing that they're doing a favor for us or for the church. We all know that's not it. Them serving as volunteers when I served as a volunteer is the same as me working on staff at a church.
Yes, I'm paid in this way, not paid that way, but we all read the Bible. We know, we believe strongly in the idea that every member is a minister and that our job as staff is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. So if we're doing it and not leading it, that's another problem. But we're all in it together. The paid volunteer thing should be less of a distinction in terms of the commitment and how we see it. do we see it as a privilege and do we see it as an honor? And so it really comes down to talking about it, which is not fun.
But like in our world, sign, like when you sign up for the year, you look at, get the job description again, even it might be your eighth year and you've already, you know, you've had it every year. You sign the code of conduct and you sign the agreement. And so, and again, it's every year it's a re-up, right? And so you're kind of like those, you would use the word expectation. I'll say sometimes that unspoken expectations lead to frustration, usually in a marriage, but in any relationship.
KIDMIN U Team (27:08)
Hmm.
Nick Blevins (27:11)
But that's true on a team too, because actually our expectations a lot of times we think we're saying them, but we're not really saying them that often. Like not as much as they need to be said, but at least something like this is very formal and you're signing it. And then you just come back to it. And the way it would work is like if you were on my team and you were like, let's say you called out two out of four weeks, I would say at that point, like, cause one way people call out for, I mean, it's we're in the season now where people getting sick and it's like, that's just normal, but there's a not normal, right? We know when there's a place where it's like, haven't been here a
And so that would be a conversation of like, hey, Jeremy, I just want to check in and see how you're doing. I know you missed two of last four Sundays. I just want to see if everything's okay. And you'd be like, yeah, yeah, but I actually had a cold this week and then my son had a soccer tournament that week. You're like, okay, great. How did the tournament go? Like I would not, like at this phase, I'm not really pushing in that much. Let's say you miss half of the next month too.
Hey, want to check in? know we talked last month, you'd missed a couple of, it seemed like you missed a couple this week. What's going on? And you're going to feel it at this point. You're feeling it. Like the accountability, the heat has gone up. And so, and you're saying whatever it is and maybe, maybe they sound valid too. It's again, the same kind of thing. Okay. Well, and this is the point where I'd introduce like, Hey, we're, we're on a path here where this may not work out. And I would just say something like, well, maybe maybe we could sit down and talk about
you know, what this looks like, if this is still going to work, you know, if this role is the right fit, you know, and then you don't even have to actually sit down, but just planting that seed. And then certainly if it continued, it's like, okay, now we're meeting. So here's why we're meeting, you know, man, it's been great having you here. My concern is just you've been, you've missed half the time and I care. And then you can say it however you want to say it, but it's like, we care so much about these kids and the consistency of the leaders we're giving them. We're not expecting people to be here 100 % of the time. We're not.
but probably 80 on the low end, you probably 80 % of the time, four out of five weeks, three out of four, three out of four, 75 % of time, I would say like whatever number you want to pick. And so, you know, you have that conversation and let them say whatever. And then you now have a place to point back to too, because the next conversation might be when they get fired, which sounds terrible, but you know, reassigned to a different role that doesn't require a weekly commitment. But
That's how it should work. Like my elementary director, she's done this numerous times. We actually joke sometimes she's like the grim reaper and as the fire volunteers and she hates it. She absolutely hates it. She is not the personality to do this, but she's had to do it. And one time I should not laugh about this. We should not laugh about this, Jeremy, but I'm going to laugh about this. We had a young, young adult, 20 something years old, gave her a shot in her preschool ministry, did some things. We're like, no, that's too immature. Like, I don't think you're a good fit here.
KIDMIN U Team (29:48)
I definitely won't. I'll turn the camera off.
Nick Blevins (29:59)
you're trying to become a teacher. Okay, we'll give you one more shot in elementary. That wasn't working. And Lisa had had conversations with her. And so then by the time she's having the conversation, whether she's going to fire, she starts crying. goes, you're going to fire me, aren't you? And I should not be laughing about this, I still find it funny. But, and she was, she was getting fired. And, what I love about that story, even though it's hard and somebody got fired as a volunteer is she knew it was coming. There was enough conversations that this was not a surprise.
the bar had been presented to you numerous times and it was not even that high. I'm not even talking about, you know, this person, the bar, I feel like we made a lot of exceptions. If I told you some of the stories that she did, you know, you'd think, yeah, you could have fired her previously. So I think people need to know, that's how they know what the bar is and that's how they know if they're meeting it or not, right?
KIDMIN U Team (30:48)
It reminds me of, I mean, this has happened plenty of times, but the one that comes to my mind is a gal and people get a kick out of this because she's actually a Disneyland princess. Like that's her job. Her job. She works at Disneyland as like various princesses. she's so fun, so amazing with kids. And I remember there was a stretch of time where it was almost like three or four weeks, almost back to back where she called out and half of them were last minute. It was like 30 minutes before church. And I'm like,
What am I supposed to do with that? You know? And so we ended up having a conversation and first of all, at the time, I didn't really realize what her job required of her. I didn't realize she was at Disneyland until like two in the morning. And then she got back home at like three in the morning. And so there would be some times where she's just totally depleted. And it was a great conversation to be like, Hey, listen, I was not aware of that. That's actually really helpful context. is this something you feel like you can still commit to? You know, because like,
Nick Blevins (31:28)
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (31:43)
times of our services aren't going to change. You know, we love having you on our team, but this might make it really hard. And to her credit, like she upped her commitment level, she got back in the game and she was amazing. Nothing bad happened. we had a real conversation. And the worst thing in the world, her leaving or calling me names didn't happen. I think a reason that a lot of people don't have these conversations is because we build it up in our heads and we get really nervous, really scared. You know, how is this person going to handle stuff and
Nick Blevins (32:08)
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (32:11)
Listen, there are a lot of kids ministry leaders who are not confrontational by nature at all. So the idea of this is actually totally terrifying. What do you tell somebody like that? How can you prepare somebody like that to step into a conversation like this? Because you can't run from it forever.
Nick Blevins (32:16)
Most of them. Yeah. Yeah.
No, you can't. the hard, it's like a lot of things in life. I don't want to say it gets easier the more you do it, but you believe in it the more you do it. And it really does get easier too, because you end up with certain phrases or questions or language. Like there's a book called Fierce Conversations. Read that. And the part on Mineral Rights Conversations, use those tips. Because it's just asking questions, you know? Like instead of saying like, Jeremy, I don't think you can fulfill this commitment.
Jeremy, how do you feel like this commitment is working with you with everything you're going on in your life? You know what I mean? Like you're just asking more questions. The questions carry the weight. The silence carries the weight. Sometimes like when you ask a question, you let it sit or they let ask a question and you sit for a second. So like that book, I'd read that. That'd be great. But you do just kind of have to do it a bunch of times. And then the other thing I think you go back to, because this is your right. Most people, children's ministry leaders are not are not wired for conflict. And it
KIDMIN U Team (33:00)
Hmm.
Nick Blevins (33:21)
you just hate it. You know what I mean? And so I think you have to go back to look at yourself as the advocate for the kids. And here's the thing I'll say to people a lot of times, and this is a soapbox that I stand on that people definitely argue with me about in kids ministry, but like I'm old enough that everybody that I grew up going to church with, and even probably 10 years younger than me, if you went to church growing up as a kid, your volunteers were there every week.
because you were probably in a Sunday school class where that teacher was there every week or multiple teachers. You went to a youth ministry, even youth ministries today, those volunteers are there every time you're there. So we all experience, if you grew up in church, you experienced a weekly committed volunteer in your life. And I can name Myron and Dave and Terry and Jeff and all of my leaders, you know, that I remember from back then, because they were such a big influence in my life. so sometimes what I'll tell a church staff person is,
KIDMIN U Team (33:48)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Blevins (34:17)
go back to that and remember that we should not give these kids anything less than we got if you grew up in church. And if you didn't grow up in church, what would you want for them now? What do you have in your adult small group? Guess what? They come every week. You know what I mean? Like even if your group doesn't, if people miss and stuff like that, you go to service. It's every week. Like we want to give these kids more than what we got. We want to give these kids a better chance at growing up in faith.
KIDMIN U Team (34:24)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nick Blevins (34:44)
and following Jesus. And so why would we ever give them less? Now, again, there are exceptions with one service and different things like that in terms of weekly volunteers. But even if it has nothing to do with how often they serve, maybe it's they're not coming to any of the trainings. It's like you view yourself as the advocate for the kids ministry. And how could I give these kids anything less than this right here? You know, what's the faith of the next generation worth? You know, that question Andy Stanley will ask sometimes. It's like you ask that question. We all know the answer, everything.
KIDMIN U Team (35:06)
Hmm.
Wow.
Nick Blevins (35:14)
Well, then what am I going to give it? And what am I okay holding you accountable to give to it?
KIDMIN U Team (35:18)
Yeah, it's interesting you're talking about that because I think post COVID, I've heard of a lot of different churches who find that weekly serving is really, really hard for their teams and they've dropped that bar lower a little bit to bi weekly or something else. What are your thoughts on that trend?
Nick Blevins (35:30)
Totally.
I hate it. But again, this is a strong soapbox thing for me. People will definitely argue with me in their head as we're talking about this. COVID, so I don't think, like my business partner, Kenny Conley, will say this a lot of time when we're working together with the church or if we're doing a breakout or something like that, or doing one of our workshops, he'll say, I don't think COVID made anything worse in the volunteer world and church. It just exposed the weaknesses that were already there. I do think he's 90 % right.
KIDMIN U Team (35:59)
Hmm.
Nick Blevins (36:01)
I do think there's a 10 % though, where I don't know, we're at five years removed from now, so maybe it's not the same, but certainly for a number of years though, those of us who were adults then experienced a different pace of life that we kind of enjoyed. Now COVID may have done some other terrible things. mean, church numbers went from, you know, a hundred percent to 20 % and so many, I mean, it's just so many things off COVID too, but a lot of people experience more margin in their life than they've ever had in their entire life. You know, I did for sure.
KIDMIN U Team (36:15)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Blevins (36:30)
I exercised for the first time in a long time back then, you know, like I was cooking more on the grill. Like, you know, I did some stuff outside, like, you know, it was a whole different life. And I do feel like that there's a residual memory of that in the minds of people where like they don't ever want to get back to that stretched again. Now, in my experience, most people are, there and have been there now for about two years. But I do think it's a, people are a little less willing to commit. I do think that is probably the 10 % that's different. And what that means is, and they're busier.
KIDMIN U Team (36:33)
Ha ha.
Nick Blevins (36:59)
Cause like that they're back to the pre busy. Like my kids are in, I have three kids. They're probably involved in probably six things right now this season, I guess is my guess. I'm just thinking off the top of my head, outside of school plus church. And so I get it. People are busier, but they have this memory of like, man, it was nice. I don't want to be. And so it comes back to, we have to be bold enough to push them to reprioritize their life. The way I say it is you've got 57 things on your
list of things, not like that you're just part of your life that you're trying to manage. I'm not asking you to make this 58. I'm actually asking you to make this four, number four, number five, number something like that. God, your faith, family, your job, maybe church. You know what mean? Like when I was a volunteer, I viewed my volunteer things more important than my job. And again, it's just my perspective of like, what has God called me to this mission that we have? so it was number three for me.
KIDMIN U Team (37:49)
Hmm. Yeah.
Nick Blevins (37:54)
And it's probably why my wife and I were doing three or four or five different things, you know, in the church. probably been better if we put all that in one thing. But I think that's the case is we got to be bold and we got to be okay pushing people to reprioritize your life around it. And what happens is when they do, um, and it's the right fit, it changes their life. Like it changed my life. Like how would I, I work on staff at a church today because some lady, Sunday school teacher of mine asked me if I would teach VBS when I was 16 years old.
KIDMIN U Team (38:22)
Hmm.
Nick Blevins (38:23)
who
knew at that time that her pushing to ask me to do something I did not want to do. And I wanted to say no, but I didn't feel like it was courteous to say no. So I didn't. I said yes. And who knew back then that that could turn into me, you know, volunteering and then working on staff at a church and our church has turned 20 years old and wow. Like thank you to her for being bold and asking me to do something I didn't think I could do. Didn't know if I could do and didn't want to do, you know, good for her.
KIDMIN U Team (38:52)
So I didn't know that part of your story, by the way. I didn't realize that it was that initial moment when you were a 16 year old. It's funny because that was the same thing for me. I was 15 at the time and was freshman in high school and I didn't even know where I wanted to serve. I just sort of ended up kind of.
raising my hand and ended up in kids ministry. And that became the beginning of something I couldn't have ever expected. You know, I ended up being a kids pastor for 14 years. Like I didn't know that that was going to be my trajectory because I said, yes, as a 15 year old, ⁓ I want to get your thoughts on something, even though this is like a little bit off topic of, of maybe volunteers and recruiting, but I just believe if we zoom out for a second, I think if there's one thing I wish I could tell every youth pastor in America.
Nick Blevins (39:22)
Yeah, who does?
KIDMIN U Team (39:37)
like right now, is that I think it's more important for the kids in your youth ministry to serve in the church, not just your youth ministry. Because to me, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, because I was serving somewhere outside of our youth ministry, when I aged out of our youth group, I didn't age out of the church. I looked at all my friends who were hyper involved in the youth group and many of them fell off like after graduation because it felt like they had no place to go. I actually think
Nick Blevins (39:46)
yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (40:06)
the best long-term play, if you actually want to make faith a big part of a teenager's world over time, get them serving in the church, get them connected to the rest of the church. Let me pause for a second, because maybe not everybody agrees with that. What are your thoughts on that? Is that the sort of strategy that you think bears fruit over time?
Nick Blevins (40:24)
Yeah, I totally agree. And I actually find working with churches that most churches agree to. Like it's pretty rare now because we'll ask, like if we work, if we do a workshop or something, we'll have leaders raise their hand if students serve in their ministry. And nowadays it's usually north of 75 % of them raise their hands, which is great. And there's some exceptions like, you we don't have a student, you know, student can't lead an adult small group or there's certain roles that maybe they can't serve in. But man, I want to push that.
One of my goals that we've not hit yet is like in our church, have a volunteer role that's a coach that leads other volunteers. That goes back to that structure piece that we talked about in the beginning. And we've not had it yet, but I want a student volunteer who's a coach. And I would love it if part of their team were adult volunteers that they lead. Like that would be amazing. Now what's happened though is our best student volunteers are leading groups of kids for the most part, do another like playing in the band or.
Doing tech or stuff like that being on stage hosting. So they're doing high commitment big-time roles. Just not leading Yeah, I was you know that phrase students won't feel significant until they've given something significant to do Huge my past would tell you he was a student pastor before and he would say So often if he challenged the whole student ministry from state like teaching to do something, you know, they wouldn't do it He said but it man one-on-one if I challenged a student, they almost it was like batting a thousand. They must always came through
KIDMIN U Team (41:30)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Nick Blevins (41:47)
And
so, and you know, I think all of us believe, I believe that serving is as much a part of discipleship as reading your Bible and praying. And now statistically, nothing is better than reading your Bible, which makes sense. you know, if all the stuff, study that's done just comes back to the same thing, right? Like even with your kids, like what's the best for helping kids grow in their faith and reading the Bible, which totally makes sense. But if you were making a list of like, how are the ways you grow your faith, I'm putting serving right there. And I do think in the teenage years is actually more important.
KIDMIN U Team (42:01)
Sure.
Nick Blevins (42:17)
than other years. you know, and, then again, I grew up in church. If you ask me stories of my faith, like give me the 10 biggest moments. One of them is that lady asking me to teach VBS, which was serving. but the other nine, bet you eight of the nine are serving, you know, as as great as the, what I experienced. Yeah. It's just, it's just different to be part of it than to just be on the sidelines. mean,
KIDMIN U Team (42:33)
Yeah, serving is huge, man.
Nick Blevins (42:39)
There's so many reasons it's big and our church is needed. Like our children's ministry is a quarter of them. The volunteers are students at least maybe 30%. And like when they have a fall retreat weekend and they're all gone, man, it's a hit. Like we are in trouble, you know, cause we just lost 30 % of the volunteer team. And I always celebrate it every time cause it stinks. It's hard. We got to work around it. But man, we celebrate it cause like, man, that's, that's, it's because they serve and are such a big part of this that we miss them right now.
KIDMIN U Team (42:55)
Ha ha.
Yeah. Would you say if you had to choose between the two, if somebody was to take one step in our churches, would you say that serving would be even higher on your list of priorities than being in a small group?
Nick Blevins (43:19)
I would, but I'm biased for two reasons. One, I think like in my church is about 50 50. And I joke sometimes I feel like it's an extrovert introvert thing. Like if you're an introvert, you'll serve cause then you might not have to talk to somebody and you can kind of get it. You know what I mean? Like there's like a built in I'm doing this thing. So even if we're talking like we've got a job to do and maybe we can talk about that versus extroverts. Like you want to meet people, you want to get to know people. So group might be your way, but I'm also biased just because,
KIDMIN U Team (43:33)
Yeah.
Nick Blevins (43:48)
Serving is, and group can be this, group is this once you're in it and you're like, for real, a part of it. But serving instantly, you've gone from a consumer to a contributor versus a group. You can still be a consumer. Like it can still be mostly to feed you and care for you and fulfill you and all the, all the things which are helpful. Now you get in a group that's healthy, you're both, you're caring for and being cared for. What's that? I forget who had that quote, but they talked about small groups or where you were like,
You love and are loved and you serve and you're served and you care for and you're cared for. So eventually you're both in a small group, but right away in a serving you're a contributor and you know, moving people off the sidelines into the game is one of the biggest things to help them take steps in their faith and take steps in your church.
KIDMIN U Team (44:33)
People are tired of hearing me talk about that in my circles. Man, I just am such an evangelist for people actually serving. think if there's one thing I could have every person in our church do, it would be that. And I'm also a big proponent of small groups. I'm a big proponent of these other things. But it's like, where else are you going to find one step that you take that actually solves so many other spiritual and relational and community?
Nick Blevins (44:48)
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (44:59)
things. Like serving is where you're living out your faith. It's where you're contributing to the church. It's where you're building community. It's where you're probably learning about the Bible too because you got to teach something. You got to learn more. Like there are so many like side effects if you will of serving that if I were to choose one first step it would be that. And in a previous church we shifted our our approach. It's funny. So I just recently was working with a church plant and
Nick Blevins (45:00)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (45:26)
When I got there, were hovering around like 300 people. It was still like the early days. And the first step was join a group. That was it. That was our whole strategy. Join a group, and then we'll get to some of the other things. And then at a certain point, we started to have conversations where it was like, what would it look like if our first step actually became serving not groups? You know what happened? Our teams became stacked. People got more involved. Our church almost doubled.
Nick Blevins (45:48)
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (45:50)
It actually was pretty wild like what happened when we made that an even higher priority. And here's the wild thing too. We ended up having like more groups than ever before. It's like, it wasn't like we had to sacrifice one or the other. It's like you prioritize one thing and you actually get all the other bonuses as well. It was wild.
Nick Blevins (46:00)
Yeah.
Well, and
you spoke to it too. And if I have more time, we could go into like the mechanics of it. But the short version is, growing your volunteer team is what grows the church, reaches more people and all that kind of stuff. So like a lot of times we think of it the other way, like the church grows and then we get volunteers out of that, which is also kind of true. But really growing the volunteer team is what grows the church and reaches more people and brings more people in. And then they can get in small groups. So I'd be a big fan of it from that perspective too, because obviously you want to reach more people.
help introduce them to Jesus. Small groups are very important, but obviously they're primarily about discipleship and community of the people that are already there. you know, every church has like every person, in my opinion, leans one way the other in terms of evangelism or discipleship. Like, am I more an evangelistic minded Christian and I want to lean that way? Or am I a discipleship minded Christian? And some people would, you know, feel like this doesn't even exist, this is false dichotomy or something.
It's just, are you a truth person or a grace person? Like the reality is you're always, everybody's a mix unless you're Jesus. you say you're not one of the, and churches are that way too. Is it more of a discipleship minded church? A little bit more inside or a little bit more churchy? Is it more of evangelistic church reaching lost people? And you know, cause you would know who you're reaching, right? And I feel like serving works a little better if you're on the evangelistic side, because again, you...
⁓ It's easier to say yes to volunteer on a team as opposed to like I'm getting in a group of people I don't know at somebody's house I don't know, you know, or whatever like that kind of thing I just think it's easier for them to say yes and then it helps grow the church and reach more but then you can disciple them, you know in your small group So I'm with you I'm biased that way too But you know when you lead you know when you're like us and you've been leading in kids ministry or something like that You're definitely gonna take the side that's like what helps fill the team more. Let's pick that side
KIDMIN U Team (47:57)
100%. Yeah, I know it's, it is one of those things where it becomes way more front of mind if you are a kids ministry leader. I think, you know, you feel the volunteer part, maybe more so than any other role at the church. Cause I mean, here's the thing, you know, I know this is going to like set some people off. I don't mean to like trigger anybody, but it's, you know, there are some roles where it's like, if somebody doesn't show up that day, we'll be okay. You know, like is the role of greeting people at the door really important? Yes. But if
Nick Blevins (48:09)
Yeah.
Yeah, sure. Of course.
KIDMIN U Team (48:26)
an emergency happens and we can't find anybody, people can still make their way into the auditorium. You know, is it ideal? No, but we can survive. In kids ministry, if I don't have enough volunteers for a classroom, I have to close rooms. I have to turn people away. It can become a safety concern. You know, there there's a direct effect on, on all that stuff. And so yeah, for us, this is like the thing we think about. If you were to ask a kids ministry leader,
Nick Blevins (48:31)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (48:52)
You know, if you could give me one thing, just one upgrade in our ministry, every single person would say, I just need more volunteers. That's it. That's it. Like I would take that over more budget. I would take that over a better space. I would take that over anything. I just need people. If you have a few more minutes, I know we're kind of running over here. Do you have five more minutes? Okay. Because here's the question I really want to ask. And I think what people really want to learn. So you are the volunteer recruiting.
Nick Blevins (48:59)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. No, you're good. Yeah. Yeah, I'm good.
KIDMIN U Team (49:21)
Like I view you as the guy who talks about this topic. You literally wrote a book on it. If you don't have the book, go get it. It's really good. I want to ask you this. There's so many different directions we could go about how to recruit and how to build your team. But maybe let's start with how you might jumpstart your recruiting. Like if somebody says, I know January is coming or Easter is coming and I'm like a month away and I need more volunteers. What is the best way you think to jumpstart your recruiting and build up your team?
fast.
Nick Blevins (49:51)
Wow. Well, see, especially with that example you gave, I would give a different answer. So here's what's funny. Because like you said, Easter or Christmas is coming. It's a lot easier. People say yes to different things, different ways, no different than they give to different things out of different pockets. Like that's a phrase people use sometimes in the giving side of church. It's like people give out of different pockets, meaning, you know, there should be tithing, but they'd also give maybe to this food pantry different than they would give to this thing over here.
Serving is similar. Like somebody would say yes to a one-off serving at Christmas or Easter, way more than they would say yes to an ongoing role. So if you did have a thing coming up and it was the kind of thing that you get people in pretty quick, get them background checked, trained, all that kind of stuff. And it's there. Like a church I mentioned earlier, I think the church we're working with, I mentioned they had a pantry and that part's full. Well, we're teaching them our volunteer recruiting framework, the same one that's in the book that you referenced. And they're going to do it. They're going to do it at the turn of the year. And
But in the meantime, they had two things staring them in the face. They had a campus launching in at the time is like two months out. And then they had a, like a series they were doing that was like a vision oriented series. And so we were like, we need to change your plan. Cause this is obvious because you're so, I mean, plus you don't even have enough time right now to do our normal, the framework as we teach it, you need to leverage this division series and this campus launch. And you need to run this play.
where you're to have volunteer orientations because they are the hack. And you're going to get people to sign up for them. You're going to give them a tour of the whole building and talk about all the different roles you can serve in. here, at the very end of this conversation, by the way, we're getting to like the most valuable thing. Like if you just go do this, like you'll have more success. And anyway, this is a church. I want to say they're like 1800 and it's average attendance. So it's good sized church. Maybe it's 2,400 actually. I don't know. Somewhere around 2000. And
KIDMIN U Team (51:32)
Yeah.
Nick Blevins (51:41)
Three campuses one small they're launching that third one at the time we record they literally launched this coming Sunday and They implemented, know this orientation strategy and got 200 people sign up For one of the three weeks got 150 to show up and they have over 100 already signed up serving so and I don't remember I'd have to go look I want to say their church had something like Seven six seven eight hundred volunteers. So they added a hundred to that six or seven hundred in three weeks
And so now why, why did that work? Well, it was the power of the orientation tour thing. That's the hack, but it was mixed with this urgency because you're launching a campus and you're going to be talking about vision. like, think the best times to recruit are when clear need meets clear vision meets a clear next step opportunity. Like those three ingredients make the best recruiting, you know, meal to use that analogy.
KIDMIN U Team (52:09)
Nice.
Mm.
Nick Blevins (52:34)
But if it was a different time, if you had said, Christmas or Easter wasn't around the corner, well, then I would say, let's implement this volunteer tour orientation strategy. And then you're what you're doing instead though, is you're contacting people and having conversations with them and then inviting them to that orientation. So it's a little bit of a longer play. It's more pastoral. listening. I'm having conversations with people. I'm listening to them and what's their journey been like and their experience at the church and, then helping them take
their best next step. That's the way I say it. Like that's what you would do to recruit. But if you have something to point to, Christmas, Easter, a one-off, VBS, a vision thing, launching a service, launching a campus, leverage that. There's only so many of those you get. Leverage that every year. And then from there, leverage the next step. So like you can get them to say yes to serving at Easter. Great. Now Easter, they did it. Hopefully they had a good experience. Hey, what do think about serving everyone?
KIDMIN U Team (53:10)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. I think actually those one off events are a total hack if you can, if you can be strategic about it, because those to me are actually the easiest things to get people to because usually the whole church will be talking about it, they'll all be pushing it. So you're almost going to get like some warm leads if you will to use like marketplace speak, like people are ready to sign up for something.
Nick Blevins (53:35)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. Yup.
KIDMIN U Team (53:51)
but they're usually only gonna sign up for that one day. Now, listen, if you have a great experience on that day, if they loved serving on your team, that's an opportunity to retain that person. That's somebody who actually might wanna continue on your team. And so if you're strategic about the next step, it can be a game changer. And I remember one year we actually switched our philosophy where Christmas would come up and we'd usually do an all hands on deck serving day. Everybody on the teams, whatever team you're on, we all serve on Christmas.
Nick Blevins (53:54)
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (54:21)
And that was fine. But actually the upgrade was the following year where it wasn't all hands and instead we put a bunch of new people. So all those people who said, I only want to serve for this day. I'm willing to do something I don't normally do. You know, we added them to our existing teams, but we didn't burden our current teams any more than any regular Sunday. And then what happened is like those extra roles were filled by new people and those new people ended up getting plugged into teams afterwards.
Nick Blevins (54:41)
Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (54:49)
And it helped us grow our teams. So these big days can be a really big part of your strategy. And I want to add one thing, but it actually is a confession. I have to confess to you that there's a framework that you have created and I have completely stolen it and ripped it off many times over because it's one of my favorite things. So
Nick Blevins (55:07)
You should. A good source says there's
nothing new under the sun, so I think you're good. I think I probably got it from somebody else. Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (55:14)
Yeah, it's the highest form of flattery, right? So
you have something called the prospect challenge, which I think is one of the most brilliant things I've ever heard of. Yeah. So, okay. Here's the short version. Like Nick has a way of leveraging your team to actually help you find people and recruit people on your team. Explain to us how it works because this is gold. And if you're listening to this podcast, this is worth the price of admission. If we're actually charging something.
Nick Blevins (55:21)
Yeah, it's part of our framework. Yeah.
Yeah,
this would be like, so in the book, this is at the end. Cause like I, when I wrote the book, I wanted to teach like, here's how you recruit through the framework, like the way you should do it. It's almost like here's going back to my gym analogy. It's like, here's the exercises and the plan you should be doing every day, every week. Right. But here is, I don't have a good gym example, protein. Here's a hack. If you're eat this much protein, you're gain more muscle or creatine or stuff like that. Very safe supplement. Like here's
KIDMIN U Team (55:51)
Mm-hmm.
Nick Blevins (56:08)
If you, want you to do the workouts first, because if you don't do the normal volunteer recruiting work, these hacks, I mean, they'll help you, but you're not really getting better at recruiting, but they are helpful. And one of them is this thing right here, which is you get, you get your whole team. We did this way, moved into the building, our building some years ago, because as soon as we moved in, the volunteer, the preschool team wasn't big enough. Like we were, we had enough volunteers. It was great, but we grew enough, enough of them were kids and younger than it was like, man, we need help.
So we launched the challenge where every room was challenged to recruit volunteers. But what was nice was we didn't say to them, Hey, you have to recruit the volunteer completely. It was more like you need to give us the lead and tee us up for a good conversation. So we like our team, our staff and the coach volunteers will, will be the ones that actually recruit them, but you need to kind of make that introduction. need to plan it in their mind and you can do this with your existing volunteers. There's also a version where you can do this in your small groups.
If you can get the small group side of your church on board and the leadership there, you do a big recruiting push through your small groups and the volunteers, the leaders that lead the small groups. you're literally making me think of something I thought of earlier with the church that I knew that same church that I was referencing the last call we did with them. I knew we had talked about something in their recruiting strategy that they need to tweak. And this was it. It's so funny. You've made me think of it. I was thinking they need to leverage their small group leaders for adults.
KIDMIN U Team (57:28)
Hmm.
Nick Blevins (57:31)
to get their volunteers recruiting and even invite their whole group to go to a volunteer tour at this church. So anyway, I'm glad we're saying this. You reminded me, I need to go back and make sure they're doing this. Anyway, same thing's true with your volunteer team. You go to your volunteer teams like, hey, the four of you serving this room or combined rooms or whatever, and you're one team and we're see who can recruit the most volunteers. But you just have to get them to us and we'll do the recruiting and then we'll keep track and we'll do prizes and have fun.
KIDMIN U Team (57:43)
There we go.
Nick Blevins (57:59)
celebration at the end and give away some awards, know, give a dunce cap to the team that got zero. No, I'm just kidding. You'll find a lot of teams don't do it. And that's why we like the team thing too, because if you do it individually, they won't do it as well. And a lot of people fail. At least if you do it as a team, it's not going to be as good as you want, but it won't feel as much like a failure because of their in teams. Whereas if it was individuals, you might find that like maybe 30 % of the people actually get you a lead.
Whereas if it's 30%, but they're in teams, feels like 70 to 80 % of the teams. Does that make sense? So you kind of want to do that to, you know, make it feel like it's a little bit better, but gamify it, make it fun, give away prizes, help them feel, a vision why this matters. And it's really, it's the, request is simple. It's like, who do you know? Who's in your group? Who's in your family? Who goes to church here that you know from outside church that's not serving? Invite them. Hey.
KIDMIN U Team (58:27)
Yeah.
Nick Blevins (58:54)
You can give them email scripts, text script, like you can really empower them to ask, but they can ask these people that you can ask too, but it's gonna mean something different coming from someone they know.
KIDMIN U Team (59:05)
Yeah, the way we've done it, and I love the idea of equipping them to have the conversation. I haven't tried that one yet. That's going to be good. But the way I've done it in the past is I think your initial training on it was hand out cards and obviously you need their name, their contact info, all that. And then I think there are a couple of questions you put on there that I just copy paste it, which was why do you think they'd be great on our team? You know, something like that.
Nick Blevins (59:18)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (59:28)
And so it teed me up for that conversation, like you said, so I could reach out to Taylor. could say, Hey, Taylor, I'm, I'm Jeremy. I'm the kids pastor. heard about you from my friend Sam. we're thinking about growing our team because we're growing our kids. need more people than ever. Sam thought you'd be amazing with kids because you are so kind, so energetic. And he thought that would translate really well. It any chance to be open to a conversation like something like that. And every single time.
Nick Blevins (59:50)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you could tell how that would feel like,
⁓ that's great. That's very kind or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's true. Yeah. Yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (59:57)
Yeah, it's flattering. Yeah. Even if it's a no, even if they're not going to serve on our team, like they're
not going to be mad at you for reaching out. So it was a safe landing landing place. But listen, that got so much results for us that now that's something I do every January or at least once a year, because you can't do this all the time. I think at some point people run out of people to put on those cards and you know, people don't want to be spammed all the time. But
Nick Blevins (1:00:04)
Mm hmm. Yep. Totally.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
KIDMIN U Team (1:00:22)
it once a year has been a nice little rhythm for us where it's like, hey, we know, you know, usually in the summertime, it's like, all right, great, we've got to recruit so that we're ready for the fall. Great. Like summertime could be a great window where, hey, this is a time where we try and add to our team, whatever. It is brilliant. I would highly recommend checking out all of Nick's stuff. And Kenny's stuff at ministry boost because they've got a lot of really good stuff. And even the book, I think it's called the volunteer playbook. Is that right? Yeah.
Nick Blevins (1:00:48)
You got it. You got it. Yeah, that's right.
And volunteerplaybook.com directs you to the page about it.
KIDMIN U Team (1:00:51)
Yeah, really good read.
There we go. Well, Nick, this has been so good. Honestly, I could keep you on for like another hour, but I don't want to be selfish with your time. We'll probably have to bring you on at some point in the future. listen, if there's anybody who wants to know more about you and the things you're up to, where would you point them?
Nick Blevins (1:01:10)
Go to nickplevins.com or ministryboost.org like you mentioned. This is a kids ministry audience, so they should, we're rebranding Kenny's childrensministryonline.com website. It will not be childrensministryonline.com. It will be a new thing, but if you go there, it'll take you to a new thing when it launches. So check that out. It'd be a great hub with lots of free resources and stuff for kids ministry. And we're pretty excited about that.
I
KIDMIN U Team (1:01:32)
Nick, thank you so much for coming on, man. What a great conversation. I know people are thankful for it. I am too. And for everybody listening, thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next time.
