Building Your Volunteer Team: A 30-Day Change Project for Youth Ministry

Do you find yourself again and again wondering what it would take to get some new volunteers onboard for your ministry? And yet does it seem that you are never able to focus your energy on recruitment? Maybe you find yourself saying things like: "It's just easier for me to do it myself." At one level, of course, this is true. Almost always, it is easier to "do it ourselves." We avoid the hassle of having to coordinate and communicate. We avoid having to follow up with people who drop the ball. Youth leaders Mark DeVries and Nate Stratman have heard dozens of reasons why leaders choose not to build a solid volunteer team. But faithful ministry is not a do-it-yourself project. It's more than just recruiting--it involves changing the culture of your ministry so that volunteers want to become involved.That's why they have developed this 30-day change approach. In these pages you will find the step-by-step support you need to actually make one of the most important changes you want to see in your ministry. DeVries and Stratman are so commited to the ideas that they offer the following guarantee: If you work this 30-day process for one to two hours a day, six days a week, for 30 days, and it does not create significant change in your ministry, Ministry Architects will gladly refund the cost of this book and offer a credit of $20 toward any downloadable resource in their online store at ymarchitects.com. You have so little to risk and everything to gain. It's time to put together that team you've been longing for!

Mark DeVries (MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary) is the founder of Ministry Architects, a consulting team that assists churches in building sustainable youth ministries. He has served since 1986 as associate pastor for youth and their families at First Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. DeVries is the author of Family-Based Youth Ministry and Sustainable Youth Ministry.

Nate Stratman (MDiv, Fuller Seminary) is a staff consultant with Ministry Architects. He has been in full-time youth ministry since 2000, starting with St. Andrews-Covenant Presbyterian in Wilmington, North Carolina, and now serving as director of family ministries at First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs.