Magnetic Culture

Tammy Mechien, our Kid's Director at CCC, recently told me about the new Georgia Aquarium that opened up near Atlanta. Apparently, this new attraction is drawing thousands of visitors from around the world each day. But not only does the aquarium draw visitors, it has also begun to draw volunteers. Though they do have many staff to operate the facility, they also created many volunteer roles that serve in a variety of ways throughout the aquarium. Tammy shared with me that the Georgia Aquarium actually has a waiting list for volunteers (more people wanting to volunteer than actual positions to serve). Wouldn't that be a great problem to have in ministry! But what I found most facinating is that these volunteers actually pay to serve. Now I am sure that there are lots of perks, but the payoff must be worth the time, energy, and money they invest to serve.

This caused us to wrestle with a very important question, "If our volunteer leaders actually paid to serve in our ministry, what would we do to make sure they were getting their money's worth?" How can we create such a magnetic leadership environment that people cannot wait to get plugged into Student Ministry. As a ministry we have done many things to value leaders:

1) Notes of encouragement
2) Free t-shirts
3) Minimal costs on events
4) Banquet (or event) each December
5) Building community among leaders
6) Opportunity to be apart of life-changing moments

But even with these simple steps, I feel like I want to do more. I want Student Ministry to be the most attrative place to serve in our church. Is there anything that you are doing to value leaders that has has made your ministry more magnetic.

Comments

[erin finney]

i don't think that there is any greater gift that you can give than what we as leaders recieve back from the students when we take intentional time to care, and love on the students in the ministry.

[aaron]

This is an event of apprectiation. Using the idea of 'A Night of the Oscars' we honored all of our leaders by having a formal dinner and then 'Oscar Night' where the students were the presenters of the awards and encouraging words to all of our leaders. The event was held shortly after all the proms were over so the girls still had their prom dresses and the guys were encouraged to wear suits and ties...it was an incredible time to honor and appreciate the leaders! We even had a red carpet coming into the entrance upon their arrival. The hard part was informing all of the students but keeping it from the volunteers!