{"id":27287,"date":"2013-10-15T03:26:42","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T09:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.churchvolunteercentral.com\/?post_type=cvdaily&amp;p=27287"},"modified":"2013-10-15T03:26:42","modified_gmt":"2013-10-15T09:26:42","slug":"take-your-cultures-temperature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwv.group.com\/childrens-ministry\/blog\/lead\/take-your-cultures-temperature\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Your Culture&#8217;s Temperature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Does your church have a volunteer-welcoming culture? It\u2019s good to know, because slick volunteer recruitment won\u2019t make a bit of difference, if once people sign up, they don\u2019t like how you do business.<\/p>\n<p>Think about Disney World. Disney spends a fortune on advertising that it\u2019s a great vacation spot. But if kids bounce through the gates and all they find is Grumpy the Dwarf and a couple of lame rides, what\u2019s going to happen?<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll tell you: Disney will be out of business in six months. Disappointed people talk, and they talk <i>loudly.<\/i> It will be all over the Web, all over the news, and for Disney it\u2019ll be all over&#8212;period.<\/p>\n<p>People talk about what it\u2019s like to volunteer in your ministry too. They talk about what the leadership is like, whether it\u2019s fun to volunteer, and whether they plan on coming back. People are talking\u2026.but what are they saying?<\/p>\n<p>If you want long-term Velcro volunteers, you\u2019ve got to have a culture that encourages people to stick around. You may think you\u2019ve accomplished that, but what do people in your church think?<\/p>\n<p>Ask them. Create a quick survey to give your volunteer. Here are four questions to get you started:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Fun:<\/b> How much fun is it to volunteer at our church?<\/li>\n<li><b>Fair:<\/b> In your volunteer role, are you treated fairly?<\/li>\n<li><b>Forgiving:<\/b> In your volunteer role, are you expected to be perfect&#8212;or just growing?<\/li>\n<li><b>Faithful:<\/b> How much trust do you have in your leaders?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Before you distribute it, ask someone you trust to collect the completed forms, type up a summary, and destroy the original surveys. That way volunteers can give their honest opinions anonymously. When you see how your church\u2019s current culture is evaluated, it might be an eye-opener.<\/p>\n<p>Your church\u2019s culture will make or break your volunteer program. If it\u2019s not fun, fair, forgiving, and faithful, you won\u2019t hang on to volunteers that stick&#8212;you won\u2019t have volunteers at all.<\/p>\n<p>Creating a volunteer-welcoming culture is huge, and you can\u2019t do it alone. You need to get lots of people on board, especially people in leadership. Jot down the names of people who are already making your church\u2019s volunteer culture a place that\u2019s fun, fair, forgiving, and faithful. Who\u2019s already helping? And who do you need to recruit?<\/p>\n<p>Consider Disney World again. They\u2019ll let you get away with a lot, but if you cross the line and start ruining the culture of the theme park, you\u2019re history. Disney World is a fierce defender of its culture. And it\u2019s smart for you to do the same. Don\u2019t let anyone go chasing volunteers away because of a nasty attitude or a lack of commitment to the vision of your church and ministry.<\/p>\n<p>Creating a volunteer-welcoming culture is a great first step&#8212;but it\u2019s <i>just<\/i> a first step. It\u2019ll make volunteering at your church attractive, but it\u2019s not going to keep people on board long term. Most of what you do to turn volunteers into long-term volunteers who stick&#8212;the Velcro volunteers&#8212;you\u2019ll have to do anyway, just to have a healthy volunteer culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Does your church have a volunteer-welcoming culture? It\u2019s good to know, because slick volunteer recruitment won\u2019t make a bit of difference, if once people sign up, they don\u2019t like how you do business. Think about Disney World. Disney spends a fortune on advertising that it\u2019s a great vacation spot. But if kids bounce through the gates and all they find [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":27323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[378,379,380,381],"class_list":["post-27287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lead","tag-creating-a-culture","tag-jim-wideman","tag-volunteer-culture","tag-volunteer-friendly"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Take Your Culture&#039;s Temperature - Group Children&#039;s Ministry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Does your church have a volunteer-welcoming culture? 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