Two years ago, it finally hit me that the way I was trying to get volunteers engaged on the communications team was not working. I was passionate about getting people plugged in to use their gifts to serve the church, but had no focused volunteer strategy to move people from interest to full engagement. People were getting lost in the process, and I was quickly becoming overwhelmed trying to keep up with everything. It was time for a do-over.

Here are four simple things we did to improve our volunteer engagement for communications:

As a Communications Pastor, one of the dilemmas I often faced with volunteers was that they'd quit. I would spend my time finding them, investing in them, and training them, and then, suddenly and without warning, they would leave.

Sometimes their reasons for leaving were real life reasons. They got a job transfer, had a baby, lost a spouse, etc.

But more often than not, they stepped down because they did not feel informed, appreciated, or valued as a team member.

Once I learned that if I spent some time staying connected to my volunteer team they would stay on my team, I changed my volunteer management style. I paid attention to recruiting, training, investing, managing, encouraging, appreciating, and praying for my volunteers.