I am becoming increasingly interested in the intersection of the web and the church, so I'm digging hearing everyone's (especially though that have been directly involved) thoughts, opinions, and experienced.

Assuming volunteering is defined as the participating in something out of intrinsic motivation for the reward of knowing you're contributing to something worthwhile, I rarely – if ever – have considered volunteers as people needing to be managed.

Don't read me wrong: I do agree that most teams need *some* form of leadership. But leading volunteers – in the online space, no less – does feel counter-intuitive to me.

Similar to @purecommunity, I'm eager to see where you take this. So bring it.

peace | dewde

peace | dewde

peace | dewde

I worked full time at a church for 9 years with responsibility for staff and volunteers. Now that I've been employed outside the church for a few years, I reflect on what I did well and could have done better. So often, I see that churches have "slots" for their volunteers to fill. There are X number of slots for volunteers in the nursery, X number of slots for people to work in the parking lot, etc. This is fine and good and necessary, but the tag line for this post is "recognize the undertapped resource".

There's lots of great people at our churches (online and off) that could be great contributing volunteers, but they may not fit into one of the "slots" on our clipboard. Perhaps because of their schedule or other life factors or perhaps because all our "slots" are full right now, so they go on our "waiting list".

To do what is described in this post and create opportunities for volunteers to contribute in incremental ways at their convenience, I think, requires a higher level of leadership from the church staff or volunteer team leader. It is much easier to fill "slots" and check boxes on a list than it is to think creatively about harnessing a much more organic volunteer effort.

When I was on church staff, I was hired because I was a good "doer". I could accomplish the task and complete projects. I was not hired because I was a great leader. However, a very important part of the job becomes leadership, especially as we talk about recognizing the undertapped volunteer resources.

Anything that helps churches to provide more volunteer opportunities that are purposeful and enable more people to contribute is great in my opinion. This is a great post and great conversation. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series!