I recently dropped a post about the idea of being thankful for your church’s volunteers, and I think I made my point pretty well. However, by the end of the post, I realized that I probably need to take some time to think up and share a list of practical ways to show your thanks and appreciation. Since ChurchMag is a tech-centric blog, I’ll be specifically focusing on thanking the church tech team, but the general idea behind each solution could guide your overall approach to volunteer appreciation.
Individualized Thankfulness
One of the most powerful and obvious ways to show thanks to individually thank or recognize each volunteer. Of course, this could be tough. First of all, if you’re church is like mine, that’s a lot of people, which would take a lot of time, especially if you’re trying to thank them publicly. Secondly, it would be quite costly if you tried to “bless” them with a meaningful gift. Lastly, if you thank everyone individually, you risk forgetting someone, adding insult to injury, as their handwork goes unnoticed and others are rewarded.
If you are going to do individualized thanks then I would stick by two provisos:
1) keep it simple with a handwritten thank you card from the staff as a whole and/or
2) delegate the thank you’s to the pastors who work closest with those individuals.
I think that having the pastor who is “in charge” or “directly over” a particular area of volunteering helps to prevent forgetting anyone and makes the thank you seem more weighty because that pastor has a better idea of how much work is done and the effort it takes.
Team Thanks
Thanking a team as a whole can be effective, especially if the volunteers on the team think of themselves as such. This can be done through a public acknowledgment, a card or gift directed toward the team as a whole (special treats or coffees delivered to their area of service). At the same time, all of the laity of the church could be collectively honored through a volunteers’ banquet. We help one of these at our church a year (maybe two) ago, and it was a huge success without much financial cost. It was very cool to see the pastors and deacons serving Sunday school teachers, nursery workers, and sound guys. I heartily recommend making something similar a yearly tradition at your church.
Practical Thanks in the Long-Term
I don’t know about you, but the hardest part of being a church tech is often working with frustratingly inferior equipment. When eBay and Craigslist emerged, I waved goodbye to the idea of ever getting new equipment ever again. What if you thanked your tech team by getting them that wireless mic they’d asked for? Or allow them to go ahead and upgrade the RAM in the sound booth computer? What if you sat them down and worked with them to develop a feasibly equipment budget that would allow them to replace a larger equipment item over the course of the next year? To me, I never feel more valued than when my opinion, whether concerning the need to replace a sound console or whatever, is listened to and acted upon. Show your team how much you value them by working to make their job easier.
In the end, it truly is the thought that counts. Most church techs don’t serve for the sake of glory or riches—they honestly want to bless the church and God with their talents. Any thanks, any appreciation, would surely be received with graciousness.
What else could you do to make your church tech feel valued?
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