Podcast

072 – How to Fire a Church Volunteer

Posted on October 12, 2020December 4, 2023 by Ryan Sparks

What’s in this Episode?

You worked and worked and worked to get this volunteer to serve in ministry, and now they’re not cutting it. What in the world are you going to do? Can you fire a volunteer? Well, in this episode, we’re going to talk about exactly that. Understanding how to fire a church volunteer is crucial, so here we go!

Read the Transcript

Dick Hardy 0:00
You worked and worked and worked to get this volunteer to serve in ministry, and now they’re not cutting it. What in the world are you going to do? Can you fire a volunteer? Well, in this episode, we’re going to talk about exactly that. Here we go.

Dick Hardy 0:19
You know, there was a time I was serving a great church up in Iowa, and we had this guy who was a volunteer at the church who was just really a very simple guy, nicest guy in the world. I mean, Dave was so nice, you’d have fun with him. He had fun with you. But he wasn’t the kind of guy that you can put in a variety of volunteer roles. He was pretty limited. Well, we had a guy that actually was my next door neighbor, he had passed away. And he, Arnie was the guy who always did the sign out front.

Dick Hardy 0:49
Now, this was back in a point where there were no digital signs. And so he’d go out there and he put these pithy little sayings up there. I remember the one that got the most attention was when he put up the sign, and it said, “the only problem with bucket seats is not everyone has the same size bucket.” So you have to think that one through. Anyway, I hope you heard me say bucket.

Dick Hardy 1:08
So with that, you would lift up the sign cover, and you go underneath it, you put these words up there. Well, you don’t want to put a guy, a six foot, eight inch guy in there. You want a short guy. Well, Dave was a short guy. So I thought this will work well! Dave could every week, you know, on Thursdays, I think we change the sign, he’d go in, and we’d give him the saying, whatever it was, and he would put the words up. That was not Dave’s strong suit, because they would get in there. He’d spell words wrong. So now they’re on the church sign. Words are spelled wrong. Simple words are spelled wrong. Commas are in the wrong place. The letters aren’t spaced properly. So now I have to figure out what to do with Dave.

Dick Hardy 1:50
I need to remove Dave, from this position. And if you’ve ever been in the spot where you’ve got a volunteer, good guy, and they’re serving in a role, that it’s not cutting it and you’re really figuring out “how do I fire this volunteer?” And so in this case, I was able to move Dave to a different position. And, all was good.

Dick Hardy 1:53
You have to be very careful with that. You’re not just in the corporate environment where, hey, you’re there, you’re gone. So you’re dealing with volunteers. And so that’s what we want to talk to you about today. How do you fire a volunteer? And we’re going to just walk through this and see if we can give you some tips that are going to help you as you find a volunteer that doesn’t fit. And you’re going to need to either fire him or move to a different position.

Tip #1: Prevent Having to Fire the Volunteer in the First Place

Jonathan Hardy 2:41
Well, I’m going to jump in and throw out the first thought for this. And that’s just to prevent having to fire the volunteer in the first place.

Dick Hardy 2:49
So you’re saying I did it wrong in the first place? With Dave?

Jonathan Hardy 2:53
I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Dick Hardy 2:54
Yeah. Well, I did. I did it wrong in the first place.

Jonathan Hardy 2:57
But the idea is we want to recruit people and put people in the right spot. And yeah, you didn’t quite do that.

Dick Hardy 3:02
I didn’t think it all the way through. Yeah, that’s right.

Jonathan Hardy 3:04
So you have to recruit people, find them in the right spots, set the proper expectations for what you expect for this role. And make sure that they’re on board with that. So that way, you know that it’s going to be a good fit for both parties. And then you have to do the old “inspect what you expect.” And, what happens a lot of times is we just don’t want to confront, we don’t want to deal with it.

Jonathan Hardy 3:20
And so what we do is we just kind of let that slide holding hope that it goes away. Okay, well, that hope strategy is a failed strategy. And you have to eventually get to the point where you have to have this confrontational conversation. So it’s much better to prevent this in the first place. Get the right people on the right seat on the bus. Make sure you do all you can. It’s not foolproof, because inevitably, something doesn’t quite work perfectly. But everything you can do possibly to do that is going to help you and address things immediately before the fire, the little spark becomes a huge forest fire.

Dick Hardy 3:59
Exactly. You know. And with that, too, I’d say I would encourage you to cross train your volunteers. You want multiple people knowing how to do multiple things. So if you have to do something, you’re covered with it. We have a few episodes, episodes 12, 13 and 14, where we talk about recruiting church volunteers and increasing volunteer retention. And this all ties in to setting the stage for you not to be in this position in the first place where you have to actually terminate someone.

Tip #2: Cast Exciting Vision for them of Future Opportunities that hey Would Have

Jonathan Hardy 4:29
Yeah. Then the next thing you want to do is kind of, as you start to walk the journey of getting to the point where you move them is to cast the vision for some different ministries in the exciting things that are happening, that they might be a good fit for. So you’re kind of planting these seeds and you’re talking to them.

Dick Hardy 4:47
While they’re in the position that’s not working.

Jonathan Hardy 4:49
Yes, yeah. You’re already beginning to talk future for them, and getting them hopefully excited about some opportunities that you’re going to have for them here shortly.

Tip #3: Get the Volunteer to Switch

Dick Hardy 4:59
Well and when you do that, what you really want is you want the volunteer to say, oh, yeah, hey, Jonathan, maybe I’d like to work in that ministry. To which you say, good idea. Let’s talk. I think you would be a great fit. And that’s the kind of thing really in hindsight, after I put Dave in that bad, awkward spot, we were able to talk about new opportunities for him where he’d be a much better fit.

Dick Hardy 5:26
So you want your volunteer to buy into that new vision you’re casting for, even though you don’t say, hey, you’re not cutting it, I’m casting new vision. Cast the new vision, get them excited about it, and then they’ll ask to switch. That’s what you want to have happen.

Tip #4: Have Another Volunteer Read to Go

Dick Hardy 5:41
You know, from a very practical standpoint, have another volunteer ready to go. You know. So as I’m critical of myself in how I put Dave in that spot, I had to be ready the moment I had Dave move out of that sign ministry. And moved to indoor hospitality is where we transitioned Dave. Yeah, I had to have somebody ready to go. Otherwise, you’re just going to solve one problem and create another. So you gotta have another volunteer ready to step up to make that transition.

Tip #5: Make the Switch

Dick Hardy 6:17
And then ultimately, make the switch. You know, Jonathan talked about the “hope strategy”. You can’t hope it’s gonna go away. You do the things we’re talking about. Make the switch. And then you’re on to better things.

Jonathan Hardy 6:29
Well, and I think this is something that’s not a bad thing. And sometimes we think of, you know, of course, we’re calling it “firing the church volunteer”. But, you know, we want people to operate in their gifts. And your example of Dave is a great example, where he was not functioning in the right way, you know, if spelling isn’t his strong suit, and you got him doing a job that requires spelling, well, you know, we need to get him in an area where he’s going to thrive. And he’s going to be excited about because oftentimes, what will happen is they’re eventually going to quit anyway.

Dick Hardy 6:58
Yeah. Because it’s so miserable. They know.

Jonathan Hardy 7:00
Yeah, they know. So we don’t have to avoid the confrontation, we just need to embrace it and say, hey, you know, we need to make some adjustments, and more times than not, people will be on board.

Dick Hardy 7:11
Yep. Give us a summary here, Jonathan.

Jonathan Hardy 7:13
So the five things that we talked about here on How to Fire a Church Volunteer or move them to a new role is:

Jonathan Hardy 7:20
(1) First of all, if you can prevent this from happening in the first place, (2) then cast exciting vision for them of future opportunities that they would have. (3) Third is then get the volunteer to even ask for the switch. So rather than you having to ask, hopefully, through your casting vision, you’re able to get them to ask. (4) Fourth is have another volunteer, ready to fill the slot when you make that switch, which is number five, (5) to actually make the switch. Once you do all those things, that’s going to help position you for greater days ahead.

Jonathan Hardy 7:47
Now, I want to also mention that this whole process is a leadership process. This is a process we have to continually grow at. And one of the ways you can grow personally as a leader so that way you’re more effective leading and navigating these types of tough decisions is when you join the leaders.church masterclass. And this masterclass is just under an hour presentation I put together that you can go through at any point. Just sign up for it at leaders.church/secrets. Leaders.church/secrets. And it’s the four secrets pastors can use to elevate your personal leadership effectiveness. When you go through these things, it’s going to help you be more effective as a leader. And as a result, you’ll be able to navigate these types of situations more effectively, quicker and easier in the days to come.

Dick Hardy 8:39
Yeah, that’s exactly right. And the last thing we want to mention to you is our friend over at Church Marketing University, Ryan Wakefield, has opened up CMU to new enrollees up through the 15th of October. So just go to leaders.church/CMU. And you could check out all the great stuff. It’s unbelievable.

Dick Hardy 8:58
I was over there. And I’m thinking, oh, my goodness, I can’t believe he’s doing what he’s doing, offering it for the price he’s offering. And so go check it out, leaders.church/CMU, and you’re going to see some great things there. We hope that you found this podcast helpful. And if there’s anything we can do for you, don’t hesitate to give us a holler. In the meantime, make it a great one, and be blessed.

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Podcast

072 – How to Fire a Church Volunteer

What’s in this Episode?

Read the Transcript

Tip #1: Prevent Having to Fire the Volunteer in the First Place