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Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re excited to talk with Bill Krause from Eagle Christian Church in Idaho.

Eagle Christian Church is a multisite church with three campuses near Boise, Idaho and is celebrating 25 years in 2020.

Bill is with us today to talk about the revamped system and mindset Eagle Christian Church adopted to help close the loop on recruiting volunteers.

• Build a system to recruit volunteers. // Churches often have response cards which people can fill out with their contact information and area of interest for serving within the church. But at Eagle Christian, they found that about 70% of those cards were completed as a spur of the moment type thing. That often then lead to unreturned phone calls and emails, as the people had moved on to something else. And staff felt guilty and discouraged at not having a better conversion rate. So Eagle Christian began to examine their system and they decided they needed to create something that would allow them to turn around these sorts of serving requests in 48 hours.
• Immediately contacting. // Eagle Christian now uses Trello project management software which allows them to implement a faster follow-up. Trello is the first thing the staff checks when coming in on a Monday morning so they can initiate the follow-up sequence. You can’t grow as a disciple of Jesus if you do not serve. Part of that growth can only be accessed by giving of yourself in ministry. Immediately contacting the people who have sent in a card allows potential volunteers to move on to the next part of their discipleship journeys.
• Get connected. // The church also uses a class called Starting Point which they are starting to run every month. The first two sessions are focused on doctrine and how the church runs. The third session is about getting connected and focuses on the discipleship process. During this session, attendees learn that serving is an integral part of growing as a follower of Christ. This also leads to a big influx of completed cards through Trello.
• Tend the sheep. // Having a successful volunteer organization at Eagle Christian Church means focusing on three things which they are encouraged to chant in their heads each day: recruit well, train with excellence, and shepherd affectively. Affectively, not effectively. Recruiting well includes the new system of turning around serving requests in 48 hours. Training with excellence looks like not wasting people’s time, but rather giving them what they need to succeed. Departments at the church that are really succeeding in training people well are the ones who condense information in an interesting way, but spend more time on the application for volunteers. Finally, discipleship means caring about people’s hearts. Create systems where people find themselves in environments that are relationally sound and responsive. This is what it means to shepherd affectively.
• Encourage the staff to focus on volunteers. // Bill reminds his staff that they are paid to be an equippers, rather than doing things on their own without being “bothered” by volunteers. This mindset shift means that at least 40% of the work week has to be invested in volunteers.

You can learn more about Eagle Christian Church at www.eaglechristianchurch.com.

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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: LifeWay Leadership

Ministry Grid makes it simple to train every volunteer and leader in your church. With a library of over 3,500 videos and 850 courses, you will find training for every ministry area and leadership level.

To get unlimited access to Ministry Grid for just $597, just go to​ MinistryGrid.com/unSeminary​