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Thanks for tuning in for the unSeminary podcast. Today, we have repeat guest, Nick Blevins, the Children and Student Team Leader at Community Christian Church in Maryland. He is also the cofounder of Ministry Boost which helps leaders fast forward their growth in ministry through training, coaching, and consulting.

Every church out there could use more volunteers. How can we recruit them consistently, not only when there’s an urgent need? Tune in as Nick offers a proven framework to help your church recruit, train, and empower more volunteers.

• Take time for recruitment. // Most church leaders don’t learn volunteer recruiting in seminary, have a strategy for it, and don’t spend much time doing it. Yet volunteers are the backbone of our churches. Nick has written a book called “The Volunteer Playbook: A Proven Framework to Help Your Church Recruit, Train, and Empower More Volunteers” which provides a structured approach to building your volunteer team. He recommends taking 2-3 hours a week to get started with this process.
• Five-part framework. // The first step in the framework involves identifying and making initial contact with potential volunteers. Think about how many volunteers you need and multiply the number by ten. This is the number of prospects you need, or your volunteer conversion ratio. For example, if you need 50 volunteers, you’ll need to look at 500 prospects.
• Identify prospects. // Use your updated church database to identify individuals who are not currently serving but could be potential volunteers. Nick recommends sending two emails and a text message over a span of three to four weeks. The initial email should invite prospects to a conversation, allowing them to share their stories and experiences with the church. Remember many potential volunteers may need a gentle nudge to engage. This process is about building connections.
• Have a conversation. // Once you’ve identified prospects, the second step is to have a genuine conversation. The framework is not just about recruiting, but about ministering to people. Put your pastor hat on and think about what someone’s next best step is. Listen to what is going on in their lives. Volunteering may not be the next best step right now, but what other connections can you make, or steps can you help them take?
• Cast vision. // The third step, orientation, serves as a bridge between initial interest and commitment. Orientation isn’t about policies and boring handbooks, but rather gives potential volunteers the opportunity to learn about the ministry, its impact, and the specific roles available. Cast a compelling vision during orientation and help potential volunteers understand why they should say yes to serving.
• Onboarding and placement. // Once individuals have committed to serving, the last two steps involve onboarding and placement. These steps are essential for ensuring volunteers feel supported and equipped in their roles. If you onboard and train well, then volunteers get placed and serve well, and that sets up good retention. Have new volunteers apprentice with experienced ones for a few weeks. This mentorship approach allows new volunteers to learn the ropes in a supportive environment, increasing their confidence and commitment to the role.
• Build a foundation. // Once you have your volunteers in place, then you can focus on building your foundation. Creating a culture of volunteerism within the church is crucial for long-term success. Focus on structuring for growth and empowering your volunteers. Identify the things that will move the needle and boost future recruitment.

You can pick up a copy of Nick’s book at www.volunteerplaybook.com and find out more about Nick at www.nickblevins.com.

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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. We’ve got a repeat guest which is, you know when with that happens that we’ve got good things coming. Today we’ve got Nick Blevins with us. He is he serves currently as the children and student team leader at Community Christian in Maryland. He’s also the co-founder of a great organization called Ministry Boost. He started it with two friends of his, Kenny and Kevin, and where they help leaders fast forward their growth in ministry through courses, training, coaching, consulting. I I just think the world of Nick, think the world of what he does. He is in the corner of church leaders. Friends, like I say this totally honestly, there’s folks like Nick who are selling things who I think are just trying to sell things, but Nick’s not one of those guys. He actually wants to help you. So I’m honored to have Nick on the show today. Welcome, Nick – so glad you’re here.

Nick Blevins — Hey, Rich. Thanks for having me. That’s quite the intro there. Because I got to say you I mean you know you’ve actually helped my church far more than I’ve ever helped you. We still refer to like the way you helped us with our guests and assimilation and kind of like our whole re- kinda we basically redid it years ago. I mean it’s been so good ever since. And so thank you, I um, appreciate your podcast and your writing, and everything you do.

Rich Birch — Nice. So glad it’s fun to connect a little bit in chat today. But kind of fill out the picture, tell us a little bit about you, just kind of fill out the Nick Blevins story a little bit, and the details there that I didn’t catch.

Nick Blevins — Yeah, yeah, sure. I’ve only been in two churches my whole life. I grew up going to church but was in one church until I thought I’d attend church my whole life. I went to school for information systems management, thought I’d be a you know volunteer that gives lots of time and always love the church, but didn’t think I’d work for the church until my young 20s, and felt like you know what? Maybe this is where God’s calling me.

Nick Blevins — But we wanted to be part of a new church. We felt like where I live north of Baltimore, Maryland we needed a lot of churches. We still need a lot of churches, Rich. It’s kind of like Canada; it’s it’s all over the northeast…

Rich Birch — So true. Yeah.

Nick Blevins — …and northwest. And we heard of a new church starting and I jumped on board as the Kids’ Pastor. It’s been 18 years now, I lead kids, I lead our next gen and our operations. I joke that I approve my own budgets, but that’s not really true. Um, but it is two fun worlds to live in, right?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — Kids, student ministry, operations with building budget finance. And then like you said we started ministry boost. We have online courses and coaching, primarily for next gen leaders.

Nick Blevins — And then I also work with Slingshot Group, helping churches hire next gen staff, which has been fun.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Nick Blevins — So I love doing lots of things to help the church – that’s kind of my heart and passion and I’m I’m glad, you know, God led me here so many years ago.

Rich Birch — Nice. Well for folks that are longtime listeners, you know that I don’t really love to just there’s lots of people that reach out and say, oh I’ve got a book. And we turn down probably for everyone that someone that says yes they send us something, we probably turn down 15 or 20, like we turned down the vast majority of them. But Nick actually he’s got a book and I’ve wanted to have him come on. And so the fact that here we are a year later, ah you know, I’m just so honored that we’ve have you here. You got a book that came out last year called “The Volunteer Playbook: A Proven Framework to Help Your Church Recruit, Train and Empower More Volunteers” and I want to talk about that today. This is such an important topic. Kind of set this up. What led you to the place where you’re like, hey, now’s the time. We got to pull this together, got to pull this playbook together. What kind of got you in that in that when you were back working on this project?

Nick Blevins — Well, that’s a good question, Rich, because it actually took me 10 years to write. But that’s because I’m an awful writer, I’m not the most disciplined worker.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Nick Blevins — And so and and ten years ago my thought was, I’ve learned so much from so many other people about recruiting. Because like very little in the book, Rich, is me or my ideas, or my thoughts.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Nick Blevins — I mean like literally maybe 3%. But I learned so much from other people that I thought was helpful and was working and I’d seen it work in other churches. What if I could put it together in a playbook of sorts, like almost ordered. You know do this first, and do this.

Nick Blevins — And and then there’s so many things that impact volunteerism, right? Both positively and negatively. Like how how can we address a bunch or at least the most important ones. And so that was the idea. And then finally it took some some big time accountability for me to get it finished ah last year.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Nick Blevins — Which I could share that story. But essentially I had to deliver a chapter every week to the editor or else I owed money that I wasn’t going to get back. That was the agreement I set up.

Rich Birch — Oh nice.

Nick Blevins — And it worked, it worked. I didn’t have the money. So I finally wrote it um, which is great.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Nick Blevins — And my whole goal was like let’s take this stuff that we’re doing with churches, that we I do in my church, we just did it—I told you about that before we hit record…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — …and put in a book that hopefully would help, you know, so many people get access to it. Because books are cheap…

Rich Birch — Love it.

Nick Blevins — …relatively speaking.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. I love it. Well there’s a ton we could talk about in here. And and, friends, the punchline in this: I think you should pick up a copy, go to Amazon, grab a copy. Go to nickblevins.com, pick up a copy. Um, but I want to try to leverage the fact that you’re here for this half an hour or so and there’s ah, part of this book that I think is particularly helpful, literally for everybody. Every every church I know out there, um, whether you think you need more volunteers or not. Like whether you feel the pain or not, you do like your your church needs more.

Rich Birch — And so you talk about this kind of five-part ah framework to recruit volunteers more consistently. I’d love to unpack that. What’s some of the low hanging fruit? You know you’re into a lot of churches. You’re talking to a lot of churches. Let’s assume I’m a church of, I don’t know 1500 people, I’m the executive pastor. And what’s the advice you find yourself giving those churches all the time around ah recruiting, particularly.

Nick Blevins — Yeah I mean, when we whenever I talk about this, before I hit the 5-part framework, which I would consider that to be like in the weeds. That’s like on-the-ground, nuts-and-bolts how to recruit. Kind of like 10,000 foot level…

Rich Birch — Yep, yep.

Nick Blevins — …is most leaders don’t spend enough time recruiting, or have any type of strategy.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — Ah, your your podcast is a great ah example of this. Like nobody learns volunteer recruiting in seminary…

Rich Birch — Yes, true.

Nick Blevins — …at least not when I ask.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — You know when we teach when we teach this in like a conference breakout or with a church, we’ll say, how many of you learned how to recruit, like somebody taught you how to recruit volunteers? And typically, I don’t know like 2 or 3 out of people out of a hundred might raise their hand. You know most people didn’t learn this, so they have no strategy for it. And and ah the other question we’ll ask is be honest, how much time do you spend a week recruiting volunteers? And you could probably guess the most common answer is zero hours.

Rich Birch — Zero. Yeah, yes.

Nick Blevins — One a guy one time at one of the times we were doing this in a workshop um, we asked them to hold up their hands and show how many hours, with their eyes closed. So nobody’s boss is looking at them. And this guy had half a finger. He held off like you know, not a whole one hour…

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick Blevins — …like a half hour a week is like…

Rich Birch — 20 minutes.

Nick Blevins — …that’s great. Ah, it’s very honest. And every now and then you know you’ll see a handful of people say two, three hours. But most of us if we’re honest, it’s like, yeah, I don’t. I mean I probably spend 10 hours a year. And then you need them, when it’s Sunday or Wednesday night or whenever your ministry is meeting.

Rich Birch — Right. You feel the pressure, and it’s like oh my goodness. Yeah.

Nick Blevins — Yeah, you do. Yes and then you go back and the pressure’s off again. You know it’s like that next meeting or that curriculum to write, or that message. And so that’s the the principle mostly is if you could give it the time, and we recommend I would recommend starting out, especially 2 to 4 hours a week.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Nick Blevins — Because you’re probably going to build some of the things we’re going to talk about in the framework. Maybe even more than that. Maybe 8 hours a week if you’re really building some of these other pieces. Which a lot of people listening are like, wow, 8 hours a week. I don’t know if I have that time. But it’s like, if you want a full volunteer team. And it’s not 8 hours a week forever.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — You’re like there’s ah, there’s a benefit where eventually it’s maybe 2 hours a week on maintenance mode. And you use a strategy. You know you can you can see success.

Nick Blevins — So we put together the five-part framework. It’s really just a way to think about somebody in your church. You said the church at 1500. Imagine those people that are attending. They’re involved. I don’t know if they’re attending once a month or once a week or whatever. Maybe they’re in a…

Rich Birch — Yes, who knows. Yeah.

Nick Blevins — Yeah, maybe they’re in a small group. Maybe they’re not. But they call your church home. They attend.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — What are the steps to take them from there to serving on a team? And it’s you know as we broke it down to 5 steps, 5 parts. And and I say you could make you can change it make it 6, make it 3. Don’t make it 24, like nobody’s following that, you know I mean?

Rich Birch — Yes, nobody’s going to do that. Yep.

Nick Blevins — But you know have your steps that that you can follow. And so for ah for us our framework that we teach – the first part is prospects.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Nick Blevins — People that aren’t serving that could be serving.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — And for me the way I define it is anybody who’s not currently serving. Like I don’t want to go recruit you know the volunteers who are already serving over here in Student Ministry or whatever.

Rich Birch — Yes, get him to come into our thing.

Nick Blevins — All the churches certainly do that.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — Um, but you know who are the all the people that aren’t currently serving? They are prospects. Now you haven’t vetted them yet. Like you don’t know if they’re a fit, if they’re interested. But they’re prospects. And this is the number that probably shocks people the most, Rich, and I think you’ll appreciate this as a numbers guy. We recommend that you figure out how many volunteers you need to recruit, which that’s another problem. Sure a lot of leaders don’t even know how many.

Rich Birch — Yeah, right.

Nick Blevins — Like how many how many volunteers do you need? A lot. Like exactly. How many? Ah whole a whole lot.

Rich Birch — A lot. Yes. More.

Nick Blevins — Yeah, yeah. More. You have to know how many. You know you got to clarify the need to figure out how many do I need.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — But let’s say in that church of 1500, I’m a ministry leader, I’ve got a team of 50 volunteers, but I want a hundred. Like I’m 50 short which, would be a lot.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you’d notice it.

Nick Blevins — I mean you’d be really in in desperate mode there if you only have the volunteers. Well if you need 50 volunteers, we have a thing that we call the VCR. Not the old video device that some of us of a certain age are used to using.

Rich Birch — Yes, remember.

Nick Blevins — But yeah, we call it the volunteer conversion ratio. And we recommend that it’s 10X…

Rich Birch — Wow.

Nick Blevins — …meaning if you need 50 volunteers, you need 10 times that number of prospects: 500 prospects, right?

Rich Birch — Wow.

Nick Blevins — Yeah, and a lot of people that’s their response, which I get.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s a lot.

Nick Blevins — It is a lot.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Rich Birch — And a lot of people like your church of 1500 is a good example. Rich, and I’d love to ask you this I would like to get your thoughts. In a church of 1500, average attendance, how many people do you think really call that church home? Like they show up at Easter and Christmas or, you know what I’m saying? Like what’s the total number of active attenders?

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s well a lot lots of lead pastors love this number and live by this number. They’re like oh they, you know they’re they’re averaging 1500, but they’re like you know we’re really a church of three thousand or four thousand or something like that.

Nick Blevins — Yeah, yeah.

Rich Birch — And and some of that can be true. You know I think it’s probably you know it’s probably in that range 2500/3000 doubling…

Nick Blevins — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …is probably you know, we see that. The the number I’ve talked about in the past on that is you know on those big days, you should be seeing double attendance…

Nick Blevins — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …so Easter, Christmas. And and that’s us that that community is people that are within like you don’t have to do Facebook ads to get those people. They’ve already arrived.

Nick Blevins — Yes, true.

Rich Birch — They’re connected to your church. And so I would say whatever the size of however many people came at Easter last year is a good starting point for you to think about, okay that that’s probably the size of our community.

Nick Blevins — Yeah, and I would agree with you – I think it’s 2X to 3X…

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.

Nick Blevins — …depending on the church, right?

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — So that church of 1500 would have 3000, not usually, I wouldn’t usually see 4500, but let’s call it 3000.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — So when you think of 500 prospects are there 500 prospects in a church of 3000? For sure.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — That aren’t serving? 100%.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — Yeah, I mean like your church could have really good volunteer numbers and you have at least 500. And every now and then ah you know somebody will say I’m in a church of 120, ah I need 10 volunteers. You’re telling me to get 100 prospects from a church that averages 120. It so it’s like it’s it’s not exactly a one size fits all. It’s just that what we have found is most church leaders reach out to far too few people.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Nick Blevins — Like they they need that 50 volunteers, like that number I said…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Nick Blevins — …and they’re thinking I need to contact 50 people.

Rich Birch — Who are the 50 people.

Nick Blevins — Well that’s just not going to work.

Rich Birch — No. Yeah.

Nick Blevins — Yeah, I mean so many of them aren’t even going to reply to you. So many of them are going to say no. So we say 10X. It might be different. It might be 8, whatever. But I actually I used to teach it as 4.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Nick Blevins — But what I learned was church leaders wouldn’t get even four…

Rich Birch — Right, right, right.

Nick Blevins — …so I raised it feel like I graded on a curve…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — So it’s like okay, let’s increase it to 10 and maybe you’ll least get 4.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.

Nick Blevins — And so that’s the first step is just making your list of prospects and it can literally be a database search. A church database search of who’s not serving

Rich Birch — People who are not serving.

Nick Blevins — Yeah. And you can either whittle it down if you want, or segment it by, you know, these are parents or these people have been active in the last six months. I mean you could do whatever you want there. And that’s you know that’s another problem church leaders face is most of them don’t have an updated database. You know that’s that’s a chronic thing.

Rich Birch — Database. Yeah yeah, yeah, totally, yeah.

Nick Blevins — But that’s the easiest way to do it is figure out who’s not serving and that can be your prospects. And then after that the whole our whole thing that we teach is you reach out to them. And I like to send two emails and a text over a span of 3 to 4 weeks.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Nick Blevins — So I would email you, Rich…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — …and like and I wouldn’t even know you. If I knew you I’d send a different email.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — But if I didn’t know you, it could be a mass email too that’s merged. And it’s like, Hey Rich, I’m Nick one of the pastors on staff here at CCC. I was wondering if you’d have 15 minutes to talk before or after a service one Sunday. I’d love to hear your story, how you got connected here, and what it’s been like so far. You got time in the next couple weeks? And I’d send send the email. And then I would do that to, like if I was recruiting 50 volunteers which is a lot…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — …um I would send that to 500 people. So imagine that, 500 automated emails you know going out.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — But I’d merge I’d merge names – it’d say “Hey Rich”, you know.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick Blevins — Some people would respond. And I’d start setting up meetings. And some people won’t and I’ll email them next week, you know, kind of a reply.

Rich Birch — Okay. I see what you’re saying. Yeah.

Nick Blevins — And ah I like to do a little hack too where I kind of put the reply in and make it look like it’s a reply to the original, even through an automated thing. Like I will go.

Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I Love it. I Love it. Yes.

Nick Blevins — Yeah I’ll remerge it. Like at the bottom it’ll say “hey <first name>” and then up the top it’s like “hey <first name>” again. Um, and I just say like, hey, did you see my email last week; I’d love to connect if you’re up for it. And that’s great because most people are used automated emails.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — So even if you merge their name, they know. And so they’re going to a lot of times ignore that first one. But then that second one it’s like, oh Nick’s paying attention.

Rich Birch — Grabs their attention.

Nick Blevins — Yeah, like ah he noticed I didn’t respond. And then I’ll text the third or fourth week, but only if I don’t have enough people responding already…

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — …if that makes sense. Like that’s kind of like my last resort.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that makes total sense. Well and I think the thing to underline there, and I’ve seen this… so this is going to sound like a bragging kind of thing. It’s not trying to… But when um so I’ve done a lot of multisite launches over the years—thirteen of them—and directly recruited 1500 volunteers for all of those. And the one of the things I learned through all of that was that second step of following up with people, I think way too many church leaders they do the initial ask, and then they don’t actually follow up with the people that they don’t hear from. They don’t…

Nick Blevins — Yeah.

Rich Birch — I don’t know why that is. It’s like you’re like you feel bad or you’re like oh I don’t want to bother them or whatever. But it’s amazing how many people just in the follow-up will be like, oh yeah, absolutely. I’d love to get connected. Let’s let’s let’s grab a coffee.

Rich Birch — So now you in the first step you’re going immediately to let’s get face-to-face. Like you’re, you know, like let’s let’s try to… Why that? Why first to like, you know, the relational…

Nick Blevins — Yeah.

Rich Birch — …let’s grab a coffee after church on Sunday kind of thing?

Nick Blevins — Good question because there is a shortcut method, which I can mention later. I prefer this method, if you have the time, either individually or as a whole staff or whatever. And mainly because what I like about it is the second step is conversation. So first step was prospects. You know they could serve. You may or may not know them. The next step is when they’ve responded to your communication. Now they’re in conversation with you. And that could literally just be that reply to email, or reply to a text. Like you haven’t actually had the conversation yet…

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — …but here’s where you do. And the reason I like this method, Rich, is because the way I say it is, in this moment, you pastor those people.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — Like it’s not just about recruiting. In fact, the thing you’re asking yourself while you’re talking with them, like if I was talking with you and meeting you for the first time, in my mind I’m thinking what is Rich’s best next step in faith?

Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.

Nick Blevins — Not and I’d love for him to serve in my ministry – that’d be great if that’s the fit. But what’s Rich’s best next step. And so in that moment I put my pastor hat on, and again always say it doesn’t matter if pastor is your title or not or not. In this moment we’re all ministering to people. And you know it might be serving in your ministry and that’s great, and you’ll keep moving them forward in the the framework. But if it’s, I mean I think of a guy I talked to a couple years ago, where he had moved to our state probably a year before. He had just lost his job. He told me about how he had been in prison about ten years ago.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Nick Blevins — Ah he had 3 kids. And so the urgent thing in his life is getting a job and you know…. And so I’m thinking at the end of the call I’m like serving is probably not his best next step. But I know a guy who works in the same industry he just worked in. And that guy also leads a great group at our church. I’m gonna get him connected to John.

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Nick Blevins — John’s gonna be great for him. So sometimes, and then sometimes you talk to somebody, I talked to a guy, he actually is a my small group, his name’s Kyle. We do these volunteer tours which I can mention later. And Kyle did one about serving. And at the end of the tour Kyle says, Ah he either wants to serve in pre-teen ministry, which would be in my world, or worship arts because he can play some instruments. And I was like well dang it, I really want you in pre-teen ministry. We need we literally need some guys in pre-teen ministry right now.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — But not everybody can play instruments.

Rich Birch — Right..

Nick Blevins — Not everybody has that skill.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — So let me connect you with Andrew, our worship arts pastor. And sure enough he did. And then Kyle actually played for the first time about seven weeks ago…

Rich Birch — Wow.

Nick Blevins — …played again three weeks ago. It’s so cool.

Rich Birch — That is cool.

Nick Blevins — And I miss that he’s not in pre-teen, but that’s an example of like the conversation helps me figure out what what is your best next step. So it does take longer.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Nick Blevins — That’s the downside is I mean you know if you were doing this if we were using our number of 50 volunteers, I’m contacting 500 people.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — If it works, I’m having 60 to 70 conversations over the span of a few months. It’s a lot.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah.

Nick Blevins — Now most churches 50 is a large number.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — A lot of churches don’t have to recruit 50 volunteers by themselves.

Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah.

Nick Blevins — Like one person, you know what I mean? Um, so yeah, you do that and you get those conversations going, and hopefully this goes back to the the VCR number, the 10X. Hopefully you’ve got 70-ish people that responded from the 500.

Rich Birch — Okay, yep, yep.

Nick Blevins — And that’s why it’s 10X.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — Because 430 people may never write you back.

Rich Birch — Yes, Yes, Yes, yes.

Nick Blevins — You know what I mean? So it’s kind of like it’s only 10X because you know so many people are just going to not reply. Um I’ve had people, um, actually this is another real story recently, where I contact a couple that I know. They live, I’m pointing on my camera here, they live through the woods right over there.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Nick Blevins — Um, they’re a great great couple. And I was recruiting them like specifically, like this wasn’t even a mass thing. And they never replied to any of my three emails. It was a way it was a soft way for them to say no.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — And I could tell it was even awkward when I’d see ’em in person. You know it’s almost like can they look at me, you know?

Rich Birch — Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick Blevins — And I want to be the guy that’s like I want to be bold enough to push you to take the kind of steps that I feel like we should all take.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — Like we’re not selling time shares…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — …so I want to be bold.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — But at the same time if the answer’s no, the answer is no, you know?

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s fine. Yes.

Nick Blevins — So I think a ton of people just aren’t gonna reply – that’s their way of saying no without you know getting into it, like the awkwardness of it.

Nick Blevins — But now you have these 70 that you’re working with, and again if your church think your church is 150, maybe it’s seven, seven people. And now they’re in conversation with you.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — And the next step is what we call orientation.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Nick Blevins — It’s a little confusing because I feel like orientation usually means like I just started a job. It’s my new orientation.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — We treat it more like the sales pitch.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Nick Blevins — It’s not it’s not policies and boring handbooks, you know. Save that for after they say yes

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — It’s it’s here’s why you should say us to serving in this ministry.

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.

Nick Blevins — Here’s why you should give two two to three hours a night on Sunday nights with our students for the next 3 years, maybe 7, you know what I mean?

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — Or you know an hour a week with our third graders ah you know playing in a band once a month. And you just cast vision and tell stories at that orientation, and and get them the whole goal get them to say yes to serving.

Rich Birch — Yeah, we’ve…

Nick Blevins — And so this oh go… I was gonna say the first 3 steps are really the core of the whole framework. You know you’re just getting people from you don’t know them, to now we’re talking, to now I’ve said yes to an orientation.

Rich Birch — Yeah. I love that. A couple things to underline. I love the focus on conversations because I do I do think that the conversations, you know, lead to relationship. And and that you know ultimately leads to them taking some sort of step. I love the focus on, hey we you know we’re I’m trying to help you find your next step, not necessarily into this. You know obviously you know I need to fill my issues. But I you know we should be caring for people more where they’re at.

Rich Birch — You know we we’ve called that orientation step “shadow serve” in other environments where we deliberately say to people like, hey you’re gonna come and um, we’d love for you to just actually see it. Like you’ll you know whether it says you say you’re coming on the greeting team, like you’re going to spend Sunday morning with a team member and you’re gonna get a chance to see 3 or 4 different roles. But this is before they’ve even committed. It’s like we’re not asking you… this is you haven’t said yes yet, you’ve just it’s it’s kind of an information step.

Rich Birch — Um, why do I think there are churches that that skip that step and jump too quickly to like okay, let’s get you on a schedule. Let’s get you signed up.

Nick Blevins — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Why is that kind of orientation step an important piece of the puzzle do you think, Nick?

Nick Blevins — Oh good question. I think well you alluded to it. It’s a big step. So if I imagine me talking to, like pretend like Kyle did want to serve in pre-teen, or let’s say Kyle wanted to serve in student ministry. We really do want our student small group leaders to serve with a group of kids—let’s call it sixth grade guys—for at least 3 years: sixth, seventh, eighth.

Yeah.

Nick Blevins — Maybe all the way through twelfth.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — That’s two that’s three hours of the night on Sunday nights during the school year…

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — …plus trips and retreats retreats. I mean that is the biggest ask.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s a big ask.

Nick Blevins — Now that’s, you know, there’s other smaller ones. Let’s say it’s every other week in some role for an hour. It’s a smaller ask. It’s still a big step from like I’ve never served maybe in a church to that. And so the way I say it is, there’s something in marketing, I’m sure you’re familiar with this called “the yes ladder”.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — And it’s the idea that in marketing they try to get you to say yes to one small thing before yes to the next thing, before that… You know, it’s a small steps on a ladder as opposed to the big jump of, hey, buy this boat. I don’t know whatever whatever it is. So I don’t know what the boat store does, but maybe they’re like, you know, here download this PDF about you know scams to avoid in boats.

Rich Birch — Yeah, sure.

Nick Blevins — And then come in for a visit and drive one. Like and of course again, we’re not selling boats or anything like that. I think you know serving is a huge part of discipleship. So I want to make the steps as simple and easy as possible. And so an orientation saying yes to that, like you said, where there’s no commitment yet, way easier than yes, let me give, you know, 3 years of my life away.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — And I just think you’ll get people, especially if you can get them there, one of the secrets of the orientation is if you do it well, most people do say yes.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah.

Nick Blevins — Because by the time they got there, they’re warmed up. And then you tell him like I tell stories about Keith in our church. Keith has probably baptized at least thirty fourth and fifth grade boys. At least. Because he’s been a fourth fifth grade small group really for multiple decades.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — I think of Shannon who’s a small group leader that’s had, you know, kids in kindergarten and right now she’s got a group of ninth grade girls. Um, she shows up at their soccer games. She gets prints like big pictures of their face, you know, like these huge like and it holds them on the sideline to embarrass them.

Rich Birch — So well.

Nick Blevins — Ah I tell stories about Shannon because it’s like think about the difference Shannon’s making in these kids lives.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.

Nick Blevins — I literally just joked with Shannon a few weeks ago. My our oldest daughter is 8 and I was doing the math and I was like, Shannon, you’re gonna be finished with your girls in twelfth grade the same year my daughter goes in sixth. I think you should come back around.

Rich Birch — Another seven!

Nick Blevins — I will pay you to be my kids small group leader. You know I’m just kidding.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick Blevins — But anyway, and then you know we all have volunteers like that who just… So I think you just cast a vision for like, man, this is why this matters.

Rich Birch —Yeah.

Nick Blevins — Like you’ve got 83 priorities in your life. We’re not asking you to make this 84. We are asking you to make this number 4 or 5, which is a big deal.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Nick Blevins — But here’s why you should do it. Here’s why you should do it.

Rich Birch — Yeah, talk, talk to us about that. Because I’ve the people who I’ve seen that are really good at recruiting um, they’re ah good at doing exactly what you’re talking about, which is not lowering the bar. It’s actually raising the bar. It’s not saying, hey we’re gonna, all I need you to do is just… all I need you.

Nick Blevins — Yeah.

Rich Birch — It’s like no, like you’re going to change the world, and let me show you how that’s going to be. Um, talk to us about that. Like I think we we feel it can it can be, but we can believe this lie that like if we just make it real easy for people, more people, like when they actually get to what they’re serving, more people will come in. But that’s not actually true. Talk to us about that.

Nick Blevins — Yeah, and you you could get more people serving and then they’re not the people you want.

Rich Birch — Yes, good call. Good call.

Nick Blevins — And you know with a culture of low commitment and low turnout.

Rich Birch — Yep, yeah.

Nick Blevins — Yeah, I think, I mean my mentor Jim Wideman was big on this. He could recruit, literally Jim has recruited people off the street to serve who don’t even go to the church.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Nick Blevins — Like so Jim was the ultimate like that kind of recruiter.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — Most of us are not that person. I’m not that person. But with this system I don’t feel bad at all, calling you to something bigger. Because I think deep inside all of us, you know we want our lives to matter. But the problem is we’re all spinning so many plates. And so you just need somebody to come along and say, here’s why you should drop some of those plates and pick up this one.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — And and you got to make the case that this is why this matters both for your faith. Is the church going to be fine without you? Probably. Aways has been. It’s God’s church. But will will you look back, you know, a year from now, three years from now…

Rich Birch — Man, so true.

Nick Blevins — …after serving in this role and regret it? No, you will thank me, even though this is a ah, huge commitment. So I think and then that’s what you want to raise the bar because that creates then the standard and the culture.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Nick Blevins — Um I think of like my elementary director years ago. Um, you know we have weekly volunteers as the commitment in our our elementary ministry, and most of our kids all of our kids in student ministries really, but especially if you’re leading a group of kids or students. And one of the moms who they’d been attending for a while, she had two boys, she wanted to serve as a small group leader in elementary, but she only wanted to do every other week. And it was almost like the standoff between her and our elementary director, like no that I’m sorry but the commitment’s weekly. And my elementary director wanted to cave and say yes…

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — …because she liked this lady a lot.

Rich Birch — Yeah, great person and all that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Nick Blevins — Uh-huh. Yeah, you know, she wasn’t just a warm body with a pulse or whatever, you know I mean like she was great. And so she knew but she stood strong and she held her ground and she said um, you know we could find some other roles, you know…

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — …but this one is weekly. And that lady ah, said all right. Yeah, sorry I’m not gonna be able to do it. And she left she walked back in like 5 minutes later, and she goes, all right I’m gonna do it. This has been so good for my boys. I’m gonna do it.

Rich Birch — Ah, that’s great.

Nick Blevins — And so as part is like Lisa just had to hold her ground. And then she did she did that for years. And and then, you know, it doesn’t always work out like that. A lot of people say no.

Rich Birch — Right

Nick Blevins — You know they they don’t rise to that level…

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — …of the commitment, but some do. And that’s those are the ones you want, right? You have enough of those leaders and you’ve got the kind of volunteer team you want to have.

Rich Birch — Love it. Well what what are the others, so we’ve got up through orientation.

Nick Blevins — Orientation.

Rich Birch — What are the last two steps?

Nick Blevins — Yeah, and those are the easiest because at that point at orientation, hopefully…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — …they’ve said yes.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — And the way I say it is probably 90 to 95% of people that come to orientation should should say yes.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yep.

Nick Blevins — And that’s true if it’s a churchwide volunteer orientation, or even just your ministry.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Nick Blevins — Because at that point you’ve already decided this might be their best next step, right? You’ve filtered that out, and you are starting to do some vetting. So people that don’t make it here. There might be something questionable about them. And you got to be careful about that that might be a reason they don’t make it, but most of them will make it.

Nick Blevins — And then the last two steps are just onboarding and placed. And we can skip over these but we really shouldn’t because to me these two determine how long they serve.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Nick Blevins — Like if you onboard well and train well, then they serve and they get placed and they get help and you meet with them, and you know get feedback and how are they doing. Like if you do all that well, I just feel like it sets up good retention.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — Versus if they just get thrown in there I mean we we all probably experienced that on one side or the other…

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.

Nick Blevins — …where you just show up and it’s like, what am I supposed to be doing?

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, so true.

Nick Blevins — Or maybe you’ve done that to a volunteer.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — I’ve certainly done that to a volunteer. And that’s you know, sometimes they don’t survive that. You know, that they’re like oh I got to get out of here. So.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — The last two steps, I get it. They’re the easiest in some ways, but you got to be careful not to just make them too short and do too little. Like you got to interview well, gotta to vet people. Well I mean think about protecting you know, especially if you’re in kids or student ministry.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true.

Nick Blevins — And then you kind of play some well like you mentioned the shadow thing as an observation. We’ve done that too. The other thing I love is if you can get new volunteers to apprentice with existing volunteers for like four weeks.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, love that. Yep.

Nick Blevins — And I’d rather, if I had to, I’d rather leave a group empty without a leader and just make it work for four weeks so the new leader can apprentice, then to throw them in by themselves, you know.

Rich Birch — Yeah, so true.

Nick Blevins — And you know, in any example, you can put that in. I just think it helps, you know, train them up and set them up well for the long run.

Rich Birch — Well and that’s respecting, you know, respecting the leader, the the new volunteer well. It’s like hey ah we want to, you know, it’s not just that we want you to fill a slot. We say that, hey we don’t want you just to fill a slot, but the way that we prove that is when they finally say, Yes, we don’t just slot them in. We actually, you know, have a way to kind of process them and onboard them, do some training, give them some exposure, answer questions, and then ask the feedback. Hey is this, would you think now that we’ve done all this, do you think this is still good?

Nick Blevins — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Or you know should we should we find something else and be okay with that? Of those 5 steps, where are churches dropping the ball most consistently? Is it way at the beginning like they’re just not even doing the asking, or is it maybe an onboarding, or where do you see? Or is it all 5 it’s just you know consistently we’re just not doing it.

Nick Blevins — Yeah I would actually say it’s I think it is the beginning.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — Which I think is shocking, Rich. Because think about it…

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — …of all the things we just talked about, what is the easiest? Putting 500 names on a list and sending an automated email.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — That is the easiest thing. Like we worked with a leader who did one of our courses online that has the same content. And in follow-up calls, you know, she told me, hey it’s it’s not working for me. I was like okay, let’s get under the hood. Let’s it’s not exactly magic, but let’s figure it out. And I said how many volunteers do you need to recruit and I think the number was something like 30. And I said how many prospects do you have? And she said 23. I’m like okay hold on.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, hold on. Time out.

Nick Blevins — Let’s go back to the beginning.

Rich Birch — This is how math works.

Nick Blevins — 30 volunteers times yeah times 10 equals 300. You have 23 that’s definitely not going to work. And what happened was what I didn’t know was her church did like a push from stage and she got 23 filled out a card.

Rich Birch — Yeah yeah.

Nick Blevins — I said, okay, here, let me reframe this a little before you. Because in my mind when you’re talking from stage everybody in the audience is a prospect who’s not serving.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Nick Blevins — The 23 that filled it out, they’re actually now in conversation. So that’s great. They’ve I mean, you know, now my experience of course is the hit rate on those is a lot lower. I’m sure you’ve seen that too.

Rich Birch — Lower. Yes, yes.

Nick Blevins — But still, they’re in conversation. You still need another, you know, whatever 200 and whatever the math is on that in there to get to your 300 prospect level. So I told her, let’s do that, and then let’s do another call in a month. So we come back and do the next call next month. How many do you got? 47. Like she’d added like very few.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — And it turns out and it’s not all her fault. Part of it is it’s the classic example where the church didn’t have a great maintained church database. So it was not easy for her to just search for who’s not serving. I think she wasn’t sure if she could contact them. And it’s funny, Rich, how many times we run into that. We we coached a church, a very large church through this whole thing, taught their whole next gen team. We helped them kind of build the teams and the pieces of this whole framework. And then they came back and it it turns out at the same tim the campus pastors were meeting, creating a different strategy.

Rich Birch — Oh hilarious.

Nick Blevins — Basically a so a push from stage strategy.

Rich Birch — Yep yep.

Nick Blevins — Which I love. It’s great. Ah so they run in two different directions, and so this one took a back seat, which is fine. But it’s funny how many churches just in this early phase, I think is’s the easiest part of the whole thing.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Nick Blevins — And they just you just don’t contact enough people.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — You like there the rest of it I mean the conversations doing the work. The orientation. Um, it’s definitely harder. But the people don’t miss the easiest thing…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — …which I think makes the biggest difference.

Rich Birch — Well and we’ve seen, I’ve seen in other work I’ve done um, really as churches grow, as you get beyond the thousand, two thousand, three thousand – those that grow to that size get really clear around maintaining that contact information. And they they understand that that information is how we stay connected with people, and if people fall through the cracks there, that’s it’s not just like we’re losing data in a database. It’s like no, no like those are contacts that are could potentially fall out of relationship with our church, and all kinds of bad things can happen. And so we do have to get really good at that phase.

Rich Birch — I’ve also found too that there is like ah again, and I think some of it might be even a spiritual dynamic, I think the the leaders the churches that take the care of people in this way, like hey we’re going to try to contact five hundred people, hundred people, and I’ve got the names and I’m going to really diligently reach out to them and actually talk with them, and actually try to have those conversations. It’s like the Lord blesses that kind of activity, right? He’s like okay well these people are trying to care for the these. That’s a shepherd that’s trying to care for their sheep. And so like let’s make sure we send them some more sheep.

Nick Blevins — Yeah.

Rich Birch — You know because they’re ah, you know, they’re they’re caring for those people. Well we’ve obviously just scratched the surface of this. This has been fantastic I love that. I’ve got like a page of notes here are things to think about. And like oh we get ah to that’s a little different um, which is good.

Rich Birch — But what what else is covered? So this obviously just one piece of it. You talk about recruiting, training, empowering – what other kind of give us some of the the other big rocks that you’re you’re dealing with in the volunteer playbook that um, you know, that churches will find particularly helpful as they as they think about this as a resource they could potentially use?

Nick Blevins — Yeah, and I actually wrestled with the order of this book so many times, Rich, and then part of maybe that’s part of why it took me 10 years.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — But because part of me like I wanted to write it like, hey let’s start and build the foundation.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — Let’s create a healthy, let’s get your mission, vision, strategy, values. Let’s get all your volunteer systems in place. But what I of course learned, you know, doing this with other church leaders was like they just need volunteers now.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — They can’t work on these other things without this in place.

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — So I put this first in the book. And then it kind of shifts gears and you get into, Okay, let’s build your foundation. You know now that you’ve kind of plugged all the leaking holes on the ship…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — …you have enough volunteers to spend time on other things um…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — And which I mean that right there for a lot of leaders is like, you can have enough time to spend on other things? It’s like, yes, you can. You actually can. And so you know building that foundation of values and culture and mission/vision. What is that? Structuring for growth, I mean I know you’re big on this but the whole section of the book is dedicated to okay, now you have maybe you got your 50 volunteers. You have a hundred.

Rich Birch — Right, right.

Nick Blevins — You can’t lead a hundred volunteers yourself. So how do you get, I call them coaches, but you know 10 coaches to each lead 10 people…

Rich Birch — Right. Love it.

Nick Blevins — …and build that out. You know and give ministry away to them. And then I finish with, and I’m sure a lot of people would love this section first, I finish with empowering them. So kind of like think just leading volunteers. But the last section is like boosts, almost like hacks. What are the things that, you know, kind of move the needle, sometimes quickly. Think of a push from stage. Um think of students serving…

Rich Birch — Right.

Nick Blevins — …removing some competition, like different things like that that, hey, if you need a big jump in recruiting volunteers, here are some hacks you can try. Can’t do them all the time. Can’t rely on these only, which I think a lot of churches do.

Rich Birch — Right. Okay.

Nick Blevins — I kind of put it at the en. It’s like please do some of the important work first, save save the one-offs you know for the end.

Rich Birch — Right. Love it.

Nick Blevins — And that’s that’s essentially the book right there, hoping to help people you know, recruit enough volunteers to get it, you know, sustainable and then make it really healthy.

Rich Birch — So good. Well, where do we want to, ah friends, listen I think this would be a great resource here. We are in the summertime. This would be a great resource to pick up with a team and say, hey let’s look at this over the summertime. Yeah, you know I know we don’t have like lots of extra time, but it’s like a different it’s a different kind of energy going on at our churches. What if we took some time to read this together, go through it together? It’s a great resource to do use as a team, pick up some things we could try, and to try to implement even this year at our church. But where do we want to send people if they want to pick up copies? What’s kind of the best place for that?

Nick Blevins — Ah, probably I mean it’s on Amazon. it’s where you get it but volunteerplaybook.com has a page on my site where we you can get some of the all the supplemental resources too.

Rich Birch — Yep, love it.

Nick Blevins — If you like if you someone likes audio books, you can buy the physical or the Kindle copy and then get an audio version free.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Nick Blevins — You’re gonna get two for one if you like that. And my biggest recommendation for especially if you are going to do this with other people on staff or with some volunteers, or even if you do it alone, is get accountability for it.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Nick Blevins — You know I was listening to a podcast the other day, Rich, about um, what was the stat something like 5 or 10% percent of people finish an online course.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Nick Blevins — And that saddens me, as a company that has courses to help leaders.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Nick Blevins — But it’s I’ve also so I’ve also seen it, you know, sadly on our end. So That’s why we like coaching more, but you know it takes more time and costs more money. So what my recommendation is either get with your a team and meet every every week, or every other week. And you’re just talking about where are people. Here’s who I’ve contacted, here’s where they go. Ah, my staff has done that many times – it’s been really really helpful.

Nick Blevins — Or if you’re by yourself, go to your boss and say, hey, please hold me accountable. Ask me every other week how my, you know, my framework is going, how many people I have in it. Because man what a shame if we learned about it, but didn’t actually do it.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — We’d be back in the same place six months from now. You know like I need more volunteers.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Nick Blevins — And so volunteerplaybook.com has all that stuff.

Rich Birch — Love it. Well Nick, I really appreciate you being here today. Is there anywhere else we want to send people online? Obviously nickblevins.com, is there are other places we want to send people if they want to track with you or with the church that sort of thing?

Nick Blevins — Yeah, Ministry Boost is where we have all you know we have a lot of courses. It’s really geared towards next gen leaders, kids and youth pastors, and next gen pastors. But because half of our content or more is about volunteers, we get all kind of people that engage with that, from executive pastors to assimilation directors, and all those kinds of things.

Nick Blevins — And then um, yeah, if any church is looking to hire a kids or youth pastor, wants the Slingshot’s help, they can email me…

Rich Birch — Love it.

Nick Blevins — …might be able to help them out.

Rich Birch — It’s good. All right. Well thanks so much, Nick. Appreciate being here today. Cheering for you and I highly recommend folks reach out to Nick. He’s a great guy, has been in this for a while, and is super helpful when it comes to helping churches on these issues. So thanks so much thanks for being here today, sir.

Nick Blevins — You bet. Thank you, Rich.