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January 14, 2019
Encouraging Millennials to volunteer is a mixed experience for church leaders. For many church leaders, they are discouraged when it comes to getting Millennials involved. For other church leaders, they have had success connecting Millennials to the life of their church.
Regardless of your experience, it’s vital for the longevity of your church to encourage Millennials to volunteer. Millennials are the largest living generation in the United States, which means you need to have a strategy (like yesterday) to lead Millennials to volunteer.
To help you along your way, here are five ways you can encourage Millennials to volunteer at your church.
#1. Lead with purpose
Millennials are more inclined to support causes; not specific organizations. Practically speaking, as you strive to encourage Millennials to volunteer, connect with their passion for working with specific causes, which leads us to the next point.
#2. Share stories
Millennials tend to be pragmatic. They want to see how your church is practically extending the love of Christ to your church members, community, and around the world.
To illustrate God's work in and through your church, you can do several things, such as: Encourage the members of your church to share how God transformed their life, highlight stories from different ministries of your church, and invite missionaries or leaders or volunteers of community services to share stories.
Sharing stories will illustrate God’s work in the life of individuals and his work through the church in the community, which will help Millennials to see that their efforts are not in vain.
#3. Provide ongoing opportunities
InThe Millennial Impact Report, the researchers discovered that Millennials prefer to volunteer on a continuum basis. In other words, Millennials desire to engage in many different ways instead of serving in one ongoing position.
To meet this need among Millennials, be open to providing opportunities to volunteer that don’t require additional training, short-term opportunities to serve, such as a few days or for a few weeks a year, and digital opportunities, like helping your church to raise money online.
#4. Make volunteering wholistic
In a healthy trend, Millennials view their life holistically. In general, Millennials prefer for everything they do to connect with their vision and aspirations for life. To tap into this desire, you can do two things as a church leader.
First, Millennials are more likely to volunteer when they can use their skills. In The Millennial Impact Report from 2015, they shared that “77% of millennials said they’re more likely to volunteer when they can use their specific skills or expertise to benefit a cause.” So, to encourage Millennials to volunteer, find ways to connect volunteer opportunities to their skills.
Second, Millennials are interested in self-improvement. As a church leader, you can connect with this aspiration among Millennials by challenging them to learn new skills and face unique challenges in new volunteer opportunities.
#5. Hire Millennials
This year, Elevation Church was considered one of the 100 Best Workplaces for Millennials. At the time of this survey, Elevation Church employed 165 Millennials, which makes up 80% of their entire staff.
After observing Elevation Church’s work and staff, Brady Shearer of Pro Church Tools said, “If you want to reach Millennials, then you need to hire Millennials.”
To move your church in this direction, create volunteer leadership opportunities for Millennials, and hire them as you are able. Having Millennials on your staff will not only help your church reach other Millennials, but it will also help you to encourage Millennials to volunteer.
How do you encourage Millennials in your church to volunteer? Share your experience in the comments below.