While I was reading, Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders (click on the link to read my book review), one of the questions I wanted answered through the book was this one, “What is the best way to empower volunteer leaders?” After all, volunteer leaders are critical to the health of a church and really, any organization that is dependent on volunteers. Personally, instead of merely delegating tasks, I have found that volunteer retention and satisfaction is higher when they are empowered to a role with responsibilities.
Through my reading of Sanders’ book, I came to the conclusion that prayer needs to be the driving force behind the searching for and empowering of volunteer leaders, as one discovers in Matt 9:37-38. After all, God is the one who prepares, calls, anoints, uses, and replaces individuals in leadership. When empowering volunteer leaders, one should never merely delegate the task. One also needs to delegate the responsibility and authority to do the task, otherwise, one is asking the volunteer leader to merely be a pawn. In addition, when volunteer leaders feel supported, they develop greater confidence to do their role, which then leads to a greater sense of satisfaction in their role. Furthermore, instead of merely asking volunteer leaders to do any sort of task and fill any sort of role, it is important to base their role on their talents. In accordance with 2 Tim 2:2, the end goal of empowering volunteer leaders needs to be the empowerment of more volunteer leaders. “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” (2 Timothy 2:2)
What are your thoughts? How do you best empower volunteer leaders?