Our Team is Growing!

This past week I had the privilege of bringing two new church partners on to our YM team!  The interview time with them reminded me of our history as a youth ministry as well as our future.
I pray this means that God is about to grow our group some more.  It's not about the numbers but each number is a student who is being reached with the love and good news of Jesus Christ.
Our current student to youth minister ratio is about 5 to 1.   That's  pretty good!

Some suggestions for interviewing new team members:

1.  Have an application - you need all their important contact info.  Our application also includes space for them to share their faith story as well as why they feel God would have them to serve on the team.

2.  Clearly defined expectations and job description.  (our team members serve each and every Sunday night)

3.  Background check. (a step in protecting students and team members) 

4.  A signed covenant.  (expectations we agree on)

5.  Get some references - especially important if they are new to you or your congregation.   We ask for a reference from their previous pastor.  This could give good insight into who they are as a person and also help prevent any future conflict.

6.  Spend some time meeting with them.  At our interview last week I shared:
> our history
> our expectations
> teaming with parents
> our strategy
> our philosophy

7.  Find out a little about their personality type.  It really helps if your team can gel and understanding how we are each "wired" can be a huge step in that direction.

8.  Pray together

9.  Introduce the new team members to the rest of the team.

10.  Training.  Much of our training is "on the job" but I also send our team articles to read and we get together each week before youth group to run through our "game plan" for the night.  Once a year we have a team retreat to get together and have fun together and learn together.

If your volunteers fill the role of chaperone it may be time to come up with a new approach to youth ministry.  Some training for your volunteers, sit down with them and hash out the expectations.  Cast vision for what their role is and why they are so vital to the youth ministry.