Growth Plan for Adult Volunteers

By Doug Franklin October 27, 2009

Adult volunteers need a leader to give them a growth plan. Lots of thought is put into helping your students grow, but have you ever thought about helping your adults grow? Often when I’m around youth workers I like to ask about their adult volunteers and where they are spiritually. It surprises me how often most youth workers don’t know the spiritual condition of their adult leaders and how most don’t have a plan to help them grow.

Try these three steps to helping your adults grow:

Ask
Boldly ask them where there are at spiritually. Don’t shuffle your feet and sort of ask. Ask with boldness because the way you ask them will influence how they are going to ask students. Get the subject on the table, don’t judge and don’t take Sunday school answers either. Adults can be vague just like students. Tell them about how much you care about them and be encouraging. To be honest I don’t think what they answer matters. If they are going through a dry time, it’s OK we all do. If they are luke warm, it’s understandable because we’ve all been there. The point is for them to be open with you making spiritual discussions commonplace in your ministry. This also gives you the ability to offer help.

Assess
So often we listen closely to what students are saying, things which give us a clue to where they are at or how they are growing. Listen to your adults in the same way; what kind of stories are they telling and what are they watching on TV? Is there spiritual fruit from their ministry? Do students tell you of impact from the adults? All of this information will help you formulate a plan to help your adults.

Accountable
Once you know where they are at you can offer to help. By helping it might be a word every month or it might be sitting down with them and praying together once a week. It can be different for everyone. They might even be a big help to you in this area as well. We all struggle at times with our spiritual growth. If you have a large staff of adults you may need to get some extra help in this area. There may be some long-term folks in your ministry that could help.