Taking Your Adult Volunteers to the Next Level

By Doug Franklin February 3, 2010

You’ve chosen the right adult volunteers and you have told them everything they need to know about leading students, but they are missing something special, something intangible , something that would make them stellar.

You want to mentor them, you want them to grow as people.

When I think about mentoring my staff, I think about teaching a set of life principals. These principals can be applied in any situation. Here are just three.

Live in an upside down triangle
When you live at the bottom of a triangle everything in your life is less about you and more about others. The more you do for others the greater your life becomes. You practice humility, you’re teachable and you place more value on others than yourself. You come to find that your life is always getting greater, never reaching a point of conclusion. Luke 6:24

Live free of disappointment
When you do everything with excellence, you never have to worry about disappointment. You’ll never wish you could have it back and you’ll never blame yourself. If you always ask yourself how can I improve tomorrow. You will never have to think “what if”. If you do these things, then you can dream about the greatest goals you’ll do for God. I love to wonder in the possibilities, to think about what God will do in me and through me. Matthew 5

Live without a safety net
We love to play defense, We will guard and defend stupid ideas just because they’re ours. When we think small, we do small. When we think big, we do big. When we risk, we learn. The very moment we remove our safety net is the first step toward living the way God intended us to live. This way of living requires me to trust God more than I trust myself. I stop living for me and I start living for Him. This is when life is good. Hebrews 12

Growing our staff is never easy, we train, read and attend conferences but when we get down to it we want our adult volunteers to mature in ministry. The best way to do that is in relationship. When I share these principles, I do it one on one. We talk through how I have learned these principles and the mistakes I have made. Life-on-life discipleship will grow your adults faster and deeper than anything else you can imagine.