How to Create A Volunteer Job Description

Photo by Elissa Garcia on Unsplash

Let’s imagine that through very little work of your own you had 30 new volunteers show up in your ministry on the same day. Do you know where you’d put them? Do you know what job you’d give them to do? How would you onboard them to make sure they understand the mission and vision of your ministry?

Asking these kinds of questions helps you see the holes in your ministry. And what you need to work on to get to that next level.

In a previous post, I talked about building your ministry for growth you can read that here. In that post, I talked about creating a flowchart to see where your volunteer holes are and where to fill them.

But when you put new volunteers in their positions, the next question they’re going to ask is, “What am I supposed to do?”

This is where job descriptions come in.

If you’ve ever worked in the corporate world (in my case, retail) you’ve seen these before. Hopefully, you were given one when you were hired because they help you know what you’re supposed to do and how you know you’re being successful.

Your volunteers need one too.

Having a job description will help you recruit, train, and retain volunteers. The ministries where I’ve put these in place have very low turnover and my volunteers are happy as they serve in their gifts and callings.

An effective job description should give your volunteer all the expectations of the position and allow them to decide if they can do it or not.

To help you create your own effective job description here are 5 things they all need.

Leave me a comment and I’ll be happy to send you a template so you can create your own.

1. Definition of the role

We in church world love to come up with fancy names for things that don’t really mean much to the outsider. Jobs like Dream Team Coordinator or Connection Leader may not mean much to the uninitiated. You may find the role unfilled because no one knows what the job entails.

The first section needs to be a description of the overall role and your first chance to cast vision for what the position is to accomplish. It answers the question “What is this role?”

Recently, I created one for our welcome booth team. It states:

A greeter at the Welcome Booth is the first person a guest will experience in our ministry. The greeter will assure guests feel welcome and are connected to the best place for their entire family.

If my volunteer forgets everything else in this document, I want them to remember this definition. Try to keep this section down to one or two sentences. This makes it clear, concise, and easy to remember. It may be the hardest part of writing the document.

2. Purpose

While the definition casts vision for the role, this section answers the question, “What problem am I solving?” The goal is to layout general expectations for the ministry and the church. Don’t limit this section to just the people they serve. 

As with the definition of the role, try to keep this brief. I usually have 2-3 bullet points for each role with one to two sentences each. For my kids’ small groups my purpose section looks like this:

Purpose:

• Participate with Team members in ministering to children in a specific age(s)/grade(s).
• Foster a positive learning environment
• Help children grow in their relationship with God, their families and other children.
• Encourage personal and spiritual growth among fellow Team members

3. Overall responsibilities

This section outlines the duties the volunteer needs fulfill even when they’re not serving. It's very generalized and many of the responsibilities are copy/pasted into each serving position. Talk about the overall behaviors and requirements to serve, such as the expectations for the minimum number of times a volunteer needs to serve in a month.

This is also where I put the universal requirements for serving at the church including attending or leading an adult small group, serving as a Godly role model, and recruiting other team members.

A few of my overall responsibilities for a Team Leader are:

Overall Responsibilities:

• Nurture a life-giving atmosphere within your team and those you serve.
• Participate through active involvement with other Team members and attendees.
• Lead and support the other Team members on your team.
• Build relationships with your team by regularly asking questions about work, family, ministry, life and walk with God.
• Encourage your team through calls, texts, emails, and/or cards
• Clearly communicate vision, information and logistics to Team members and correct them when there is a failure
• Spend time with your team outside of a ministry environment
• Encourage and pray for other members of your team and guests who come to Evangel.
• Serve as a Godly role model.

4. Weekly Responsibilities

This section gets into the nitty gritty. It's where I answer the question, “What am I supposed to do when I serve?”

Talk about when you want your volunteers to arrive, what they’re supposed to do when they get there and what kind of prep they need to do before they arrive. This can be as long or as short as you want it to be, but the more specific you can be the better.

Don’t focus on outcomes, which will be in the next section, rather focus on behaviors and activities that will create them. Do you want your media team to arrive early and turn everything on? Do you want your worship team to practice before the service? Do you want your small group leaders to have all their materials set before their teaching time? This is where you list those responsibilities.

For reference, these weekly responsibilities for my kids worship team:

Weekly Responsibilities

• Review services schedule during the week, when it is received.
• Arrive at least 30 minutes prior to the start of the service to pray and plan.
• Arrive 30 minutes prior to the start of service for your Team member meeting and team prayer time.
• Lead kids and adults throughout the song portion of the worship experience.
• Purposefully focus on smiling and exhibiting joy throughout entire worship experience.

5. Results

This section is easy to skip but may be just as important as the definition of the role. This is where your volunteers can discover if they’re being successful. It answers the question “How do I know I’m winning?”

Not every result needs to be quantifiable, but it does need to be specific enough that a volunteer can leave knowing they were successful. 

For example, a successful ministry coordinator will have a steady number of new volunteers coming out of our assimilation classes and the pre-service meetings are well attended and dynamic.

It’s easy to measure how many people are coming out of the classes or attending the pre-service meeting. However, determining if the meeting is dynamic is less tangible, but you’ll know if the meeting is or not.

Measuring these results not only helps the volunteer know if they’re winning, it helps you identify if they’re in the right place.

I had one volunteer who really wanted to teach the Bible story in Kidmin. They had shown some promise early on, however, after several months of filling the role, we were both frustrated. They knew they weren’t doing well or meeting expectations. Thankfully, because it was clear to both of us they weren’t meeting expectations, the conversation wasn’t awkward. As a result, I was able to place them in a role where they truly fit in and were happy.

Having a job description for each of your volunteer positions helps you place and retain one of your most precious commodities. It’s not always easy to recruit, but if you know what you’re looking for, it’ll be that much easier.

If you’d like my job description template I use for every position in the church, leave me a comment, and I’ll be happy to share.