Human Resource Development LC Summary

I created this learning contract so I could learn “at least three strategies for training a volunteer technical team.” I have worked with my church for two and a half years to establish their “video ministry,” which involves capturing the activities in the Worship Center on video, as well as projecting lyrics to worship songs using PowerPoint screens. The original vision for my position was one of “volunteer coordinator,” and the hours dedicated to the position (both in terms of compensation and my available time to serve) were based on that plan. However, when I cannot find or schedule appropriate volunteers, I need to perform the work myself, which inhibits my ability to do other projects for the ministry (and, during particularly busy weeks, inhibits my ability to do much of anything else).

I knew going in to this project that there would be some interesting and unique aspects to supporting volunteers in a church. Volunteers in any organization, unlike paid employees, have no base-line compensation to “fall back on” for motivation; their dedication is based solely on the satisfaction derived from the work they can perform. In this sense, the directives of Douglas McGregor are particularly important; unfulfilled volunteers would have absolutely no reason to stay on as “employees” of the organization. The traditional twin-tactics of increased compensation and threat of dismissal are meaningless. Conversely, the effort of groups of Christians in a church carries with it a built-in satisfaction that the work is in gratitude to the One who gave us eternal salvation. In some ways, external motivation is unnecessary; volunteering in the church is serving God, and most Christians already have a strong desire to serve Him.

Regardless of this combined challenge and predisposition toward motivation, I knew that my volunteer team needed help of some kind. One of the first things I realized when reviewing my original learning contract was that the notion of “three training strategies” was really too narrow. My team’s survey comments revealed many insights about their needs, but those needs fell into a much broader category of “development”. Training is certainly a part of development, but the ideas I encountered go far beyond mere “training” – and I know I would not have encountered those ideas without three key strategies for building a volunteer team.

Strategy #1: Ask them! Without a shadow of a doubt, the best results I gained from this project were from asking my team what they wanted. Gleaning ideas from both my Human Resource Development and Adult Learning classes, I decided that a simple, direct, honest, and brief request would be effective, and it was. On the nine people on my “mailing list”, seven of them are regular volunteer participants. (The other two have expressed an interest in the ministry but have not yet gotten “plugged in”; determining a good method to follow up with them would be another excellent project for me… but that is for a later date and time.) Of those seven regular participants, all but one responded to my request. The method was so effective that I think it bears quoting here to illustrate my approach:

From: Larson, Eric M.

Subject: Ultra-Brief Survey

Hi, team! I need a couple minutes from each of you to answer the following questions. I'm working on a project to improve our Berean Video Ministry team and your "volunteer experience", and I really don't know what you need or want unless I ask you. :) So, if you could shoot me an e-mail back a.s.a.p. with responses to these four questions below, I'd really appreciate it.

No deep pondering required -- I just want your "gut feel" here. And feel free to be 100% honest; I know there are many things I need to work on, and there aren't any comments you could come up with that would hurt my feelings. This feedback will just serve to focus my efforts more, so I'm working on what you really need instead of what I think you need.

If, for some reason, you want to be totally anonymous, you're welcome to jot your responses down and toss it in my mail slot (located on the wall behind the baptistry)... but, as I say, there's no reason not to go ahead and click Reply -- do it now, while you're thinking about it. :)

Without further ado, here are your questions:

1) Why do you participate in the Video Ministry?

2) What did/do you find frustrating or challenging about the Video Ministry?

3) How can your experience with the Video Ministry be made better or more fulfilling?

4) Anything else I should know?

Thanks again for all your work, and for your open and honest answers to these questions. See you soon, and God Bless!

---Eric L.

In hindsight, I missed a tremendous opportunity for good input: there is very little notion of “Appreciative Inquiry” in my request. Questions 1 and 4 are emotionally neutral, and questions 2 and 3 have a clear negative tone (asking what are the problems, and how can things be made better, thus implying that improvement is necessary). These questions are not bad ones, but I regret not having included the simple question of, “What do you like most about the Berean Video Ministry?”

Despite this minor reservation, I was very excited to see the responses I received. Upon review, I found three clear themes of “need” within the ministry. First, volunteers want clear instructions about how the equipment works. This was a known need, and I have been working on documenting our procedures and writing up guides and manuals. I was pleased to find that several volunteers wanted additional instructions, not because they felt unsure about the tasks they must now accomplish, but because they wanted to expand their work and do even more for the ministry. This made me realize that, by not following through with documentation I already knew was necessary, I am not only hindering present work in the ministry but am closing the doors to future expansion, innovation and participation.

The second theme I discovered was a frustration with the “unexpected” – when our worship leader sings an unanticipated verse, or when a pastor wanders away from the pulpit. I can bring these concerns to the pastors involved, and raise their awareness of the needs of the video volunteers in these situations. Fortunately, the responses I received from my volunteers were very mature and accepting of the fact that we cannot plan for every contingency, and that surprise reactions are just “part of the job”.

Finally, a third theme appeared in several responses, and it surprised me greatly. People care about their physical environment – care enough to mention it as a challenge or specifically comment positively on it as it has been improved. I never realized that things like temperature or clutter mattered to someone who would be in a particular environment for only an hour or two per month… but it does matter, at least to some, and improving the environment is an easy change for me to effect. Had I not explicitly asked my team what they cared about, this concern would never have surfaced, and I would have never anticipated it as a need. This discovery alone showed me the power of developing a clear, concise survey and encouraging open, honest responses.

Strategy #2: Ask Others. My interview with Steve Racz, the manager of our church’s audio volunteers (a parallel to my video work), revealed something that, initially, was counter-intuitive to me but which I came to realize jibed perfectly with good Human Resource Development tactics. The recurring theme of his comments was to keep volunteers involved. Where I had initially set up my ministry to minimize the “burden” that any one volunteer needed to take, Steve’s success lay in the exact opposite method:

Keep them involved, beyond just the worship center responsibility, in all the other activities going on in the church – family events, banquets, weddings. Keep them beyond the worship center “proper”; try to build their skills with other equipment. (Keep) them motivated and involved in other things; I think they would lose interest if they only did it once a month. (S. Racz, personal interview, April 21, 2002)

As more and more video needs arise in our church, this is an easy directive to accomplish, and I now see its value: Volunteers are working in the church because they see their work as having a purpose; additional work is not a burden but an opportunity for even greater service. The additional benefit of this involvement is that, to alter an old cliché, “familiarity breed comfort”. The more experience that volunteers gain with the tasks, equipment, and situations they find common in their work, the less anxiety they will feel when serving and the better the result they will produce.

Strategy #3: Ask Experts. Unfortunately, this was the most disappointing of the approaches I took. I had expected this learning contract to be a fairly straightforward “research project” where I could track down materials from other organizations and apply them to my needs. In reality, that was not the case. There might be a hidden treasure-trove of insight available, but I did not discover it; perhaps that was because the insights I discovered within my own team and co-workers were so beneficial that I did not have the motivation to seek out even more. That does not mean, however, that I was blind to the teaching and advice of others – I discovered some interesting suggestions that, in the near future, I hope to implement.

The closest reference I have seen to “career development” in church volunteers came from John Lugo, Director of Creative Arts at Bethel Church of San Jose. During the videoconference “Expanding the Vision, Technology in Worship” from the Church Communication Network, Lugo explained that there are three new ministry opportunities in church video ministry: the “computer genius”, the graphic artist, and the photography. (Cheifet, 2002) These three skill-sets can combine to enliven video and PowerPoint-based worship music with images that express the emotional content of the material being conveyed. Our particular church is not at a point where this kind of initiative is feasible (and Lugo validated this by emphasizing, “Don’t create a monster you can’t feed”). However, I found it encouraging to see that other churches have faced the same “career development” challenges as I have felt in my work, and was glad to learn that there are “career paths” for both the volunteers themselves and the video ministry as a whole.

Finally, I discovered the Volunteer Development resource from Building Church Leaders. This 16-page booklet (available in a convenient electronic download) provided some useful tidbits of advice (“3 Myths about Christian Service”, “In Pursuit of the Perfect Training” and “3 Ways to Get People Involved”) too numerous to outline here. (Wilde, 2000). This resource, along with the web site of its publisher, had the added benefit of Biblical background and justification for its Human Resource Development advice, which seems particularly important when implementing “programs” in the context of a Christian ministry.

In closing, I am extremely pleased with how this learning contract developed. I approached it with some apprehension, as I am not an “HRD practitioner” and I wondered what relevance the notion of human resource development (as formal, official “HRD”) might have in my life. I was heartened to discoverer that the HRD philosophy I have been immersed in all semester could be applied immediately to some real-world concerns in my volunteer team, and am looking forward to moving ahead and implementing the changes that I now see are necessary.