Insights from a 100% volunteer sign-up in our One Program
☹️ What happened when we changed our 4 week assimilation program to 1 week
🎙 The first thing we tried
🎨 The second thing we tried
🤗 The result
By now, most of you have heard that after years of offering a 4-week assimilation program called Next Steps, we launched a 1 week version of this program called First Step that concludes by inviting people to serve on a ministry team (click here for why I wanted to do that and my best recommendations for content).
But what you may not have heard is that the results were less than what we wanted to see for the first 7 months.
Our goal was that 50% of those attending would get placed on a team. That would require at least 75% or more to sign up. Our actuals were 40%-52% for 6 of the first 7 months.
Our staff team, with input from key volunteers, brainstormed solutions and we decided to pick 2 of the easiest, low prep ones to quickly road test to see if it would move the needle at one of our campuses in December.
Imagine our shock when we had 100% of those attending fill out an interest form to serve!
Here are the 2 things we did:
Change the target of the stage announcement.
One of the issues our volunteer team at First Step were pointing out was that we had the right “Ask” (join a ministry team) at the wrong time in the relationship (kinda like meeting the parents on a first date). We literally had people attending First Step on their first day at our church!
We felt that If we could “qualify our leads” by inviting people who were further down the road with us relationally, we would see more of them say yes to the invitation to serve.
So we changed the announcement.
We were saying things like, “If you’ve been new here for a while, come to First Step”. In December we said, “If you’re ready to make our church your home, come to First Step”.
Our Table Coaches said that instead of their tables being filled with people in their first 3 weeks with us, they were filled with people who were at our church for 3 months to one year.
I believe this directly contributed to their readiness to say “yes” to serving on a team.
Add a creative and motivating element to the program.
By popular demand of our volunteer team, we brought back the Community Ball activity. This activity not only engages any group you do it with, but it illustrates the power of connection like nothing else I’ve seen.
When we brought it back though, we added 2 new applications that illustrated why serving could be your best play in making new connections with others at church. We did it just before our pastor’s 9 minutes video where he cast a vision for serving as their best First Step in connecting with us.
The result was that in 2 different sessions (one as small as 6 people and the other with 3 full tables) and with different hosts leading, everyone in the room signed an interest form to volunteer.
The size of the attendance didn’t matter. Who led from up front didn’t matter. We believe these 2 easy changes made an unexpected difference.
We will see how other campuses fare as we incorporate these 2 elements and I’ll keep you posted on what we learn!
See you on the Climb,
If you were to further define who you really want to see at your One Program for guests, how would you specify that target?
What is a simple decision you could make that would qualify the guest leads at your One Program? (announcements, agenda, mechanics of response, giveaways, written communication, etc). Which one will you pick first and where will you try it?
Is there a creative element or activity that you think could move more people to sign up to serve?
