Sunday, November 30, 2008

Power of the ask

Yesterday i was thinking about my times at Beach Mission and, for the purposes of the post, how i got there. The answer, in short, is that i was asked.

For a while i was against Beach Mission as a place to meet your future life partner and blow a week beach side. Then i was asked to go and i said ok...

The whole episode makes me wonder about how we often seek volunteers in church. Often we just announce that we need help and take anyone who obliges. We cast the net and we accept whatever we drag back in...

But i think that we would get better results if we ditched this policy and focused our volunteer recruitment to "the ask." First of all, this is way more personal and valuing to the person that is asked. Second, you are able to gain people who you are actually desiring to be a part of the ministry.

Sure, you can be surprised by red herrings who crawl out of the woodwork and turn out to be amazing. And sure, the people you are after could volunteer anyway... but why risk it?

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