3 Ways Internet Ministry Can Boost Volunteer Opportunities in Your Church

Getting people involved in the work of the church is often difficult.

Sometimes, existing volunteer opportunities just don’t speak to people who might be interested in getting involved.

Technology opens new opportunities not only for the pastor and staff, but also for volunteering within the entire church.

Unless a church is blessed with a communications staff, it is likely the workload associated with online communication and internet outreach is best performed jointly by pastoral or other staff.

Not only is it simply too much work to be performed entirely by a pastor, but not all the work requires his involvement. The rest can very easily and appropriately be picked up by others.

Consider building a volunteer team to help with these other tasks. You may find there are those eager to assist in online work. Some will be motivated to help their church improve its online activity. Others will look to be able to do volunteer work from the convenience of home. Still others may look to boost their own online skills. Here are three ideas for your church to recruit volunteers.

Not everything posted online needs to be produced by ministerial staff.

Many people in a church have knowledge that could be written about or the ability to research or investigate topics that can be written about.

Volunteers can produce content in a variety of subjects of interest to the community for outreach or on topics of interest to fellow church members.

Either way, writing material significantly helps your church’s online presence. You’ll also see the side benefits of giving people opportunities to have their voices heard and the satisfaction that comes with adding value to the church (especially when doing online outreach).

Volunteers can write articles on either a periodic or occasional basis, depending on what they’re able to commit to. Having the option to commit only to occasional articles may get those not eager to commit to more frequent material.

Editing helps make your online efforts effective. Not all writers have the same skills. A good editor can correct, trim, tweak and adjust until the material is just right for the material’s audience.

Their job is to look everything over to make sure that it looks good and everything is in the right place and to help make the church’s “voice” consistent.

This may sound like a small job (and can be, depending on the writer), but it is very important. How many of us have cringed when we’ve seen our church publish material that clearly hadn’t been reviewed but needed to have been.

The great part about it is that it requires very little technical or internet expertise, regardless of whether the online destination is your web site, a Facebook Page or Twitter.

An editor can also oversee the whole process and work to make content more engaging by adding photos and other techniques.

One of the hardest parts about social media or running a website where commenting and feedback is encouraged is the work to keep up with everyone. Responding to comments, answering questions, and fostering conversation takes time, especially when doing outreach.

Fostering interaction is central to a church’s success on social media. Social media only works when there is interaction. Volunteers who take this on perform a critical task for the church. For outreach ministries, this interaction builds interest and trust between the church and those the church is trying to reach. Even when fostering only internal communication, the volunteers help keep members from feeling isolated and thus more engaged with their church.

The high level of interaction with others and the results of that interaction can provide a great deal of volunteer satisfaction. It’s one of the neatest ways to see just how much of a difference your church makes in people’s lives.

These are great opportunities to get people involved in your church. It’s easy to downplay online work as just “messing around with computers”, but it is vital to realize the importance of these jobs and thus also important to get the right people into these roles. Training and close collaboration is important so that the church presents a consistent message and voice online. I also recommend oversight of the material published in the church’s name. All this allows your church to rest easy knowing that the church’s views and message are being expressed as intended.

One of the hardest parts of ministry is realizing that the whole church is together in ministry and then acting on it. When people are actually given the opportunity to speak for the church it can give a great sense of unity. People can express their knowledge and views in articles, they can use their editing skills to present material online and they can use their social skills to reach out to others.

Having volunteers supporting your online presence makes your online ministry easier and more effective. It can become a vibrant ministry that people inside and outside your church go to for the message they need.