Enlisting and Training Workers-Part 1 (Chuck Gartman)

(This is the first part of an article submitted by Chuck Gartman, Associate Pastor at First Baptist Church in Lubbock, TX and owner of Go To Youth Ministry, a consulting firm specializing in leadership development. Additional excerpts will be uploaded regularly.)

Where Are the Workers? 
If you have served on a church’s nominating committee, you have probably asked yourself this question on many occasions. Keep this principle in mind as you think about locating people to work with your youth in Sunday School: Really good Youth Sunday School takes an investment of time! It is a long process. There are no instant answers or pills that you can swallow to make it easy to find and train the workers. You have to work at it. Following are some ways for you to locate potential workers with youth in Sunday School.

• Keep your eyes and ears open for adults who seem to relate well to youth in other arenas of church life, and keep a list of those people. If you own a computer put the names of potential workers on a list in your computer and add to it as often as you can. If you don’t have a computer it is helpful to have a Potential Youth Worker file. (The point is that you should always be looking!) Once I was invited to a fundraising event. I sat at the table with the person who had invited me, and unknown to me, he had invited several others to join him at the meeting. Across the table from me sat a young couple who had just moved to our area. It wasn’t long before we were talking about what I did at the church, and their interest was piqued. I got their business cards and within a month I had invited them to attend a Potential Youth Sunday School Worker seminar. Soon they were plugged in to the 9th grade department as teachers. My eyes and ears were open for potential workers! 
• Pray that God will lead you to those who would be good workers in Youth Sunday School. A principle by which I live in youth ministry is that if God gives us the youth, He will also give us the people to work with them. Matthew 9:37-38 states, Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field (NIV). Because Jesus is concerned about our youth He gives us instructions about how to get the workers: Pray! 
• Don’t limit your search for workers to younger adults. It is true that they can relate to youth because they are not far removed from them in terms of experience, but there is a vast reservoir of workers in our churches who are older-perhaps even senior adults. Sometimes seniors have more time to spare, and they certainly are capable of as much love for teens as other adults. Two of the best workers I have ever had were in their seventies, and the youth not only loved them, they couldn’t wait to be in their departments. These two adults were not begging to work with youth, but they were waiting for someone to ask them. I did, and they were willing to do it. Look for potential workers in unusual places like the senior adult department. 
• Ask your current workers for the names of persons who might be good youth workers. Their friends just might be the ones you need for a particular department or class. 
• Check with your youth. See if there are people in the church whom they admire and would like to have working with them. If we really believe that youth are members of the body of Christ, this would be a great way of acknowledging that fact and at the same time getting workers to work with them. 
• Parents are another source where you might discover folks to work with youth. Some of them want to know what is going on in the Youth Division of your church and they might be willing workers. 
• Look back over your sponsor list for youth activities. Many who are willing to go on trips as chaperones and sponsors would also be willing to work with youth on a regular basis. 
• Youth Vacation Bible School workers often are another resource for Youth Sunday School workers. Sometimes when working on a short-term basis they get “bitten by the bug,” and decide they would like to work with teens in Youth Sunday School. 
• Study the rolls of adult Sunday School classes to see who is active and faithful. There may be a person there who is waiting to be asked to work with your teens. 
• Consider having a church-wide survey in conjunction with other age groups to discover potential workers. Include on the survey a space where members might suggest names of other people who have an interest in youth. 
• Think creatively of other ways to find those people in your church who are potential workers in Youth Sunday School.