Stimulating Meetings

I’m in TX right now co-keynoting with my dad at a conference for the Baptist General Convention of Texas. It’s kinda fun sharing the stage with my dad, talking about recruiting, training and managing this “New Breed” (the title of our book together) of volunteers in ministry today.

My dad just posted a new Feature Article on his free Volunteer Power website, an article about how to run a stimulating and motivating meeting with your staff, paid and unpaid. Here’s just a glimpse:

A great way to start the New Year is with energizing and stimulating staff meetings. Actually, invigorating staff meetings are great any time of the year, but I am always looking for ways to engage my paid and non-paid staff in a productive discussion to set the tone and opportunities for the new year. The rousing discussion part is not hard because most people are ready to share their opinions on most topics. What proves to be a constant challenge is the productive part. Leaders strive to have each participant walk away with some significant “take-aways that they are motivated to put to immediate use.

One way to focus your discussion is to hand out a relevant, short, informational, and motivating discussion starter. Give each staff member five to ten minutes to read the hand-out at the beginning of the meeting. A couple of years ago I had the staff over to my home for the morning. After I served them food, I handed out a short article with a few discussion questions. I was lucky in that we had a wonderful warm day (rare in Northern California for January) and they spread out all over the back yard to read and reflect. I encouraged them to mark up the article, question it, underline and circle sections or key thoughts. Then they took another ten minutes…

Good stuff. Click here for the whole article.

This reminds me of the some of the training tool ideas we offered you on this page, How to Train Your Own Volunteers. Hopefully both of these are good resources for you as you seek to equip your team in 2011.