How to Fire a Volunteer in Children’s Ministry

After you’ve done all you can to equip an ineffective volunteer, how do you know when it’s time to move — or even fire — the person?

Fire a volunteer? You’ve got to be kidding!

In all my conversations with children’s ministers, we rarely talk about releasing volunteers. Instead, we talk about getting volunteers. After debating our approaches to recruiting staff, we end up agreeing that volunteer apathy and busyness have left us a little short on our volunteer rosters. Firing a volunteer rarely comes up.

However, every volunteer may not fulfill our goals for children’s ministry. Some people may only understand the basic mechanics of a classroom, while ministry goals include a deeper commitment to discipleship and relationship. This scenario is minimally harmful. In other cases, an ineffective volunteer may adversely affect many aspects of children’s spiritual growth and kidmin programs.

We must consider and deal with the long-range implications of who’s leading our kids. Take a look at three approaches often used to fire a volunteer: the passive approach, the aggressive approach, and the balanced approach. Which best describes your current strategy?

The Passive Approach

The passive approach basically takes a pass on responsibility. Avoidance comes with a high cost for your program, staff morale, and children’s welfare. Passive volunteer managers might use any of these three tactics.

1. Waiting for God

I know God cares about ministry to kids and is interested in our ministry teams. However, throughout my ministry life, I’ve heard people say, “Let God take care of it.” Perhaps with an unspoken, “So I won’t have to.” Passive leaders think, “If I just pray hard enough, maybe the person will leave.”

I used this tactic early in my ministry. Parents told me that their kids wouldn’t come back as long as I had a certain person as a helper. I sought God for guidance and prayed aggressively—for a while. When I finally got up enough courage, I made an appointment to ask this person to take a break. It can be tempting and more comfortable to hope things will work out, but the kids in our ministries need us to advocate for them. And it’s our responsibility to make any difficult but necessary changes.

2. Setting Up to Fail

I’ve been surprised on occasion to hear ministry leaders speak of some team members as incompetent, uncommitted, and ineffective. In reality, perhaps these people were placed in ministry positions and circumstances that set them up for failure. For example, one person can’t handle 30 three-year-olds, and it’s difficult to run a snack time for 200 kids with no budget! These are no-win situations.

Rather than identifying the actual problem, a passive leader will blame the struggling volunteer. The passive leader would rather a person continue down the road to failure than to intervene and help the volunteer succeed. This tactic intensifies failure and frustrates people into quitting.

3. Leaving Them Alone

The passive leader may isolate a volunteer to a “ministry island.” The leader stops communicating, sharing a vision, and building any type of nurturing relationship. It’s much like the disengaging “quiet firing” tactic sometimes seen in workplaces. Finally, the volunteer steps aside, and whatever problem the leader perceived is seemingly solved.

Current recruiting can be short-circuited in a church where this type of isolation is or has been used. It’s hurtful. When volunteers are wounded as they serve, they’ll be hesitant to return to ministry—even with a new leader in place.

The Aggressive Approach

Here are two kinds of aggressive firings that can happen in churches. Both are destructive.

1. In Your Face

Shouting, flailing hands, stomping out of the room—does this sort of behavior have positive results anywhere, let alone in children’s ministry? Arguably, no. Yet this behavior exists in some ministries. An angry leader who uses this tactic—and these leaders do exist in churches—alienates volunteers by the “you do it my way or no way” stance.

2. Behind Your Back

Many aggressive actions happen behind the scenes as the leader complains about a volunteer to others. Gossip, backbiting, forming cliques, or otherwise undermining a person instead of speaking with them directly. The leader may even “rally the troops” to take his or her side against the volunteer. Eventually, the volunteer hears about the leader’s disapproval and ends up leaving (or forming an opposing alliance). With time, this approach destroys a children’s ministry’s team culture.

The Balanced Approach

While passive leaders may wait too long to let someone go, aggressive leaders wound people in their wake. Finding a balanced approach to firing a volunteer requires the following proven management principles…and God’s help.

1. Clear Communication

As children’s ministry leaders, we must clearly communicate our vision, our core values, and the means to accomplish our ministry. Lack of communication about expectations is a consistent issue in struggling children’s ministries.

Many possibilities exist for poor communication, such as understating our expectations to get the person on our team. The person’s busyness (or ours) blocks our efforts to clearly communicate. We assume our volunteer understands the things we do. Our communication models are out of date and weak. Or our new volunteer has a preconceived and incorrect idea of ministry that’s quite different from our approach.

This communication disconnect is often the main reason for ineffective ministry performance. In the balanced method of firing a volunteer, it’s wise to explore if communication was an issue, and then take responsibility for misunderstandings.

2. Honesty and Integrity

A balanced approach to letting someone go needs to include an honest discussion. We might be tempted to stray from the real issues, but this only distorts our task.

In my experience in relating to volunteers, honesty is always the best way to proceed. It’s critical because you want the person to clearly understand the reason they’re being asked to leave the ministry.

3. Opportunity for Growth

Graciously offer people a chance to learn and grow through the separation, and ask yourself how you can improve too.  A casual visit about the issues that brought you to this point is necessary, but don’t spend your entire time discussing shortcomings. Identify the person’s contributions, observed strengths, and help him or her look forward.

4. Focus on People Succeeding

Almost 20 years ago, I accepted a position as a children’s pastor at a church in San Diego. My senior pastor took time to tell me in those first hours of our relationship that I could be successful, and he outlined levels of support that existed for me. I spent 17 years working with him and realized his words were true.

A balanced approach to asking a volunteer to leave a ministry position is to explore ways you can help the person succeed in another ministry role or beyond your ministry. Discuss the person’s interests and suggest other places to serve as you help through the transition.

Firing Finesse

Confronting an ineffective volunteer is always one of the toughest moments for any leader. In a Fast Company article, “Good Ways to Deliver Bad News,” Dr. Robert Buckman shares the following insights to ease difficult but crucial conversations.

Start by listening.

When you’re letting a volunteer go, take time to ask how the person is doing—and listen. You’ll build trust as you discuss feelings. Delay the urgency to “get down to business.” Communicate that this is a process; it wasn’t a snap judgment.

Explore perceptions before you try to define reality.

Ask the volunteer to relate his or her understanding of responsibilities and relationships. This may give you significant insight into how the failure occurred. In most cases, the more in-depth comments will help you understand why you’re at this point. Don’t blow past this part of the discussion to lower the boom. Take time to define reality by using some of the volunteer’s perceptions to illustrate your point.

Don’t get emotional.

This is always an emotional situation, but control your emotions. People have complex motivations for joining your team. They may have come to faith as children in a similar program or their children may be part of the ministry. You can acknowledge that the firing may be difficult, but stay focused on your purpose—the welfare of children and the best interests for the volunteer’s success.

Grace and Resolve

If you’re looking forward to firing a volunteer, you’re not ready to do it. I believe that on occasion people in our ministry are mistreated by us because we’ve been pressured to provide the best ministry programs, and we’ve forgotten that people are the ministry.

Slow down and carefully consider your heart response to your team members. Compassionately deal with the issues addressed in this article. Understand that your response to people sets the tone for their present and long-term commitment to the children’s program and to the church as a whole.

On the other hand, if you’re feeling unprepared to fire an ineffective volunteer, reach out for support and resources to help you prepare. You’re safeguarding your ministry and the children in it and that’s going to mean having tough conversations from time to time. With Jesus’ partnership, you’ve got what it takes to be a servant leader who can show both grace and resolve.

Jay Hostetler is a ministry coach and consultant with a passion to encourage and challenge leaders in the church.

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