Roots and Wings: When volunteers fly, our mission is unstoppable

SU Australia Area Manager in Victoria, Jonathan (Jono) Vandenberg, reflects below on how and why equipping and releasing volunteers has always been at the heart of SU Australia’s mission.

It seems only fitting that an early edition of SU Life would focus on equipping and releasing volunteers. After all, volunteering isn’t just something SU Australia does, it is the very essence of who we are.

Scripture Union International’s working principle states: We work with a relatively small number of staff who recruit, motivate, train, equip, and support a larger number of volunteers with whom they work in partnership.

To put it simply, the large number of volunteers (9,560) who serve with SU Australia (and I recognise as I write this that you may very well be one of them) make our vital work with children, young people and families possible.

In an age of increasing safety regulation, with multiple compliance and insurance limitations, enabling volunteers can seem at times a difficult task. Sometimes, it feels like the easy route is to reduce volunteer activity and focus solely on professional staff development to achieve our vision.

However, not only is enabling volunteers in our DNA, it is foundational to achieving our mission.

While the capacity of one staff member is limited, the capacity of empowered volunteers leading empowered volunteers is endless.

A lot like Luke 10

Enabling volunteers in SU Australia is a delicate process of nurturing people with a heart for our mission while equipping and supporting them to live out their sense of how God has wired them to serve. It needs to hold the tension of being both organised and organic at the same time.

Volunteers aren’t just given tasks to carry out but also the wings and permission to fly as participants in God’s mission.

To me, the process of equipping and enabling volunteers feels a lot like Luke 10 when Jesus sends out the 72. While the 72 were still growing in their reliance and identity in Christ and gaining an understanding of God’s Kingdom reality, Jesus sent them out. As they preached a message they were just learning to understand themselves, they deepened that understanding.

Ultimately, they returned, amazed at what they saw! They learned that God is more powerful than anything and that he chooses to work in and through them.

As we continue to go about God’s mission to serve children, young people and families, how do we make sure that enabling volunteers remains a centrepiece of who we are and what we do?

Select Carefully

The key to successful volunteer projects is having the right people in the right jobs. Simple but true. For this reason, tapping someone on the shoulder and inviting them to volunteer is more effective for recruitment than widespread advertising. Some people are ready for leadership roles, and some never will be.

We need to create and enable opportunities to serve no matter people’s strengths and capacities, providing clear expectations while being sure they are a good fit for the job.

Train Well

Since enabling volunteers gives them wings, before taking flight, we must also give them strong roots. A well-trained volunteer is able to approach opportunities with greater confidence and understanding of what is expected and appropriate.

We train volunteers to be well-rooted in SU ethos and practical and theoretical competence (appropriate to their level of engagement), as well as essential child safety practices.

I have lost count of how many people have shared with me how SU volunteer training and experience has equipped them for service not only in SU Australia but also in their churches and careers.

Provide good support systems

Good support systems allow volunteers to focus on their task with confidence, free from the fear of being non-compliant, illegal or not aligned with SU Aims, Beliefs and Working Principals.

We support volunteers through good systems and good relationships. You never volunteer alone. SU Australia staff and volunteer team leaders enable volunteers in a relational way that seeks to coach, encourage and develop them as they serve on God’s mission.

We have systems of spiritual input oversight, Child Safety, financial management and accountability, incident reporting and response, and risk management and hazard reduction, to name a few. While all of these multiple systems can feel a bit onerous at times, they are vital to volunteer enablement and confidence.

Champion innovation and allow failure

SU Australia enables volunteers to serve in God’s mission out of a sense of how God has individually and uniquely wired and enabled them.

I find myself leading with comments like, “I tend to do it this way, feel free to copy me, but I am keen to see how you would do it differently,” or “I am really looking forward to being surprised and amazed by what you are going to do” or “what are you going to do differently next time?”.

As volunteers take flight, we do not only permit innovation and an evolution of how we do things, we expect it. It also means that, sometimes, things will not go to plan.

Well-managed failure is actually a growth opportunity.

I am convinced that not all of the 72 Jesus sent out got it right every time – his disciples do have a track record of missing the mark!

Celebrate Together!

It is important that we celebrate volunteers, but also that we celebrate with volunteers.

As a volunteer movement, the volunteer is as much a Scripture Union Australia worker as the staff member enabling them. So let’s celebrate together what God is doing in and through us all through collaborative storytelling and a communal prayer response.

Whether we are volunteer practitioners, intercessors, donors, board members or in a paid staff role, we are all SU Australia, together following God’s lead to make God’s love and Good News known to children, young people and families across our Nation.
Together, let’s spread our wings and fly for God’s glory.

Jonathan (Jono) Vandenberg

Jono is SU Australia Area Manager in Victoria, and a seasoned ministry practitioner with over three decades of work with youth, children and volunteer enablement.