On Thursdays, my plan is to provide reviews of the various products that cross my desk that can be an asset to you in your ministry. This week, from various sources, the topic of the need to train volunteers has been highlighted. Because of this, I wanted to ask what you do to train your leadership?
Awana believes that training is important, in fact one of the five principles of Awana is that it is built on strong leadership, which comes from proper training. Maybe Awana should revise the fourth principle which reads, “Children and youth are trained to serve” and add “children, youth and adults”. But I digress…
Awana has developed several Training Materials for the various roles in Awana. They include a lot of helpful information to train you to be a better leader in your role in Awana. Even DVD’s that show you a “Day in the Life” of the various roles. In one of those DVD’s, the T&T director begins to call Commander Bill to give a report of the evening. When that first came out, someone mentioned that I had a cameo in the video and so I had to watch it and see. Now I really do not think that Awana had the T&T director call Commander Bill with me in mind, but it was flattering to hear that someone made that connection. FYI, you do not need to call me each week with a report from your club. Anyway, the DVD’s are a valuable resource.
Did you know that the videos used for Basic Training are now available for free as a download in the A.R.T. area of the Awana website?
If you are a commander, then I highly recommend that you attend Commander College 101. This advanced training will help you understand the many facets of being an Awana Commander and will inspire and encourage you as you serve in your local church. It also provides a great way to network with other commanders. I urge you to contact your local Awana missionary to find details about something special that is available this year for Commander College 101.
Tony Kummer of Ministry-to-Children.com wrote an article this past week entitled What Volunteers Learn When You Don’t Train Them. Read this article, and then review all of the quality materials and resources that Awana has to offer to help you train your Awana volunteers.
NOTE: One of your greatest training resources is your Awana Missioanry and their ministry team. I will be highlighting the first Awana missionary this Monday.
So what do you do when you can’t get workers to show up at the meeting/training sessions?
The reasons people don’t attend trainings vary, but generally it is because they feel they don’t need it. They already know what to do, or don’t feel the training is important.
We need to make the training relevant and accessible. One thing Awana has begun to try to help with the training aspect is to offer mini training called “Club Clinic” in the A.R.T. area of the web site. These short videos can help target certain areas you want to emphasize.
With the role books and DVD’s, they can learn at home at their leisure (if they are willing). One thing I am looking at doing this year (but I haven’t started yet after 4 weeks) is to send a brief e-mail the day after club (in our case Monday) to review the night, praise them for a job well done and to touch upon things that should be tweaked. This brings the training to them.
Yes, having everyone together to train is preferred and ideal, but in the current culture, it is unrealistic in some areas so we need to look at other avenues.