The Lead Volunteers Leadership Blog

The Sunday School Zone Lead Volunteers Leadership Blog addresses the ongoing needs of those in a church or children’s ministry organization who are responsible for leading the volunteers engaged in that ministry. Josh Denhart, the host and creator of Lead Volunteers, is a veteran pastor and ministry leader who provides regular, ongoing leadership advice for those in the trenches of ministry.

Check out Josh’s brief videos (typically about 2 minutes) and blog posts below that will encourage you, inform you, and equip you as you develop your own leadership skills and, in turn, equip others to deepen and expand the ministry of YOUR organization!

Lead Volunteers: Dominate with Diligence

Dominate with Diligence. Be the Ant. The Bible says in Proverbs 6: Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. Ethic of Diligence The ant is an interesting creature. Truly,…

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Switching Not Ditching

Lead Volunteers: Switching, Not Ditching

Your phone rings with the dreaded Saturday night phone call. Even as you answer the phone, you know how this conversation will go. One of your volunteers is canceling. That inevitable phone call or text or email that says “I’m sorry…” followed by the reason and rationale for why a volunteer can’t fulfill on the…

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Lead Volunteers: Does Your Strategy Clarify Opportunities?

Ministry leaders can easily fall prey to shiny, silver objects. It is all too easy to be taken off track and derailed from a very critical strategy simply because a shiny object has appeared in the periphery. When you begin to pursue this peripheral opportunity, you get yanked off track. Die Cast Mold Think of…

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The Best Path Forward Is a Great History

Lead Volunteers: The Best Path Forward Is a Great History

If you are new in ministry, you want to begin creating a wonderful history of excellence and execution right now. When you start your job, the last thing you want to do is to create for your employer a memory bank of less than excellent work. You want to dominate right from the get go.…

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Lead Volunteers: Do Not Give Away the Keys to the Car

Let’s imagine for a moment that you are at an off-site event with a set of kids and volunteers. You are at a gas station filling up the 15-passenger van when an individual that you have never met before walks up to you. He boldly thrusts out his hand, shakes your hand vigorously, and says…

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The Hand of the Diligent Will Rule

Lead Volunteers: The Hand of the Diligent Will Rule

The Book of Proverbs shares this wonderful statement and I think we all need to listen deeply to its wisdom. “If you work with a diligent hand you will find yourself in charge. If you work with a slack hand you will be put to forced labor by others” (Prov. 12:24). In other words, the…

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Lead Volunteers: Chill Out

Lead Volunteers: Chill Out – It Usually Works Out

You know, I’ve been in ministry for a long time. Early on, when our nursery director would text me or call and let me know that four people have called in sick at 7 p.m. on Saturday night, I would freak out! I would freak out because we were going to be massively short-handed. And…

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Ask the Lord of the Harvest

Lead Volunteers: The Harvest is Plentiful, Ask the Lord of the Harvest

The harvest is plentiful, the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers. Have you ever felt under the pressure of your workload and the mountain of volunteers that you need to find? What do you do in that situation? I honestly, and shamefully, must admit that at times I…

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Blocks Do Not Stack Themselves

Lead Volunteers: Blocks Do Not Stack Themselves

You know, God has created the universe in such a way that things go from order to disorder — from order to chaos. It literally takes effort to build a ministry, like it takes effort to build anything. It takes energy to take blocks and stack them on top of one another. It doesn’t magically…

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