222: Mistake #7: Not Giving Them an Easy Way to Quit

We close Stop Doing This to Volunteers: Top Mistakes Our Churches Are Making with one of the most uncomfortable conversations of all — quitting. When there’s no clear exit, service slowly turns into obligation. 

In this episode, we talk about why healthy ministries build off-ramps on purpose — and how giving people freedom actually builds more trust, not less.

In this episode, we cover:

1. Why every volunteer role should have a clear and normal way to end
2. How guilt-based retention quietly damages culture
3. Why vacation days, sick days, and honest capacity conversations matter in church too
4. What it looks like to honor people beyond their role

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Transcript

Laurie Graham  0:01 
Hey, welcome to the Small Church Ministry Podcast, where we help volunteers and ministry leaders experience less stress, more joy and greater impact as we share strategies that actually do work in smaller churches. I'm your host, Laurie Graham. Let's dive in.

Laurie Graham  0:23 
All right, welcome back to the Small Church Ministry Podcast, where we are wrapping up our series of Stop Doing This To Volunteers: Top Mistakes Our Churches Are Making with this final episode. So far, we have stopped locking people into roles. We've stopped shrinking them with easy, we've stopped building hierarchy without realizing it. We've stopped defaulting to meetings. We've stopped planning without them. We've stopped recruiting. Yes, if you missed last week's episode, you're going to want to go back and catch it, and today, we're talking about quitting. 

Mistake number seven in our countdown is not giving volunteers an easy way to quit. And I'm going to even say this more clearly. I'm not even just saying letting them quit. I'm saying telling them how to quit. And from the get-go, from the sign up, from the development phase, from the curiosity that there's a clear way to quit. Now before you tense up at all, stay with me. 

We're going to talk about why healthy exits don't weaken your ministry. It doesn't cause people to run this actually strengthens our ministry, gets people into the right places, creates more momentum and energy and freedom and joy in serving and agency and so many other things. Yep, we're going to talk about quitting, and it's one of my most fun things to talk about, partially because most churches don't do this, or maybe don't do it well, because what's actually happening in our churches? And let's just be real, I think most of us have been in spots like this for sure. In many, many churches, there's no term length for anything. You want to be a Sunday School teacher? Great. Come join us. Do you want to be on the Outreach team? Great. Come join us. There's no term length. There is no off ramp. How do I quit? Right? There's no clear end date. There's just a lot of inertia, which means things keep moving in the same direction until they are acted upon with a certain force, right? 

Here's a couple reasons why people in situations like this stop serving. They serve until they burnout. They serve until they get resentful. They serve until they quietly disappear, and we're not quite sure why. Or they serve because something else forces them out. Now you may be in a church with certain things like session or committees or eldership or leadership teams that do have a term length. Okay, I know that does exist in a lot of different settings, but on the level of where most people are volunteering, and honestly, many churches don't even have term lengths in most places, anywhere. It gets really stressful. It gets blurry. It gets hard when people get burned out or resentful. It gets a little confusing, because we've built this system where quitting feels awkward or dramatic or disloyal, but honestly quitting an end of a season, it's normal, it's natural. I would even say it's God-given. God built us to age. He built us to enjoy different seasons of our life with different levels of energy, different levels of emotional capacity, different levels of even mental growth. There's spiritual seasons, there's natural seasons around us with the weather, seasons are normal. 

So how did we end up building these systems where quitting is so disruptive, instead of natural, there's often a little belief underneath in ministry settings where we want to protect the people who are serving, not protect them personally, but protect those ministry areas, because if they step down, we're going to be in trouble. We need them in that position to keep this program going. If we make it easy to leave, everyone will leave, and I want to say that is not true. Honestly, if we make it easy to leave, we have seen that many times, more people will serve. But we're scared to make it easy to leave. We think we're not going to have enough people if we make it easy, they're all going to go. 

So we don't build these exits. We think we're building endurance and faithfulness and commitment, but we're not. Endurance or perseverance is not the same thing as health. Perseverance is a great virtue. Enduring is a great virtue, but so is being healthy, understanding our capacities, doing things within the limits that we have. And life never stays the same. The capacity that we have from one day to another certainly flexes, let alone from one season to another, one year to another. And this is all part of our growth. It's part of how God has called us to grow and change. 

Growth requires change when there is no clear way to quit within a church, within a certain ministry area, within a certain position, service often can start feeling like a life sentence. Now I don't even want to start talking about a heart issue when we start saying, well, if they were committed, or if they were serving, God, they wouldn't blah, blah, blah, like, can we not go there? That is not true. Rest is not selfish. Taking a break is not irresponsible. When there's no clear way to quit, nobody even brings up capacity conversations. I was just talking to somebody who's way beyond their capacity, like this person actually knows they need a break. Seriously talking about not ever having days off. They're involved in their church ministry. They're involved in another mission. They have kids at home, family commitments, so much going on, let alone being very involved at the church in many capacities. 

And my first concern question encouragement is, when does your day off come? When does that happen? Where is that rest? This is a capacity conversation. And you know, oftentimes those same people who are on the edge of burnout, past their capacity, they are being asked by a pastor or a leadership person to serve more, because oftentimes they have they have talents, they have skills. Of course, we'd love to see you serving. But can we bring those capacity conversations, not just up in like little quiet corners in the church, you know, coffee reception area, but in these questions of service when there's no clear way to quit, resentment can build. 

But I'm going to tell you another thing that can build for those who are faithful and really look at service as faithfulness, is shame can grow because we feel like quitting or what's wrong with us that we can't do more. This is not healthy. This is not what God designed us to be for each other. You know, adults don't need pressure to stay committed. Honestly, what leads to more commitment is clarity, great communication, clear- stated boundaries and freedom. We are more committed when we have agency and we can work within our capacity. I want you just to think about regular jobs out there. What kind of benefits do we look for when we're looking for a job, vacation, days, sick days, personal time, knowing how much notice we give before we quit, we don't look for these things when we're looking for a day job because we don't want to be committed where we are. 

We look for these things because this is normal. We know we're going to have days when we get sick because we want some life balance. We know family needs our attention, and we want to have good relationships outside of the job. So when you're looking for benefits with a job, we don't say, oh my gosh, you're not a committed engineer if you want sick days, oh my goodness, you're not committed to teaching if you value vacation days. We don't say that ever. Why is it that regular jobs out there, secular jobs take better care of people than we often do in the church. Why would we treat our friends worse than corporations do? So imagine in your church if every role, whether it's serving in the nursery, being a Sunday School teacher, being on the Leadership team, Outreach committee, Prayer Ministry, any role. 

What if every role in the church had a natural term rhythm? You can re-up it. You can serve again, but there's a natural closure to it for this season, for this year. What if every volunteer knew when the next check in was coming. How are you doing? What does this feel like to you? Is this still working well? What can we do to support you better? What if in our churches, stepping down was normal and even celebrated and not dramatic, like your capacity is shot and you have to step down from a place. And what if we celebrate people for making good, healthy choices for them and their families? 

What if we celebrated that? What if rest was built into a culture, our church cultures, which is exactly where it should be built in. Can you imagine a church like that? Can you imagine a church where every role had a defined way to call off or get substitutes or or just a procedure of what to do if you're ill not suck it up and come in anyway, because there's no one else to fill your role. Imagine hearing something like, I think it's time for me to step back and responding with thank you. 

Let's talk about what you need. That kind of response, that kind of honest communication, that builds trust, it builds loyalty, it makes people more likely to return. It's honoring of each other. I think it's time for me to take a break not being met with? Well, let's figure out how we can keep you here. Or no we need you, or you have to stay until we find someone else. Or let's move you into a role of coordinating all these people so it gives you a shift, right? What if it was just met with thank you. Thank you for sharing that with me. Let's talk about what you need next, how we can support you in that decision. Can you imagine? Can we just stop building roles with no end? Can we stop recruiting for roles? 

I did say the word recruiting. Can we stop recruiting for certain roles and ministry positions, thinking that people won't ever need a break, won't get sick, won't need a transition, won't hit a season where their capacity is shot. You guys, this is normal. This is human. This is how God created us. Let me give you just a couple practical ideas, a couple shifts, you know, because we can't always just overhaul the whole system. 

So let me give you a couple things. What about turning some roles into six-month serving roles or twelve-month serving rhythms? What about having just regular check-ins? Like, how are you doing? How is this role working for you? How could we support you better? What do you need? What shift can you think of that might be better, just regular check-ins of how we're doing? I can't even tell you. Well, I probably don't have to tell you, because you're probably some of them listening right now. But I think of all the people serving in churches that no one checks on them. They're holding it up all alone. A Youth Ministry, a Sunday School program, a Missions Ministry, like, let's figure out. How do we have check-ins? Maybe it's with each other. Maybe it's cross-ministry areas. 

Another practical shift is just having written clear communication job descriptions, agreements. I'm not saying contracts where we're signing our name in blood, but I'm saying clear communication. This is what this role needs. This is the outcomes we want. This is what to do when you're sick. This is what to do when you're ready to take a break. This is how we handle quitting. Like, can we just assume people will quit someday because they will, they're either going to quit or die? 

There is no role that doesn't have an exit. There are plenty of roles that don't have exit plans, so let's just build it in. What if we had normalized pause seasons, like what if part of the role was a requirement to take a season off? I know worship teams that people can only serve three Sundays a month, or maybe they have one month off a quarter, and it's so healthy because they get to worship, maybe the team is short, whatever, it's all good. What if every Sunday School teacher took one season off, whether it was summer or fall or spring, and during that time, it was filled in with somebody else. That's a whole another skill set. It's totally possible. We see people do it. We see churches do it. 

There's so much more health gets built in. But what if some of these things, what? What could you put into your church, starting soon? What if we had public language in our churches that celebrated healthy endings instead of somebody quitting, and there's, you know, a bunch of, you know, backhanded conversations about what happened, and nobody really knows, what if we celebrate endings? What if we celebrate healthy endings? Because we had endings in mind from the start, because it's normal, because it's expected, because hiding from it or pushing through it is not helpful, because pretending it's not going to happen only builds in a lot of unhealthy culture. 

This is really a shift from obligation. I have to stay this is needed. This is necessary to just more agency and choice, which is very God-given. This is a shift from that endurance and pushing through to actually recognizing and honoring capacity. Honoring capacity. God gave us a capacity to honor. This is a shift from a lot of pressure to more trust, trust in those around us, trust in our church culture, trust that we want what's best for each other. Again, why do we treat our friends worse than a corporation does. Can we think about volunteer roles with those types of benefits? And not just benefits, but systems to make it easy, a system of what to do when you're sick, a system of how to quit in a healthy way, a system that checks in on us so that we don't reach the end burnout and we see signs ahead of time and there are pressure releases. 

Today's episode, the mistake we're talking about is not giving people an easy way to quit. I hope you see that giving people an easy way to quit is a benefit. It leads to healthier people. It actually leads to more people serving with positive experiences. Because once you get stuck in a lifetime role and have a negative volunteer experience, it is much more unlikely that you will step up at the same capacity again, because when we've been burnt once or burnt twice, it is very difficult to keep putting ourselves in unhealthy positions. Sometimes we did it for a long time. So if you're the person, if you're the church, if you're the ministry area that acknowledges this upfront, gives people time limits an easy way to quit, some sort of policy or operation procedure for taking time off. What happens? 

How to do this well, being a person, a ministry leader, a pastor, a church that honors people's health and makes it easy so that we're not serving with guilt and pressure and obligation when God may be leading us into even another ministry area. Let's do all these things better, all of these seven mistakes that I'm naming, that I'm mentioning, just take steps to start stomping them out. Help people serve from desire, from passion, from giftedness, not from guilt and obligation and pressure. Help people, all of us serve with more health, with rest, acknowledging transitions and capacity that acknowledging these things are healthy and good and even grow us as disciples, that we could value people beyond what they do, that our churches could shift from honoring programs above people to honoring people above programs, that our beliefs could fall in line with the truth that God is at

Laurie Graham  20:20 
work right now in you, in your church, no matter how many volunteers are stepping up, that development takes longer and is more godly than the fast track that working with volunteers, being a volunteer, serving in the church. Some of the systems we've built around us have been more about protecting things that don't need to be protected, our systems, our comfort, our habits. But what happens when we choose different when we choose growth and maturity and trust? 

Trust that God is at work. Trust that we don't need to pressure other people. Trust that we can grow ourselves. Trust that we can bring these conversations into our churches and move toward a different level of health. We really don't need tighter control. I think so many of the mistakes I've talked about in this series, a lot of them lead to a certain degree level of control of others, of our systems, of the outcomes. 

We don't need more control. We do need more health. We need healthier leadership. We need beliefs that line up with our God, who is the crux of everything and not us, that it's not our effort that He is at work, that keeping our eyes on Him doesn't always mean overprogramming our churches, people before programs, doing ministry with people, instead of to them and for them, and keeping in mind that a church without a program is still a church, and it's quite amazing too. 

So glad you're here. I'm so grateful that you tuned in, that you listened from wherever you are listening from. I know that there are a million things you could be doing with your time, a million other things to be listening to, to be watching, to be watching, to be filling your mind with, and you chose the Small Church Ministry Podcast that speaks of your heart. It speaks of your heart toward the church. It speaks of your heart toward learning and growth for yourself. And again, your church is so blessed to have you. 

If nobody is saying that to you out loud, I'm just going to say it right now, you are a gift to the people around you. When I close the episodes with, be a light, I really mean be a light. When I started this podcast a few years back, my daughter, who was helping me a lot in my business, and still does, she said, Mom, you really need a sign off. Like, podcasts are so cool when they have a sign off like something that you say at the end of every episode. And I racked my brain of what I would say possibly. And, you know, I'm trying to be clever, and trying to look up other things and trying to listen to other ideas. And she said, What about be a light? She had remembered that when she went off to school, when she was young. When the kids left the house because they walked to school. We had a real sweet elementary neighborhood school. I would say to them, Be a light. And I mean it be a light wherever you're going today, you're driving past somebody in the car, be a light when you're walking to do errands or go to the doctor, to the grocery store, be a light. 

This is the church. The church is not just within the walls. We get to meet up with each other in those walls. We get to enjoy each other, we get to worship. We get to encourage each other. But when we're being the church, it's every day. It's 24/7, the impact that we have outside the church walls, it's so important we get to be the church in between Sundays. 

So be a light, not just in your church. Take the principles we're learning, about being healthy, about capacity, about outreach, about ministry, about relationships, about empathy, about compassion, and let's be the church in between Sundays, and take the things that you have gleaned from whatever glimpses you want to hang on to from the last seven weeks, as we've talked about volunteers in the church, and let's build healthier churches on Sundays, on Wednesdays, as we meet as an organization, because when people come into the churches, when they are met with unhealth, when they are met with expectation or demands or manipulation or pressure, sometimes they hightail it right back out. 

So let's be healthier as us. Let's build healthier systems. Let's influence our church cultures by having these conversations. If you consider yourself just a volunteer, I'm going to tell you right now, you have more influence than you can even imagine inside your church and outside it. 

So let's step into it. Let's embrace it. Let's ask God, man, you put us here on the planet, where can we be a light in our churches? Yes, and also in between, from Sunday to Sunday. All right, if you have gotten something out of this podcast, if this is encouraged, you brought you some hope new ideas. 

Totally appreciate it if you would give us some stars and leave a review. Your reviews help other people find us, catch us in our free Facebook community, join us at upcoming conferences. We're here in so many ways for you all year long, encouraging people in small churches. I'm really working to build some really healthy cultural changes that we so desperately need today. So, all right, check out all the links in the show notes, and until next week, when we start something brand new on the podcast, be a light.