Episode 212: What Volunteers In KidMin Are Actually Asking with Ryan Frank

Ever wonder if your KidMin volunteers truly feel valued and connected? This episode uncovers the three pivotal questions every leader should be answering to boost volunteer satisfaction and retention. Discover how to help your volunteers feel like their work truly matters, build their confidence with the right training, and create a sense of belonging that keeps burnout at bay.

Get your team ready for the summer with your FREE access to Global KidMin Week! Visit globalkidminday.com to sign up.

Transcript

Hannah Augustine (00:00)

If you've ever wondered what your volunteers are thinking, you are not alone. Now, occasionally they'll tell you, but as a leader, it's your job to find out, and their answers may surprise you.

I'm your host, Hannah Augustine, and we're just as curious as you are. Every team and every church will have a different answer to the question, what are your volunteers thinking? However, we believe that there are some common denominators in KidMin, and those common questions are what we're going to be focusing on today.

Now this episode is actually a window into Global KidMin Week. This is KidzMatter's premier digital training for KidMin leaders worldwide. With four live virtual sessions with the KidzMatter team for you and 10+ on-demand video trainings for your volunteers, this is your fast track to training in 2026. You can get your free ticket at globalkidminday.com. We'll talk more about that later. But today I've got the one, the only Ryan Frank here on the call.

Ryan is the co-founder of KidzMatter. He brings so much to the KidMin table and Ryan, we're excited. It's been a minute since we've had you on the podcast.

Ryan Frank (01:25)

What's up, Hannah? Yeah, thanks for having me. This is going to be a fascinating conversation because, you know, we all rely on our volunteers so much, and I know we value our volunteers. The challenge is that they have questions that they don't even, sometimes they don't even realize that they have them. 

The questions that we're going to dig into today, they're never going to ask them. You need to know the questions that they aren't asking, and when you know what those questions are, you'll be able to answer them. They're going to find a lot more fulfillment in their ministry. They're going to find a lot more satisfaction in their ministry, and you're going to really set them up to be with you for the long haul.

Hannah, I'm so grateful for you and your leadership at KidzMatter and on this podcast. You're doing a great job.

Hannah Augustine (02:11)

Thank you.

It is a lot of fun, and I'm excited to hear. You're going to share three questions today. Why don't you get started with the first one?

Ryan Frank (02:18)

I've worked with volunteers pretty much my entire adult life. I've never had a volunteer come up to me and say, “Ryan, I am spiritually disengaged and I'm not sure of my role clarity. Would you clarify my role?” They don't ask questions like that, right? But I have had volunteers that don't show up. I've had volunteers that do show up and you're like, “what are they doing?” The point is that volunteers may not be asking questions out loud, but they absolutely do ask them on the inside. So here's question number one. “Does what I'm doing actually matter?” This question is the meaning question.

They want to know, “what's the point of me being back here?” And here is what I have found: volunteers don't burn out from doing too much. They burn out because they don't realize the meaning of what they're doing. There are some signs you can look for, Hannah, that I'd love to get your feedback on. 

1. A volunteer just goes through the motions.
2. A volunteer stops inviting other people to serve. 
3. They don't take initiative. 
4. They focus on the negative. 

You've got to make sure that you are answering this question for your volunteers: “Does what I'm doing actually matter?” And we know that it does.

Hannah Augustine (03:49)

So true. I think we've all heard the phrase, “vision leaks,” right? It's really important to keep in front of our teams regularly, the stories and the encouragement. We went through a season when I was leading a campus, and it was just discouraging. There had been a lot of turnover, a lot of staff that had come and gone. My pastor asked me to start writing an email - we called it “stirring the sugar.” Once a week or so, we would send an email with a highlight story from every ministry. It was our way of saying, “look what's happening in

Ryan Frank (04:11)

I love that.

Hannah Augustine (04:17)

early childhood, look what's happening in our special needs ministry, look what's happening in the elementary room.” It was to remind people that, yes, is it a hard time right now? Do we feel like we don't have enough volunteers? Do we feel like families are struggling? Yes, but things are still happening. God is still moving. Keeping that in front of people is so important.

Ryan Frank (04:36)

100%. You know, people will stay late and get to church early. They will sacrifice, because of the purpose of your ministry, a lot more than they will just the things that you need them to do. And it's really easy as a kids’ ministry leader to focus on the task, on the things that you have to do, on the programmatic side of things. I love what you said a minute ago, and that is that vision leaks.

If I had a balloon here and I blew up this balloon in front of you, with time, that air leaks. It goes away, and vision is the same. You can't just share vision on Vision Sunday and hope that it lasts for the whole year. You've got to constantly be repeating that vision over and over and over and over and over again. And when you do, when you remind people of the vision, when you remind people of the purpose, you answer the question that they are asking, and that is, “does what I'm doing actually matter?”

By the way, Hannah, this is exactly why we do Global KidMin Day. Global KidMin Week happens Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, beginning of March. This is all about you, the leader, the children's director, the children's pastor. Global KidMin Day happens on Saturday or whenever you choose to do this training with your volunteers.

It's about reminding your volunteers that they are part of something global, that they are part of something eternal. They are part of something much bigger than just that classroom at the church, something much bigger than just that small group of kids that show up every other week when they're there. I hope that all of you podcast listeners will take full advantage of Global KidMin Week and Global KidMin Day.

Hannah Augustine (06:27)

It's a trickle effect, right? Because we're taking those four days to say, hey, let us pour into you as the leader of this ministry, you, your staff, your key volunteers, who can tune into that. And then we're saying, now translate that to your volunteers. And I love what you said about connecting them to the global mission and even connecting them to the mission of your church. If your church mission is to “go, build, serve, love”, how are you doing that in children's ministry? Saying, “hey, you're not just doing something separate, you're actually unified with what's happening in our church body,” and reminding people it isn't segregated in the sense of, “I'm back in the kids area and I don't know what's going on in big church.” No, we're unified. We are working together towards a common goal for the mission of the church and obviously the mission of the global church and what God's doing around the world. I think that's so important.

Ryan Frank (07:09)

Exactly.

Question one is, “what I'm doing back here, does it really matter?” And remember that answers the meaning question. Now question two is, “do I know what I'm doing?” And this answers the confidence question. Here's the reality. Volunteers feel a lot more insecure than most leaders realize. As a leader, you probably feel secure in your role. You've been doing it for a while. You pretty much know what's going on. You know what the expectations are from the parents and from the pastor.

Your volunteers don't always share that same security. So they ask the question, “do I know what I'm doing?” They want to feel confident in what you have asked them to do, what the church has asked them to do, and ultimately what they feel like the Lord has asked them to do. You've got to make sure that you are building confidence in your leaders. 

One of the best ways to do that is by making sure that they are well trained. Now, training volunteers, Hannah, is a whole podcast series of its own, isn't it? You know, how do you train busy leaders? When I first started in children's ministry several decades ago, the first Sunday of every month, an hour before church, [we had] a training meeting, and people would show up. They just knew the first Sunday of every month [to get there] an hour early and we did a 45 minute training. 

If I tried to do that today, you know, I might get a few people to show up, but people are busier than they've ever been. How you train leaders is a topic for another day. But here's what I know: training builds confidence. And if you want your leaders to be confident in their role, it's going to require you training them.

Hannah Augustine (09:26)

We talked in KidMin Academy this last month in our Volunteers module about the importance of volunteer role descriptions. I think we all know that, right? Like in our career, we want a role description. It should feel no different for our volunteers. What are the wins, what are the expectations? Bring clarity: in our staff meeting yesterday, Corey was talking about “clarity is kind.” 

We live in this vague world, or we expect volunteers to be willing to go from role to role with almost no notice. Again, there are some people you can trust to do that. Even as you're onboarding people, [you can be] making it clear that we're flexible in ministry, right? So yes, we are willing to jump into a different areas. But that shouldn't be the norm. You should be making space for your volunteers to become experts in their area. If we're constantly shuffling them from role to role or spot to spot or service to service, it's going to be really hard for them to build that confidence. 

Having clarity, making it extremely simple, because they are living full lives. They're doing things outside of Sunday mornings or Wednesday nights, so helping make it easy for them to step into their role and have clear wins, clear success, and clear expectations.

Ryan Frank (10:22)

I agree.

Do regular checkups. And Jim Wideman talks about your MBA degree, “Management By Walking Around.” So much of volunteer management and training does happen just simply by walking around. 

And so I would look at even some of you: you're doing way too much yourself and you need to get some more people to help. Some of you are saying, “I don't have the ability to walk around and check on volunteers. I'm in charge of this room.” You need to maybe look at, can I give myself some breaks? What does it look like for me to manage my volunteers by walking around and doing check-ins and “hey, how's it going?” It also allows you just to observe. “Wow, that person does not know how to manage a classroom. They need some help. That person is getting run over by these kids. I need to put somebody in here with them.” 

Your leaders want to feel confident, and part of your role as their leader is to build that confidence. When you build confidence, you build consistency. We all want our leaders to be consistent, not only just in showing up, but in how they engage and how they're building relationships. And that consistency then builds the culture that you want in your ministry.

All right, you want to move to question three, Hannah? 

Hannah Augustine (11:53)

One more thing on that. See something, say something, right? Because you can say something in a training, but you if you don't address it when you see it - what we allow will get repeated and what we celebrate will get repeated. When you can take a moment to not just notice the negative - we don't want to only point out when someone's doing something wrong. Obviously, if it's majorly wrong, you need to address it very quickly. But if you're noticing someone struggling with a small group or teaching, don't wait

Ryan Frank (11:59)

Good point. Yeah.

Hannah Augustine (12:23)

two weeks to bring it up. They're not going to remember; they're not going to learn from that. And on the flip side, when you see someone - think of a teenager, right? We see people complaining about how the teenagers are on their phones, So when you see someone not on their phone, celebrate that. “Hey, Tony, I really noticed that you left your phone in your backpack this week and you were so engaged with the kindergartners and that was amazing.” 

Having those micro training moments, and not trying to make other people feel bad, but when they see you celebrate, someone doing what's been asked or someone going above and beyond, that's going to create a culture of growth and of leaning into the training that you are providing. You can talk all day long about how to be a good small group leader, but if you don't do those micro-corrections and those micro-encouragements, you may never get the results you're hoping for.

Ryan Frank (13:11)

That's exactly right. Well said. Question one was, “does what I'm doing actually matter?” And remember, that's the meaning question. They want to know that what they're doing is meaningful and significant. Question two, “do I know what I'm doing?” This is the confidence question. And finally, question three, “am I doing this alone?” Am I doing this alone? This is the belonging question. 

I'm a big believer that most volunteers don't quit because you've put too much on their plate. They don't quit because of workload. They quit because of isolation. They need to be a part of community. And you have the ability back in your children's ministry to create such a community that people wouldn't quit if they wanted to because this is their community, this is their people, this is their family, this is their small group. And so there are some signs that you can be watching out for.

1. They don't show up to team meetings or team huddles. 
2. You don't really see them building relationships. 
3. Maybe they show up right before service and they leave right after service. 

We need to wrestle through, as KidMin leaders, how do we build community? How do we do everything we can to let our people know they're not in this alone and that they belong?

Hannah Augustine (14:39)

I think it's so critical here to recognize that you are the greatest thing you bring to the table. We just had again our Volunteers module in Academy, and our students created 12-month volunteer appreciation plans. One of the major questions they were asking was, “how do I do this budget-friendly?” I just replied to one of them - he's recently become the senior pastor of a church, and so it's totally new for him - and I said, “I really want you to remember that the biggest thing you bring to the table is you, that your team wants to spend time with you.”

That's one of the reasons they're serving, right? They saw something in you that they want to emulate, that they want to follow. Then saying, how do we translate that? How do you multiply yourself to have some coaches, to have some layers of leadership?

Huddles, I think, are so critical here. If you can make that part of your rhythm where people are sharing prayer requests and seeing each other's faces and learning each other's names and following up during the week…Your phone is a great tool. When a volunteer says to you, “hey, I've got this surgery coming up,” or “I'm applying for a job, my interview is Tuesday” - pause right then and there, set that reminder. I won't say the name of the technology because she'll talk to me, but being able to say, “hey, [Siri], remind me on Tuesday at 9 a.m. to text Joe,” and do it. Those little things, that's free, that costs you nothing. 

Ryan Frank (15:52)

Yeah.

Nothing. Yeah.

Hannah Augustine (16:05)

Now, is it great to do things that are financially invested. Absolutely do that when you can.

To be honest, a gathering is usually the best way - you kind of touched on this - but if you could do one to two fun-only (no training - don't sneak it in there), but I think like you said creating that community. Could you buddy up your volunteers so that every volunteer has a partner that they go to for prayer, for encouragement, for support? Get creative. There are a lot of things you can do, but find what's going to work in your culture based on the size of your team, the personalities of your team, and the resources you have available.

Ryan Frank (16:44)

And once again, not to sound like a broken record, but this is why we created Global KidMin Day. Really, tt's an opportunity for you to get your volunteers together, to build this community, to remind them, “hey, that you're not just alone with those third and fourth grade kids. We're all part of the same movement. And by the way, it's not just a movement at our church. This is a global movement of people that are passionate about reaching kids and families.” 

If you've not been to globalkidminday.com, go there. The entire week of training for you and for your volunteers is free.

How do we do it for free? It is free for our KidzMatter Pro members, and here's the thing. If you're not a KidzMatter Pro member, you can start a free 30-day trial and participate in Global KidMin Day and Week for free. Most people end up sticking with KidzMatter Pro because they love the support and the community that they receive week after week in children's ministry. But you can't be part of this week if you're not signed up, so please go to globalkidminday.com and get signed up for you and your church.

Ryan Frank (17:50)

Hannah, not too long ago I was at a church. It's a mid-sized church in Illinois. Strong kids ministry, good energy, but I noticed this volunteer sitting by herself on the back row of the kids area. Let's call her Melissa. Melissa, I found out, had been serving there for several years, very faithful, always early, never complained.

She was the kind of volunteer that each of us would love to have and that we would clone if we could. But that morning, she looked tired, and I just sensed it. Not physically tired, I just sensed after talking with her, soul tired. I sat down by her and just started talking, nothing deep, just small talk, introduced myself. And then she said something that I didn't expect. She said, “Ryan, can I ask you something?” Sure. She said, “do you ever wonder if what we're doing with these kids week after week actually sticks?”

You know, she had some teenagers at home that were making some life decisions. I think she was just wrestling through, “does what we teach back here - do the kids actually remember it? Does it actually stick?” 

And there it was. She didn't have a curriculum question. She didn't have a check-in, check-out question. She didn't have a question about classroom management. She had a meaning question, going back up to our conversation earlier in our discussion. She wasn't asking for better snacks, a bigger budget, for more help, more support. She was asking, “does this matter?” 

And here's what struck me. Her children's pastor would have told you that she was one of the best volunteers on the team. She showed up every week. She got there early, Her director thought that she was thriving. Her attendance was perfect, but internally, she was quietly wondering if she should keep going. 

Here's the part that broke my heart a little bit. She almost didn't say anything. In fact, if I wouldn't have gone back there and talked to her and responded to prompting the Holy Spirit to have a conversation with this lady (I had plenty to do that morning at the church), she would have walked out of that door still wondering if it was worth it. And what Melissa needed that morning wasn't new curriculum, wasn't a new game; she needed vision, she needed reassurance, she needed to be reminded that what she does actually echoes into eternity. 

Here's the thing, every church has a Melissa. Hannah, your church has a Melissa, my church has a Melissa, every one of you watching or listening to this podcast today, you have a Melissa. They're faithful, they're steady, they don't cause problems, they are easy volunteers, but they're asking questions. Maybe they're asking, the question that Melissa was asking, “does this actually matter?” Maybe they're asking the question, “am I doing this right?” Maybe they're asking the question, “am I in this alone?” 

This is why I believe so deeply in what we do during Global KidMin Week and Global KidMin Day. This is why we advocate so much at KidzMatter that you need to train your volunteers, you need to encourage your volunteers, that you need to recalibrate your entire team together. Because sometimes your volunteers don't need better systems. We're all about systems. Instead, what they need is a bigger reminder. We want them to all walk out saying, “you know what, what I do in kids' ministry matters. I matter; I matter to these kids and families, and we're not alone.”

And Hannah, that changes everything.

Hannah Augustine (21:43)

It truly does and so much of that is done in the one-on-one right? Don't just send the email. Don't just make the announcement or put it in Planning Center. Have that conversation, because I'm sure Melissa had heard many times, “kids’ ministry is doing a great job!” But sometimes the general doesn't impact, so remind people specifics like, “Melissa, when you're in that five-year-old classroom, little Timmy went home and [knew] the Bible verse, and that's because of your faithfulness.” 

Get specific and know [what your team needs]. Again, we could talk about this for days, but assessments that help you know [how to best appreciate them], all of those things. Get creative and just be intentional. 

Know that even you as the leader, you may be asking some of these questions. We hear it all the time in our Facebook community, from our Academy students, in Pro, where people are saying, “am I making a difference? Am I in this alone? Am I doing this right?”

Be encouraged today, and come join us for Global KidMin Week. Again, like Ryan said, at globalkidminday.com you can join us for free. At the airing of this episode, we're only about a week out. So you're going to want to get that ticket, but it's not too late. You can sign up morning of, right? And they could jump in whenever. So jump in and get on our list and join us because it's going to be a time of encouragement. 

We're just grateful for you tuning in. Ryan, we're thankful for you and for reminding us to ask the important questions. 

Ryan Frank (23:00)

100%. Yeah.

Hannah Augustine (23:14)

I would love if you would close in a quick prayer.

Ryan Frank (23:16)

I love that. Lord, thank You for these podcast listeners. Thank You for the volunteers that You have put under their care. Lord, help us to answer the questions that they are asking without really ever asking them out loud. Lord, I pray that You would bless every ministry represented. Lord, bless Global KidMin Week. We thank You in advance for what You're going to do around the world, as together for a week we celebrate children's ministry and we encourage, and train our volunteers. We love you. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Hannah Augustine (23:51)

Amen. Thank you all for joining and we'll see you at Global KidMin Week.