As the year comes to an end, it is time to consider your training needs in the year ahead. Don’t forget to plan on how you will train volunteers. Staff training is a budget item, and a focus among professionals in the Church. But the volunteers also need training to be more effective. Many are willing to serve, but they don’t know how. This applies especially to the technical ministry of the Church. Here are some ideas to consider:

• Build a library of Powerpoint presentations about the technology
• Ask the most active volunteers for links to good training materials – they already have favorites
• Identify areas where you lack training materials – and go create something new
• Survey the volunteers for topics they’d like to know more about

The volunteers who are also IT professionals already know where to find good training materials. Tap into that knowledge, and share it with the amateurs who are eager to learn. If you don’t have a topic covered, start a Powerpoint presentation on it and invite the Tech team to add to it. You’ll get lots of ideas for what should go into it. Then filter that down into a manageable chunk. Find out the topics that the volunteers need to know more about – e.g. how the video switcher is configured. You’ll be surprised what that knowledge will do to enable them to perform better.