My wife and I have been leading a small group for the past 10 years, so the dynamics of small group leadership are second nature to us. Therefore, when I started recruiting small-group leaders I just assumed everyone knew what was involved with the job.

So how come the people I asked to serve had so many questions?

Before you start searching for your first small-group leader, come up with a written ministry description of your expectations and responsibilities for your leaders. A good ministry description helps everyone by doing several important things:

• It helps define success. It's important to let volunteers know what constitutes success and how it will be measured.

• It helps match roles with gifts and passions. We guide our volunteers into ministry based on their strengths, not their weaknesses. Describing the gifts and talents needed for a task helps us guide people to the right positions, and helps us understand how to guide them in using those gifts for that particular role.

• It helps determine how many people are needed for the ministry's success. It often makes sense to divide roles into smaller, bite-sized chunks to allow each person to spend most of their time in their area of strength. That also creates roles for more people to serve in the ministry.

• It helps overcome barriers to service. The people in our churches have many pressures on their time that can make them hesitant to commit to service. Ministry descriptions can be written to reflect different levels of responsibility, which also translates into different levels of time commitment. Some volunteers want very light involvement, and others want intense involvement. To help everyone find a way to contribute, and to successfully recruit the right volunteer to fill the right position, you'll need to come up with several levels of involvement for your small-group ministry.

  For example, you might have light involvement positions such as keeping track of attendance and group report sheets. Moderate involvement responsibilities would include positions as hosting a group session or making reminder phone calls. Heavier involvement positions would include roles such as small-group ministry coach or small-group leader.

Group's Church Volunteer Central has sample ministry descriptions to get you started. Work from a template and have the people currently serving in the position edit to describe what they're doing -- or wish they were doing!

Time invested in writing ministry descriptions for all areas of service will benefit your entire church for years to come!

Bob D'Ambrosio has 25 years' experience with volunteer leadership in small group ministry, discipleship, and education. He now serves as a consultant and trainer with Church Volunteer Central, and is a frequent contributor to Children's Ministry Magazine.