Bill Allison contributed a series on Why Volunteers Won’t Show Up for your Training over on the Life in Student Ministry blog.

Lecturing tends to kill the attendance of any of your future volunteer training efforts — and ultimately destroys your ability to create a true culture of training volunteers in your church. The training you offer volunteers in your church should be facilitated by a “guide-on-the-side” and not a “sage-on-the-stage.”

Bill suggests that you should never under-estimate your volunteers and give them puffy cotton-candy content when they are actually seeking something meaty.

Finally, training adults fails when training opportunities are not planned with the life, ministry, and schedule of the average church volunteer in mind. Poor scheduling and communication are two ways that we don’t help our own cause.  The series is a worthwhile read; check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.