From Adoration to Sunshine Greeters: How St. Joseph Expanded Volunteer Involvement with Unison

St. Joseph Catholic Church in Placentia, Calif., already uses Ministry Scheduler Pro to coordinate liturgical ministries. When Deacon Ken Kleckner needed a better way to organize volunteers for weekly Adoration, he decided to try Unison.

Today, St. Joseph uses Unison for Adoration, Sunshine Greeters, parking lot ministry, Known by Name Weekend and more—with plans to keep expanding.

We recently sat down with Deacon Ken to hear how St. Joseph uses Unison, how parishioners responded, and what the parish plans to organize next.

Q&A with Deacon Ken Kleckner

How did you come to work on volunteer programs at St. Joseph?

I was ordained in 2013, and over the years my role has evolved. In 2019, I took responsibility for our adult faith formation program, which included working with our volunteers and Ministry Scheduler Pro and I continue to assist with that. 

I’ve been involved in a lot of ministries at St. Joseph. I don’t think there’s a ministry I’ve missed!

What made you interested in using Unison?

It started with Adoration. We managed it the old-fashioned way: leaving a book in the back of church and asking people to sign up. 

As I looked at my options, I received an email about Unison, and since we already use MSP, I thought, Let me look at this and see if it might work for Adoration.

We now use Unison for Adoration every Thursday, as well as 24-hour Adoration on the first Friday of every month. It works very well for the team getting people signed up, and the email reminders are very helpful—especially when you’ve volunteered to be there at 2 in the morning!

Then I started looking at it and thinking, What else can we do with Unison?

What other parish ministries have you added to Unison??

We have several ministries using Unison now.

One is our Sunshine Greeters Ministry. We have greeters carrying yellow umbrellas throughout the parking lot, walking people to the church door, talking with them, greeting them, and making them feel comfortable. There might be 15 or 20 yellow umbrellas around the parking lot before every Mass!

We also have a parking lot ministry that helps control the flow of traffic, and we use Unison to recruit volunteers for that.

On the third Sunday of every month, we host our Known by Name Weekend. We have volunteers at tables writing name tags for people as they approach the church. When they go inside, everyone has a name tag so people can get to know one another by name.

How do you get the word out and encourage parishioners to sign up?

We have four large monitors at the front of the church, and before each Mass, we run slides about activities happening throughout the parish. For things like Adoration and Sunshine Greeters, we can put the opportunity on its own slide with a QR code people can scan to sign up. We also put opportunities in the bulletin.

But I find the most successful way to get people involved is word of mouth—a personal invitation. We have very enthusiastic participants who talk to other people and invite them to get involved.

You’ve also invited other parish leaders to manage their own opportunities in Unison. Was it difficult to get them started?

Each ministry already had someone in charge, so I invited those leaders into Unison, showed them the tool and then made them administrators.

Now I don’t have to administer every opportunity myself. They take responsibility for their own ministries.

Our Adoration team has a leader who manages that. Deacon Jim manages the parking lot ministry. Gina manages the Sunshine Greeters. I showed each of them how Unison works, and they took it from there.

It’s a very simple tool to use. It’s really not very hard.

How much training did ministry leaders need to use Unison?

Only half an hour, or less! I walk through it with them and add them as an administrator.  Then I’m available if they have questions.

They’ve learned it quickly. In the first couple of weeks, I really didn’t have many questions from them. They felt comfortable using Unison right away.

What has been especially helpful for the ministry leaders?

The reminders are very important. We’re all so busy, and Unison can send people an email reminding them when they signed up to serve. That takes the burden off the ministry leader to call everybody and follow up.

It also helps us communicate with the right people instead of sending every message to everybody. If volunteers are involved with a specific opportunity, we can communicate with those people rather than emailing the whole list.

How far in advance do you like to start organizing volunteers?

If we have a three-month window, we like to set things up so we have plenty of time to talk to volunteers and get everything organized.

You can do it two weeks beforehand, but I like having a longer window.

For example, we’re already going to start working on Vacation Bible School even though it won’t happen until next summer. We can get the volunteer positions in place early so the leader knows what she’ll need.

What other church events or ministries would you like to organize with Unison?

I’m looking forward to adding Vacation Bible School, Knights of Columbus activities, and our men’s ministry. And I’m sure there are another 10 or 15 things we could add as well!

As you think about your experience with Unison so far, what stands out to you most that you’d want another parish to know?

It really changes how we operate. It enables us to communicate with a wide variety of people for their ministries and keep them involved.

Start with one volunteer opportunity

St. Joseph didn’t begin by moving every parish ministry into Unison at once.

Deacon Ken started with one specific need: finding a better way to organize volunteers for Adoration. From there, other leaders saw how simple Unison is  and began adopting the platform for their own events and ministries.

If your church has an upcoming program, event or ministry that depends on volunteers, you can take the same approach: start with one opportunity and grow.