We don't have a facilities person on staff, so our church depends totally on a volunteer team to maintain the church and keep up with repairs.  We have a very active disaster relief team that maintains 2 trailers full of equipment for minor to major repairs. They not only do disaster relief, they also build ramps, do work and rebuild houses in the community. If a church maintenance job requires a licensed professional, we have a large number of church members in the building industry who are always willing to ministry through maintenance or they contract out. We also have a large number of non-professionals who have loads of experience gained from volunteering for disaster relief work.  When a church repair is needed, our Facilities Committee knows who to call and most of the time, we get the problem fixed by a maintenance volunteer in a timely manner. 

A few times a year, or if there is a specific need, the Facilties team & our Men's group team up to sponsor a Saturday workday.  They assign an experienced project leader to each task and that leader is responsible for the materials needed as well as supervision of the work being done.  If I have a smaller "to do" list, a one or two people from the team will work together to knock the list out over the weekend or in the evening after work.

 A "We can do it. Yes, we can!" attitude is not enough. My advise and my biggest concern about building a maintenance team would be to be sure the team leader is a bonded and licensed general contractor, county inspector, or facilities professional OR at least someone with a working knowledge of the building codes in your area... you know a regular "Bob the Builder" to be sure that the work is being done safely and correctly.

As for policies, the Southern Baptist Men and United Methodist Volunteers in Missions have good policy documents and release forms. Check them out.

Lisa B from NC