How many volunteers do we need?

First: adults each Sunday

For every room, the adults it needs on a busy Sunday (the ratio table works it out from the children and your policy's ratio, and it's never fewer than two). Add up every room in every service. Count leaders, greeters and hall monitors too if they serve every Sunday.

For example, a nursery, a toddler room, a preschool room and a room for older children, two adults each, at two services: 4 rooms × 2 adults × 2 services = 16 adults each Sunday.

The table

Each row is the adults you need each Sunday; each column is how often each person serves. "1 in 4" means each person serves one Sunday in four.

Worked out as the adults each Sunday times how often each person serves, plus one more person in five for the Sundays someone is ill, traveling or on vacation, rounded up. Teen helpers don't count: they're extras. A planning aid, not advice. Last reviewed October 2026.

Reading it

• Serving less often needs more people. Once a month is easy to say yes to, but it takes four times the people that every week does.
• Teams that take turns work the same way: with four teams, each team serves one block in four, so each team needs the adults for a Sunday, plus some spare.
• The gap is your recruiting goal. The difference between this number and the people you have is how many to ask.

Let Arkrooms keep count

Arkrooms builds the rotation, keeps everyone's share fair, finds subs when someone can't come, and shows which rooms are short of volunteers on the coming Sundays.

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