The lazy days of summer? Not hardly. It’s more like Panic City for those of us who have to keep various ministries supplied with workers. When the preschool coordinator tells you no one is left to teach the 2-year-olds, what’s a pastor to do? How do you answer the question, “Would it disturb the service that much if the 2-year-olds sat with their parents?”
Recruiting workers, always a challenge, is brought sharply into focus during the summer, whether keeping ministry positions filled or gearing up for fall programs.
Once, in an attempt to staff our nursery, we resorted to heavy-handed tactics, assigning parents to nursery duty on a particular Sunday, whether they volunteered or not.
“If you’ve got kids in the nursery,” we said in effect, “then we expect you to carry your fair share.”
Then we wondered why so many helpers failed not only to show up for duty but failed even to come to church on their assigned days. We discovered draftees often go awol without completing their tour of duty. Such encounters have caused us to rethink our entire approach to filling ministries in our church.
Though I’ve always paid lip service to the idea of helping people find a ministry geared specifically for them—a place where they can use their own gifts—I haven’t always succeeded. Sometimes I’ve resorted to guilt, subtle manipulation, and cajoling—all for the sake of getting a yes.
I’ve learned, however, that’s not enough. I can twist someone’s arm and wrench a yes out from between clenched teeth. But if I don’t touch the heart, it won’t last. Those so manipulated often serve with limited effectiveness. Who can blame them? I’m not enthused about being pressured either.
Trying to draft an army for the church doesn’t work for the long haul. It’s only when we begin enlisting people that their service changes from “ought to” motivation to “want to” motivation. And they’re more likely to stay for the long term. We’ve discovered it’s possible to create a climate where people want to serve.
Here are some of the ways we’ve shifted our approach.
Fill the Person, Not the Program
Needs are much easier to find than the people to meet those needs. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way.
When I develop a program before developing the people who will serve, I often end up with trouble. So now I try to start with the people and find the ministries they’d like to do.
We shifted the focus of our nursery from the need we had (taking care of infants and toddlers) to helping people find significance by serving others. Our nursery took on a whole new look. Now we don’t have to force parents to serve their tour of duty. We have enough others who enjoy being part of our “Helping Hands” ministry: grandmothers, teenagers, even marrieds who are not yet parents.
We also encourage our people to experiment with different things until they discover the interests and gifts that belong uniquely to them.
Dean and Joanna started out working with youth. Increasingly, though, they found opportunities to help people—teens and adults—troubled by alcohol or drugs. Dean remembered that he had been helped by a Twelve-Step program and wondered if he and Joanna couldn’t do something similar.
“We’d like to start a Christ-centered program,” they told the church leaders, “that would help people overcome chemical abuse.”
They were permitted to back out of youth ministry and step into another area, starting a new ministry. People took precedence over the program.
Dean and Joanna now lead a support group for people struggling with substance abuse and encourage dozens of people to overcome addictions with the help of Christ. Along the way the church leaders have explored resources with Dean and Joanna, and have encouraged them in their efforts. Some of Dean and Joanna’s energies have since expanded beyond our church as they’ve helped other churches start similar ministries.
Now, instead of following the axiom “find a need and fill it,” I want to find and equip people first, then find the ministry needs they can fill.
Use Your Passion, Not Your Position
People respond to my heart more than my words. Since potential volunteers usually recognize what really motivates me, I shape my focus by several priorities.
Volunteers are leaders-in-training. I want to help people develop as leaders, not just plug another leak in the ministry dike. My goal is to make them fruitful in ministry, not merely enlist them to help me do ministry.
Certainly, there are quicker methods to lining up volunteers. It takes time to model, explain, encourage, and release people into various leadership roles.
That’s one reason why I work to link rookies with veterans already involved in ministry. When volunteers work as apprentices alongside those who do ministry, they identify more with the person than the program. Since the heart is in the person, not the work, volunteers catch the passion for the ministry. They acquire a sense of ownership for it.
Doyle is one volunteer who caught the vision and is now a leader. Seasoned over time, he’s now widely recognized as one of our church’s most gifted “pastors,” though he is not officially on staff. In fact, he owns a sign-making business.
Doyle and his wife, Freddie, became believers after their children from previous marriages were adults. Later they faced several family traumas. Some relationships were severely strained. They suffered while watching their own children go through divorce. But through these difficult experiences, Doyle’s heart grew more compassionate and tender. His natural concern for people deepened.
Now Doyle has several people working with him, helping in his ministry to hurting people. His team teaches and leads a dynamic adult fellowship every Sunday. He really is the front-line pastor for that group of adults. He works with the church staff, keeping us posted about ministry needs. We, in turn, encourage him with his work as he visits the sick and counsels the discouraged.
When one of Doyle’s group died, I worked with the family to prepare the funeral.
“Could Doyle have a part in the service?” they asked. “He’s been such a help to our family; it seems only right that he help us through this as well.”
Now when I face any pastoral care situation with someone from Doyle’s group, I routinely ask, “Would you like Doyle to participate?” His ministry is informal, but powerful.
I’ve noticed three benefits as I’ve encouraged volunteers to be leaders:
1. Their creativity is unleashed, improving the ministries.
2. Their commitment is strengthened because they feel more responsible for their own ministries.
3. Their confidence is developed as they experience God’s blessings in their ministries.
Minister to the ministers. Our church leaders work hard to encourage our volunteers. When a volunteer faces a personal crisis or when ministry involvement begins disrupting someone’s personal life, we want to focus on what is best for that individual.
Tim and Cheryl, who worked with our preschool children, found themselves facing several major crises. Tim unexpectedly lost his job. Then their infant son was diagnosed with microcephaly, an abnormality in the development of the brain. They were ministers who needed ministry themselves. We gave them time off from their teaching and offered personal support and encouragement as they worked through their difficulties.
At times, our commitment to encourage volunteers in tangible ways may mean we’ll have to face short-term adjustments. Perhaps we’ll have to curtail the ministry they’ve been doing altogether. It’s a small price to pay. Ministry that harms the ones who do it ceases to be ministry; it does not honor God.
If we rigidly hold people to their commitments to serve, we can do irreparable damage to them and the work they’ve done. But if we minister to the ministers, they will grow stronger, and in the long run be able to extend their own ministry.
Make others feel significant. One of the greatest sources of satisfaction is seeing people you’ve worked with move on to develop their own ministries. We encourage our leaders to make this their goal—to find their own spiritual fulfillment by seeing others develop a joyful, fruitful ministry.
To help our volunteers see this, I need to model this perspective in my relationships with other churches and ministries. If I cannot be thankful for what God does through others, I’ll never be able to release our own volunteers to achieve their full potential. If I feel threatened by the accomplishments of a ministry colleague, for example, I set up a subtle competition, though perhaps subconscious. Such an attitude undermines my own effectiveness. Personal insecurity can have a crippling effect on ministry.
A pastor who keeps looking over his shoulder at an up-and-coming associate will poison his own ministry and, at the same time, stifle the ministry of his associate. There is no joy or fulfillment where mistrust and insecurity color a relationship.
When the family first asked if Doyle could participate in the funeral service, I could have felt insecure: Are they suggesting I can’t handle it? What do they have against me? What can Doyle do better than I? But if I had responded that way—even if I was able to mask my insecurities—Doyle wouldn’t be the lay pastor he is today. I would have been the lid on his potential.
Lately I have frequently mentioned in public my appreciation for the other pastors and churches in our community as we prepare for a Luis Palau Crusade in October. Hearing my sentiments helps our volunteers learn something about the spirit of cooperation. When they see genuine enthusiasm from their pastor for what God is doing through others, they are more apt to find joy in releasing their own co-workers to other ministries in our church or community.
Be patient. Several years ago, we sensed a need for a divorce recovery group in our church. Several of our members had gone through painful separations. They wondered how they could pick up the pieces of a shattered marriage. Naturally, some came to the leaders of the church for help.
“Can you start a group that will minister to our needs?” they asked.
We actively explored various options, but it soon became clear that no one was available who had the necessary qualifications for such a ministry. We were frustrated because an obvious need was not being met. But we determined to be patient.
We wanted God to supply the right leadership. Forcing the issue would only create additional problems and would still leave the issue of divorce recovery unmet.
Finally, after two years, God brought the right person along. Charlie had the spiritual, personal, and professional qualifications necessary to lead such a group. God’s timing is often revealed when he motivates a person who has both the compassion and desire to minister.
Prayerful patience has an added value. Sometimes people suggest ministries that do not seem feasible. Working slowly through such suggestions enables us to treat each idea credibly, allowing them to take on their own life—or die a natural death.
A couple of years ago, during a change of leaders in our youth ministries, two moms of teenage girls wanted to teach a Saturday morning Bible study for sixth-grade girls. Their chosen subject was J. I. Packer’s theology book Knowing God. My first instinct was “wrong time, wrong book.”
But after we discussed my concerns, they still wanted to try it. So we went ahead. The result was a life-changing experience for twenty girls and two moms.
Of course this approach also leaves the door open for failure. When Jim asked if he could start a counseling ministry or support group for those who felt stressed out, we supported his efforts. One of our elders joined with him to strategize how best to reach those who were, as Jim put it, “living on the edge.”
Our prayers and encouragement, however, did not dictate that something had to come out of his concern and efforts. So when the necessary resource people and enthusiasm did not emerge, Jim’s ministry for hurting people never materialized. But he was strengthened in the process of planning for it and took heart to see how we validated him.
And who knows? Someday the time may be right for that particular ministry to finally begin.
Serving Is a Privilege, Not a Plight
When I really believe ministry is a privilege, I am less inclined to force people into service. I want to be free of the compulsion to make people fit my agenda. Instead, I want our volunteers to experience the joy of developing their own aptitudes and calling—things that will offer them genuine fulfillment.
This fundamental attitude shift makes a huge difference in the way we work with people. We’re not recruiting; we’re inviting people to grow.
Many times, we’ve found, people need to give more of themselves to fewer commitments. Some people get involved in too many ministries and eventually turn sour because they can’t give adequate energy and enthusiasm to any one of them.
We ask people to focus on one (or at most two—a major and a minor) area of ministry.
When each believer wholeheartedly gives himself or herself to one ministry that is honestly enhanced by that person’s gifts, then every vital ministry in our church and in our community will be fully staffed. The benefits of this principle have been substantial.
It helps us develop long-term ministry. One team of adults has now taught 3-year-olds for over ten years. They have enough people working together to allow occasional breaks for those who need some time off to be rejuvenated. And they have a sense of God’s leadership, which makes their ministry fulfilling—though also challenging, considering it involves working with small children.
It frees the church staff. This approach releases our paid staff to focus more on planning and development of leadership. awana, a Bible memorization program for children, was struggling after two years of development. Although led by lay people, Tim, our Christian education pastor, was constantly investing large amounts of time to keep the program going. Our elders decided that unless stronger lay leadership surfaced, we would cancel the program.
In the year of evaluation that followed, God placed more than ten awana leaders from other parts of the country in our church. It became obvious to us that God was working in this ministry. Five years later, with almost 60 leaders and well over 200 children involved each week, Tim has been able to back off, providing only basic oversight and encouragement.
With less need for hands-on involvement, he has been released to identify and develop leaders in other areas of ministry.
It fosters a lifestyle of ministry. By focusing on who they are more than what they do, we remind people that they are serving God, not a church or a pastor. By emphasizing a direct sense of accountability to God, we hope to prevent volunteers from thinking of their ministries solely as a specific event or time. We want them to see all of life as an opportunity to serve.
We want our volunteers to feel the freedom of ministry empowered by the Holy Spirit. They understand that ministry within our church takes place with the guidance and encouragement of the elders and pastors. But they also know that the possibilities for what they can do are endless. God has lots of surprises for us. We now miss fewer of them because we’ve encouraged people to listen to God’s direction in their lives.
When Carolyn finished Bible Study Fellowship’s five-year program, she wondered if God could use what she had learned. Shortly afterward, she began to recognize the needs of her 92-year-old mother. Though her mother still lived independently, she craved interaction and meaningful dialogue.
So did many of her mother’s friends who lived in nursing homes. So Carolyn began to teach a Bible study at a local nursing home, taking her mother along with her. Now her ministry includes study groups in five nursing homes.
Carolyn initiated the program, prompted by the Spirit, not by the leaders of the church.
We highlight such stories in our congregation because we would like more of our church ministry to be Spirit-prompted, not pastor-pushed.
One of our elders reminds me often, “Be careful not to overmanage the work of God.” We have learned to give God plenty of room to use people in ways we cannot imagine.
At times, we still catch ourselves being tempted to twist someone’s arm as we try to keep some church program afloat. But we have discovered it’s better by far to focus on God’s priorities, making ministry for both leaders and volunteers a joyful experience and a true privilege.
Ken Horton is pastor of McKinney Memorial Bible Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
Al Sibello is a writer in Fort Worth, Texas.
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