Every Monday morning, pastors, or ministers, are ready to turn in their resignation letter, or at least that’s the joke among them. Pastoring is stressful, causing depression, burn-out, and often impacts their families and friendships negatively.
Overwhelmed, overworked, and underappreciated is only a recipe for failure. Having enough good, qualified volunteers would be a blessing. A lack of isn’t necessarily the main reason for the statistics shown above, but I believe inadvertently, if not directly, there is a connection.
While I’m no expert, I have co-pastored with my husband for 21 years now and been by his side as he has been serving almost five years as General Superintendent of Full Gospel Churches International’s organization. A frequent problem seen is a lack of help in smaller churches. I imagine the mega-churches contend with this also, even though I don’t know firsthand.
Think about how much help is needed to run a church:
- nursery workers
- Sunday School teachers
- custodians
- church secretary
- greeters
- music ministers or leaders
- musicians
- maintenance
- Bible-study teachers
- committee leaders and members
- decorators
- Ladies pastors
- Pastors over men groups
- Youth ministers and/or children ministers
- Planners for funeral and fellowship dinners
- those to visit the sick
- prayer teams
- sound technicians
- missionary groups
- fundraising coordinators
And, the list can go on, and on.
No matter what, the normal stress related to pastoring is magnified when a shortage exists to fulfill programs, committees, and the like. Therefore, today I’d like to change the focus a little bit by offering a solution to getting more volunteers, without trickery.
Prayer isn’t the solution I’m referring to today, but most necessary. In fact, I highly recommend My writing friend’s book, “Pit-Crew: Praying for our Pastors.” Every church could benefit from Sally Smith’s unique, useful guide to praying for your pastors.
Why Volunteers are Hard to Come By
Our small church means my husband is bi-vocational and we fill multiple roles. Our caring members help by offering advice, “You need to learn to delegate more responsibility.”
They mean well and we thanked them. However, one thing we learned quickly was delegating only works for short-term situations. I promise you, the job comes back to the pastor, the same way a boomerang will.
If we needed someone to substitute mowing the churchyard or running the soundboard, delegating worked. However, if we desired to have more church fellowship dinners and delegated this responsibility to a capable woman, inevitably, it would fall back into our lap usually within two to three attempts. If it’s their passion, it’s an entirely different ballgame. Those efforts will last.
As a result, my husband and I eventually learned to follow less of what we wanted. I’d love to say we were sacrificial people, but we were selfish. We wanted to avoid becoming overloaded and failing. This taught us to listen to God more, and we began supporting those who came to us with ideas birthed from their prayer time with God.
After all, the pastor’s job is to shepherd the sheep God gives – not to change their DNA to create passive, easy-to-lead sheep that is cute, fun, and produced perfect wool to make you wealthy.
This raised awareness allowed me to see how churches are fighting a battle we can’t win. No amount of excitement, trends, or technology will bring in the amount of people needed to fill all the positions churches have. There, my friend is the problem. We need to change some of our foundational thinking.
When pastors are constantly inviting, asking, or even begging, for volunteers, a silent chasm is being built among members or congregants. It’s “the few who do everything,” against “the audience who sits back and watches”. The ministers then react positively to volunteers as if they’re royalty and non-participants are Cinderella. Do you belong, or are you an outsider?
In order to do this, pastors must get a different mindset. No longer can we afford to cause division in the church between participants and non-participants. Instead, we need to get back to Bible basics. Preach and teach to the whole audience. What we teach is even more important. We’re called Christians to be “Christ-like.” That’s what we need to teach on often.
Christ set a perfect example for us in every way. If we teach how Jesus showed His love by serving others, then church members catch a desire to follow the greatest servant of all. Jesus wants all of us to be His servants – 100% participation. He needs us to be His mouth, His hands, and His feet. To understand better, you could click any title below to listen to an older song, to watch a movie, or read a short book, demonstrating these principles.
Matthew West – My Own Little World
Audio Adrenaline – Hands and Feet
Casting Crowns – If We Are the Body
Not a Fan movie trailer.
From Mishaps to Mission book by none other than me.
In addition to teaching Christ example, Christians are not only united, but the desire to serve is built within as a way of life. There are also other things you can do, such as: have a discipleship class where attendees can explore ways to serve in the church and be plugged in within their first few months. It’s fairly easy to recognize your gifts through a Thanksgiving dinner example and scripture from Romans. Just read this older post of mine, “How a Thanksgiving Catastrophe Can Reveal Your Gifts“.
Before you know it, not only will there be enough people serving Jesus in the church over “filling positions”, but they’ll also be asking to do more, or even coming up with new ideas. All serving will be done with enthusiasm over wrong attitudes.
With the foundational shift in teaching this way, the pastor’s job is to teach about Jesus and offer opportunities. Help find giftings and encourage people.
It’s also possible to create a mentoring program to develop skills in interesting areas of church service. If anyone is interested in this, please contact me, and I’d be glad to help develop a program right for your size of church. Use the contact form by clicking on “Say Hi.”
I pray this was enlightening to more than just ministers and pastors. God wants us to do more than sit on pews once a month. Feel free to share your thoughts and to share this with others. Please come back, and bring a friend.
© 2019, Jena Fellers. All rights reserved.
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