Laypeople and the Mission of God, Part 3

by: Ed Stetzer

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I continue my series today about laypeople and the mission of God. Let me start with a crisis point in my ministry that helped me to see the issue more clearly.

When I planted a church in Pennsylvania we started strong, particularly for the North, by growing to 125 the first year. We had 25 people in our core and 100 new people who came over the course of the first year. But the new 100 people didn’t do anything. They were passive spectators rather than active participants in the mission of God. And so we recognized that we had a cultural problem within the congregation.

There was a culture of non-participation. People came to be objects of ministry rather than co-laborers on mission. They wanted to be what I could call today “customers of the religious goods and services” distributed by our exciting new church. And, it was killing me.

I spent hour upon hour ministering, calling, working, and begging others to do that same. It was not working as people preferred to receive rather than to give.

So, we began to change the atmosphere to one of expectation that people will serve in ministry.

My motivation was not so complicated. What I tried to do was to shift the culture in my church from passivity to activity. When new people came into our church, most of them connected to the 100 passive people instead of the 25 active. A bad situation became worse.

So we took a full year to make a change through preaching, teaching, and training. We realized that we had to help people get it, so we did. We launched an internal campaign that was driven by a compelling question: “How do we shape the value of active service into our people?” And so over the course I preached messages about serving, we talked about it in small groups, and we did a training campaign on it. Finally, we asked the 25 to put positive, gracious peer pressure on the 100.

We had a print campaign, testimonies and videos. We went to each other’s houses and encouraged everyone to get involved. The end result was we wanted to change the atmosphere of expectation that people are responsible for the ministry of the church.

Part of the challenge was not just saying, “Hey, Jerry, you really need to do this.” We needed the tools and clear next steps. So we said, “Jerry, we want you to do this, but we want to train you for this. We have a course we want you to go through, a series of three courses. Would you go through this one with us?” At first it was slow over but over time people began to change.

How did it go? Well, not everybody got on board. One person in our church came to me and said, “Ed, my wife and I don’t think we should have to go through these classes. We’ve been Christians our whole lives, and why do we have to do that?” I said, “I totally get that, but this is the way we do it here at our church.” And I confessed, “Listen, I totally get that there’s no biblical command to go through these three courses, but our leadership and our church decided that this is the best way that God would have us to do things. So if this is your church, then this is what we think you should do.” So, they promptly left the church– and soon another left.

So, I’d encourage you to consider five truths about the tendency to being a customer of the church.

First, people naturally want to be objects of the ministry, not partners in it. That’s why the Bible says, “consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works” (Hebrews 10:24, KJV).

Second, people want to see others serving while they are the one being served. That’s why the Bible says, “Based on the gift EACH ONE has received, use it to serve others, as good managers of the varied grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10, HCSB).

Third, if you are a pastor, one of your most important roles is to equip people for ministry. That’s why the Bible says that God gave leaders “for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12, HCSB).

Fourth, it is not natural to be a giver. It is natural to be a receiver. That is what we desire, but that selfishness is what the Bible speaks against. That’s why the Bible reminds us that it is “more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

Fifth, when only pastors do for people what God has called all His people to do, everyone gets hurt and the mission of God is hindered. God has given gifts to his people for the good of all. That’s why the Bible says, “a demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person to produce what is beneficial” (1 Corinthians 12:7).

When God’s people think less like customers of the ministry and, instead, see themselves as the owners of the ministry, it’s a whole different kind of church.

The next post in this series will unpack the incredible resource for the mission of God that is sitting comfortably right under our noses each Sunday.

When we change our expectations of God’s people we might be surprised at what God does.

Read Part 4 here; go back to Part 2 here.

Read more from Ed here.

Tags: Ed Stetzer, Serve

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Laypeople and the Mission of God, Part 5

by: Ed Stetzer

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Where do you start engaging laypeople in your church on a higher level? Today I continue my series on laypeople and the mission of God  by giving action steps to implement in your church. The goal is to get people of the sidelines moving them from fan to player.

1. Communication is essential to change the culture of your church. You want to see those thinking like fans start to think like players. Weird word picture, don’t you think? What fan would you want to play for your favorite team? But God has always chosen the willing over the gifted.

You can’t assume that people understand their gifts, roles, or the expectations God has for them. Actually, based on the passivity in most churches, I might need to say that you should assume they do not understand the gifts, roles, or the expectations God has for them. My guess, some don’t and some do– but most are either unaware or unwilling. Most of the time, it is some of both.

My exhortation is to take the time to communicate vision, expectations, and the implementation of a plan to change the culture. Years ago, I led a small, rural church to engage more fully in ministry and mission. Our attendance was about 100 people on a weekend. Of the 100 about 20 were involved in any meaningful ministry and mission. Our first step was to ask the 20 to become partners in fixing the problem. We told them “we know you’re already serving, but we want to ask you to help us. Would you to take courses on how to find your gifts so that you can tell everyone how helpful they are and then recruit others to do the same?” They said yes, and we started that process.

We started getting these people as our advocates because they wanted to advocate– they were already tired and overworked, but we wanted them on our side. Our goal was to double our co-laborer team. So, we asked them to find one person in the first round so we could get 40 people that would go through this process. And they did.

We slowly built. I don’t believe that you’re going to get to 100% in an old, established church unless you have powers to kick people out or uncanny powers of persuasion. A reasonable goal is 50% to have some sort of ministry role in the church. A transformational church has around 70%. But 50% is reachable– and for most churches, it is much lower. So, communicate the goal, the number of people needed to reach the goal, and talk it to death! Preach, sing, announce, e-news, and tweet it. Communicate the “Why?” in big ways. Comeback leaders take the time to communicate vision, expectations, and implementation of the plan.

2. Growth demands empowered leaders– and unafraid pastors. Too many pastors are afraid of the people. We think we can control them by acting like a parent and trying to make a perfect, care-free ministry world. But when we act that way they usually control us, and we still fall short of the outcomes we crave. And even worse we become frustrated, burned-out leaders.

A lack of empowered leaders consistently hinders the health of a church. Those of us who write on growing churches would say that growth barriers are leadership barriers. These are real barriers and the answer is more, better, and empowered leaders.

For example, many churches get stuck at the 35 attendance barrier. You will find is that that 35 barrier is most likely going to be broken when we go from one key leader (probably the pastor) doing almost everything to a shared leadership plan with people serving in multiple areas. For example, in a small, growing rural church, that might mean somebody is in charge of children and students, somebody is in charge of small groups or Sunday School, and maybe someone is in charge of outreach. However, to see that 35 attendance church thrive and engage in transformation, there would be more people involved, empowered, engaged, and serving.

No matter the roles, as a church crosses a barrier it happens because leadership and roles expand. Churches grow as leadership expands. It is not the only reason, but without it, leadership becomes the lid– the limiting factor.

So, when we get to the 75 barrier, what you find is you often need these leaders to become “leaders of leaders.” As an example, let’s go back to the traditional rural church. At the 35 barrier, your Sunday School coordinator has 3 teachers. So at the 75 barrier you need those three leaders and seven other workers to be growing– and much more to be thriving.

Here are two graphics that might be of help. I am still tweaking them, so feel free to give your thoughts in the comments. Here they are. First, what it looks like to have a growing church. Second, what a transformational church looks like:

For many, the traditional church example will trip them up. They think the answer is to abandon these churches and their structures and, for example, go to house churches, or contemporary ones, for that matter. I get their concern, but my concern is for all kinds of churches. My church is a non-traditional church with small groups, and these principles still apply (and, as a new church, we are not yet where we want to be).

Obviously, this means you have to do more than bemoan the lack of lay involvement– you need a leadership strategy to fix it. Churches must have a plan to empower lay people through a leadership development strategy. If you are a pastor, that will change how you do ministry– spending more time developing leaders so that a broad engagement of lay leaders is a church-wide function.

For example, your schedule has to reflect a desire to engage all God’s people in ministry and mission. So you need weekly or monthly meetings with leaders of leaders, who then meet with other leaders, who then develop new leaders.

Remember, that means overcoming fear. Why? Because it is a scary thing to empower all God’s people, not just as workers, but as leaders– and even leaders of leaders. Will some of them fail? Absolutely.

However, you cannot fix the lack of lay involvement without giving permission and empowerment for people to be leaders. You cannot fix the lack of lay involvement without systems to empower people. You cannot fix the lack of lay involvement without giving leaders empowerment to make more leaders.

Read Part 6 here.

Begin the series here.

Read more from Ed here.

Tags: Communication, Ed Stetzer, Empowerment, Serve

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Laypeople and the Mission of God, Part 6

by: Ed Stetzer

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Today I conclude my series on laypeople and the mission of God. I hope you have been challenged to rethink how you do church– there are far too many spectators and not enough participants in the mission of God. Through the series, I’ve shared many thoughts and ideas about the problem and how to address it.

I hope you will reconsider how you communicate and what you celebrate. And at least reconsider how you might be underutilizing God’s most precious resource – the people sitting right under your nose next Sunday. Here are the final two ideas for changing your church culture.

3. Affirmation– Clear, ongoing affirmation of what people do is vital to changing culture. You celebrate what you value, and that must become part of your culture. Now, how do you do that? If you want to build a culture of ministry involvement, you need to do many things, but you certainly must affirm people and their ministry and mission involvement. For example, some of the best churches have 70-80% of their church family involved in meaningful ministry and mission.

In most churches it is not unusual to have the “announcement guy,” pastor, or speaker give a passionate, “Thank you so much to our worship team! What a song!” But the worship team gets the most thanks of anybody. So your platform culture needs to include those guys and integrated that example naturally for other ministries and teams, too. How are you celebrating the people of God all throughout your church in that way?

For example: You could say, “Most of you were handed an information brochure (program or bulletin) today when you walked in the door to help you navigate your experience with us. A volunteer handed you that brochure. Also volunteers came here this week to copy and fold that brochure. Say thank you to them when you come back next week. We value volunteers and invite you to become one as well. You will love it. You can find more information by stopping by our welcome center or checking out our website.” That’s less than two minutes, and it makes a difference in shaping and reshaping your church culture. Be creative and naturally mention different volunteers each week from the platform. Tell their stories in your e-newsletters. What you celebrate, you become. What you celebrate gets done!

You can celebrate people serving one another, serving the poor, engaging in evangelism, and a hundred other things. At Grace Church, we give out a monthly award (trophy and all) to a couple of our team members. We try to mention partners regularly in our worship and community.

It matters– if the pastor and the worship team are the only ones getting mentioned then they are the only ones that people believe you value. That just reinforces the clergy / laity caste system that we need to kill.

Scripture guides us here:

“Now there are different gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different ministries, but the same Lord. And there are different activities, but the same God activates each gift in each person. A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person to produce what is beneficial…

So the body is not one part but many…

But even more, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are necessary. And those parts of the body that we think to be less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor, and our unpresentable parts have a better presentation. (1 Corinthians 12: 4-7, 14, 22-23)

When was the last time you celebrated those parts of the body that receive less honor? If it was not recently, start now!

4. Assessment– People who discover their spiritual gifts are mobilized more effectively. I am not totally convinced the specifics of spiritual gifts are always the key– people need more than knowledge of their gifts. Raising awareness of gifts raises people’s awareness of God and His will for their lives, but they need something more.

People will not serve the church effectively long term simply because they know their gifts. In today’s crazy two career, step-family, multiple ballpark and music lesson culture, people can easily know, but never use, their gifts.

However, awareness of gifts can help Christ-followers become aware of their personal responsibility to God. Gifts help people to know God has called them and given them the ability to respond to that call and to be used by God. But, that is just a start.

For example, if they came from unchurched backgrounds, they can be easily intimidated by standing at the door every week saying “hello” as people walk in. They need to be aware that the power of effective ministry comes from the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. The need to know of their gifts (knowledge) but must walk in the power of the One who gifts (empowerment).

Peter addressed the subject of spiritual gifts: “Based on the gift they have received, everyone should use it to serve others, as good managers of the varied grace of God” (1 Peter 4:10). Don’t use that passage as a way to manipulate– but use it as a way to liberate. And what you say in your sermons creates culture in the same way as what the announcement guy says about the parking team before the sermon does.

Then Peter continued, “If anyone speaks, let him speak of the oracles of God. If anyone serves, let him serve from the strength God provides, so that in everything God may be glorified. To Him belong the glory and the honor, forever and ever, amen” (1 Peter 4:11). This passage says that– two broad categories of gifts, speaking and serving– both talk about the power of the Holy Spirit. And so the necessity of reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit is key in that process.

As you assess your ministry effectiveness asking the right questions is critical. Here is a good one. The late Peter Drucker, the famous business guru and consultant, provided a gift with this question: “If we were starting this again, would we do it the way we’re doing it now?” Drucker suggested the answer will almost always be “no.” The safest and best place to start your assessments is to bring the leaders into that conversation and be courageous enough to erase the board. Start all over again and be a part of something much bigger than you are now. Leverage a resource that you have undervalued– the people sitting right under your nose. The people God has sent you– which you are now responsible to send on!

Bill Hybels expressed his heart for every day Christians in his book The Volunteer Revolution: Unleashing the Power of Everybody.

The desire to be a world changer is planted in the heart of every human being, and that desire comes directly from the heart of God. We can suffocate that desire in selfishness, silence it with the chatter of competing demands, or bypass on the fast track to personal achievement. But it’s still there. (p. 13-14)
If God has really put that in the heart of people our obsession should be to draw it out of them for the sake of the gospel and to the glory of God.

If you are a pastor, this is central to your job description. You are called to “equip God’s people for works of ministry to build up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:10). Yet, today, we have spectators, not equipped believers, and the body of Christ is weak and not built up.

For some, the answer is to abandon the structures of church and move to a simpler model (like “house” or “organic church”). I am OK with that, but I don’t think it is God’s call for all– and I want all churches to engage all God’s people in mission. Yet, we can rethink our structures and approaches that produce passive spectators rather than active participants in the mission of God.

What do you think? One last thing which I almost forgot– I declare the term “laypeople” officially dead on my blog. Let’s just call everyone “God’s people.” Some are pastors, some are not, but all are called to the ministry (1 Peter 4:10) and sent on mission (John 20:21). The only questions are to where, among whom, and doing what.

Let’s build our ministries around the idea that people would say what Isaiah said: “Here I am Lord, send me.”

To begin this series, go here.

Read more from Ed here.

Tags: Affirmation, Assessment, Ed Stetzer, Serve

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The Church as Creature of the Word, Part 4

by: Trevin Wax

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Session 3 – Matt Chandler

God saves people, and it’s not always the same circumstances around conversion. The beauty of conversion is to see people saved in Sunday School or saved out of a strip club.

1. He calls us to be worshippers.

But what happens next? Worship in spirit and truth. Worship that is above the shoulders (informed by who God is, what He does, information about the living God that fuels worship). Worship is also below the shoulders (with passion, fervency, a glad heart).

If we’ve got any hope at all of being teams that lead in a way that is healthy, vibrant, and life-transforming, we’d better be worshippers in spirit and truth. Your people will be drawn to what you are most passionate about. Are you a worshipper? Does Jesus excite you? Or has ministry gotten rote and routine for you?

No matter how much you talk about leading teams and strategies, if you don’t have in your heart a love for Jesus and the desire to make much of Him, you’ll go off the rails quickly.

You can do everything we’re doing at our church and learn best practices and see nothing happen somewhere else. The Holy Spirit trusts people who just love Jesus. Massive growth is not always success. Do you have affections for the Lord, enjoying getting to know Him? Or are you in the text just because you have to be in the text?

The undershepherd must love the Good Shepherd.

2. He calls us to one another.

Let love be genuine, without hypocrisy. 

Hypocrisy is pretending to be more than you are, or pointing out the flaws of others so you feel better about yourself.

Abhor what is evil. Love is willing to engage an erring brother or sister. Genuine love says, “I think you are in danger.” It is not cruel to point out danger in the lives of others. You’re not a bad parent to not let your kid play in the street. It means you’re a loving parent.

Love one another with a brotherly affection...

The reason Paul is writing this text is because the church in Rome is not living this way. Be encouraged! The kinds of things your church is dealing with are the things Paul dealt with.

Your staff’s interaction with each other goes a long way in cultivating the culture of your church.

Questions for your team:

• How are you organizationally doing this (outdoing one another in love and good deeds)?
• Lead pastor, how open are you with other staff members? Are you isolated? To remove yourself from the trenches and retreat to books and study will take away the sharp edge of leading your people well.
• Does your staff do things together as friends after hours? Are there organic gatherings of people on your team? Life, not complaining. Celebrating what God is doing in your church. Foster that. Encourage that.

3. God calls us as servants. 

The gospel is not only the foundation for our service; it also radically purifies our motivation for service. We serve because Jesus has served us.

Pastors, are you modeling for your people a heart of servanthood? Kingdom hands are dirty hands.

If you walk in entitlement, you will simply create a sense of entitlement beneath you that leads to an entitled staff, and an entitled leadership, an entitled congregation that leads to the death of the church.

A healthy church, a healthy culture reproduces. The creature of the Word multiplies. Church planting, missions, etc. The more clingy you are about what’s yours the more you show your own culture and the desire to feel good about yourself.

There will be a day when no one cares about a big church name or your pastor heroes. How eagerly do you celebrate the success of other churches in your area? How easy is it for you to critique those churches?

Do you celebrate the kingdom? Or do you celebrate your kingdom?

Do you acknowledge that God is working in streams other than your own?

The more you think the ministry is about you, the more exhausted and weary you will become. The more you recognize the ministry is about Jesus, the more freeing you will feel.

The downward turn of our culture will shrink and purify the church, as people who are into church but not into Jesus will leave. Out of that, there is hope that God will do spectacular things. We will work for genuine gospel community to shine, as we serve one another in a way that confuses and attracts the world around us.

Read the prior posts in this series here: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3.

Read more from Trevin here.

Tags: Connect, Scripture, Serve, Trevin Wax, Worship

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Laypeople and the Mission of God, Part 4

by: Ed Stetzer

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Today I continue my series on laypeople and the mission of God. If you have been following this series you know how I don’t like the word “laypeople.” At the end of the series, I am officially declaring it off limits for a while. A few of you may have a moist eye, and I may have a sniffle or two, but we must move to the future with a different and higher view about what God wants done. Simply put, all God’s people are called to the ministry (1 Peter 4:10), and all God’s people are sent on mission (John 20:21).

One of God’s greatest resources to fulfill His mission is people who are currently doing little to nothing– and they have been taught that is what they are supposed to be doing. Churches are filled with passive spectators rather than active participants in the mission of God.

As I explained in an article for Q Ideas, millions of people live in the shadow of churches that have become consumer Christian centers. The mission of God is being cheated while consumer Christians enjoy the programming. In their book, God is Back, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge described the state of the American church as the “Disneyfication of God” or “Christianity Lite – a bland and sanitized faith that is about as dramatic as the average shopping mall” (p. 189).

Believers who think like customers contribute to the underachieving church in America (and the West in general). But hold on. I believe the mentality in the pew (or cushioned chair) may have another contributing factor: pastoral codependency.

First, let me define a term codependent. I got this from Wikipedia–because you can trust everything there. “A codependent’ is loosely defined as someone who exhibits too much, and often inappropriate, caring for persons who depend on him or her… A ‘codependent’ is one side of a relationship between mutually needy people.
A codependent pastor needs a needy congregation. And we have too many of both. But relishing the applause that comes from being the local church superstar often results in performance anxiety and utter disappointment in an underachieving church. It is a vicious cycle where everyone ends up disappointed–including God.

So who started all of this dysfunction? Was it the needy, consumer-driven congregation? Or was it the pastor, hungry for significance? The pastor who insists on being the focus of local ministry trains the body of Christ to sin. Believers who demand all ministry to be done by “professionals” lead the pastor to sin. To break the cycle, the enablers must stop enabling. God cannot receive glory in the church when pastors are always up front receiving the credit.

I am a pastor and I love pastors. I don’t think they caused the problem and I am so thankful for the sacrifice they make. Actually, that willingness to sacrifice, to DO for others what God has called them to DO, is from the right heart but with a bad result. It hurts the church and it hurts the pastor.

We need to understand everyone’s role. When pastors do for people what God has called them to do, everyone gets hurt and the mission of God is hindered. God designed the church to act as the body of Christ. Here is what it should look like: “Based on the gift they have received, everyone should use it to serve others” (1 Peter 4:10). “A manifestation of the Spirit is given to each person to produce what is beneficial” (1 Corinthians 12:7). The church is most alive when every believer serves in the mission of God where assigned by the Spirit.

Wherever we live, it is a mission field. However, too often, we say we live in a mission field but don’t engage the mission force– the people of God.

Now, I am a believer in pastors– and see that there is a pastoral office. I am not looking to undermine that. However, we have swung way too far the other way in most churches– with rooms of spectators rather than servants, customers rather than co-laborers.

The average person sitting in the pew (or, more likely today, the padded chair) on Sunday is bored, unengaged, and under challenged. If he/she is not absolutely jazzed by babysitting preschoolers or helping park cars on Sundays, many churches have few other options.

Thus, I think it is essential to change the culture from passivity to activity and to break the consumer Christian / co-dependent pastor cycle.

Starting in my next post, I will walk through four essentials to changing the culture of your church to engage all God’s people in mission.

Read prior posts from this series here: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3.

Read Part 5.

Read more from Ed here.

Tags: Ed Stetzer, Serve, Staff Leadership Roles

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Leadership Development – An Age Old Problem with a New Twist

by: VRcurator

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Tags: Brent Dolfo, Leadership Barriers, Serve, Structure

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Fast Forwarding Your Church’s Engagement in the Community

by: Warren Bird

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Tags: Externally Focused Church, Kingdom Concept, Leadership Network, Reggie McNeal, Serve, Warren Bird

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Laypeople and the Mission of God, Part 2

by: Ed Stetzer

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Today I continue my series about laypeople and the mission of God. If you missed the first post in the series about killing the clergy-laity caste system, you can find it here.

In the first church I planted we did something strange, but we were tying to communicate something important. In the Sunday program, normally you would print the name of the church, phone number, and the obligatory: “Ed Stetzer, Pastor.” Instead we listed everybody. I was listed as the pastor but we included the greeters, the children’s ministry coordinator and a host of other ministers– since all God’s people are the ministers. What I learned was that was a nice thought, but it takes much more than an announcement.

Every church must have a strategy and a process to equip people for ministry and mission. Thus, they create an environment where people are empowered and enabled to do ministry. Yet, and perhaps this is the greatest challenge in many churches, you have to recognize that there are many factors working AGAINST engaging all God’s people in ministry.

There is a role for leadership, but we cannot miss the reality that, in most churches, there are many more passive spectators than there are active participants in the mission of God.

The question: why?

Well, there are many reasons, but one is this: pastors and attendees want it that way. They may bemoan passivity, but they empower it personally.

Let me start with the attendees.

Anthropologists tell us that “religion” is a universal cultural reality. Every culture creates a religion. We find religion all around the world, in every culture.

The religions they create have at least two characteristics:

• people create religious rituals to ceremonialize their devotion
• people create a religious hierarchy to outsource their religious obligations

So, the default mode of culture and people is toward ceremony and hierarchy, rather than devotion and ministry engagement.

(Note: I am not addressing liturgy here, but rather cermonialization– where the rituals replace the relationship.)

Christianity is not another created religion, but we should note the fact that every created religion has these characteristics in common. In other words, these forces are so powerful that they are, well, everywhere. But, Christianity is so radically different– or at least it is supposed to be– that it would show another way.

Yet, it is important that we recognize the nature of people and the constructs of culture both push away from the idea of all of God’s people are priests (1 Peter 2:9) and ministers (1 Peter 4:10). We don’t want a priesthood and ministry of all believers. Instead, we want people to go to God for us and leaders to do the ministry to us– that is the default condition of the heart. It is the religion that we seem to crave– yet it is not Christianity, at least not biblical Christianity.

So, my point is this. To deal with the issue you have to fight against the causes. Biblical leadership (and, as I will address later, church offices) are put in place by God for the purpose of “for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12). Yet, too often they (we) are perpetuating the system they bemoan.

Which leads to addressing the reasons pastors often disempower the priests.

Many pastoral leaders enjoy (and take their identity from) doing the work of the ministry more than training and equipping all God’s people to do that ministry– that hurts the pastors and the people. Some pastors are concerned about their employment, wondering, “If I train them for the ministry then why would they need me.” Others are concerned about their identity asking, “What do they need me for if they do the ministry?”

This is a tricky topic and, to be honest, many of the commenters on the last post seemed upset at pastors. So, lest I be misunderstood, let me be clear: I love pastors. But, I love pastors enough to say, “You are to equip God’s people for ministry, not be the shopkeeper of the religious store providing religious rituals to ceremonialize devotion a religious hierarchy to outsource people’s religious obligations.”

That requires some shifts in how we do ministry.

More on that in Part 3.

Read Part 1 from this series here.

Read more from Ed here.

Tags: Clergy-Laity, Ed Stetzer, Serve, Staff, Structure

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Volunteer Culture: Debunking the Myth that Volunteering Takes More Time, Part 5

by: Mark Waltz

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In the last post and next couple posts about creating and cultivating a volunteer culture, I’ll pull from my second book, Lasting Impressions: From Visiting to Belonging, to review some common myths that prevent people from stepping up to serve in the local church (or any organization).

Myth #2: “Volunteering Requires Too Much Time.”

This myth may or may not be true in your church. If the only way to volunteer at your church is by serving every week for hours at a time, the above statement may not be a myth; it may be an unfortunate reality.

• Debunk MYTH #2
• Create first serve opportunities. We picked up this concept from Willow Creek Community Church. At Willow first serves are “one-time serving opportunities offered at a variety of times and tapping into a wide range of skills and areas of interest.” Their mantra is “Come once and check it out. No strings attached.” People are invited to help prepare the auditorium for weekend services, care for cleanup during services, assist with maintenance projects and more—one time. It’s a first serve.
• Provide a variety of schedules for serving. There are roles in our children’s ministry that require a weekly serve for sixty—ninety minutes each week, so that our children experience consistency with the adults and students who lead them. There are other volunteer roles in children’s ministry and almost every other department that are as infrequent as once a month. Volunteers can serve in some areas on a seasonal basis, such as our Green Thumb teams who spruce up and maintain the landscape of our campus during the spring and summer months (We’re in the snow belt of Northern Indiana. There are other unique and courageous teams who clear snow and de-ice pavement during the other months.)
• People make assumptions. People know people who serve 2, 5, 10, 20 hours a week. They assume that’s what’s required to volunteer – so they don’t. People will live their assumptions as reality unless you say otherwise. Find creative ways to allow people to serve without requiring them to quit their jobs to do so.

Adapted from Lasting Impressions, Group Publishing

Tags: Mark Waltz, Serve, Volunteer Culture

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Volunteer Culture: Debunking the Myth that Volunteering Takes More Time – Part 4

by: Mark Waltz

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For the next several posts about creating and cultivating a volunteer culture, I’ll pull from my second book, Lasting Impressions: From Visiting to Belonging, to review some common myths that prevent people from stepping up to serve in the local church (or any organization).

MYTH #1: “There’s no room for me; it’s all being done already.”

• You and I know nothing could be further from the truth. Unless it’s really true, of course. Maybe your staff is doing it all. Maybe you’ve structured things in such a way that there really are not new opportunities for new peeps. True or not, people tend to believe the myth.

• For instance, at Granger our guests and returning guests pull into the parking lot where they are directed by a traffic team to an open parking space. At the front door of the building they are greeted by one or more volunteers who welcome them to the service. A team is ready at the children’s check-in area, with campus guides available if the family needs assistance getting to children’s launch zones or rooms. There are friendly teams of people throughout the children’s center and each classroom with a prepared room for the session’s activities. When they visit the restroom they discover that someone has cleaned the space, stocked tissue and deodorized.

In the auditorium they discover that someone has prepared a printed program, while someone else has prepared the space with seating, lighting and ambient music. During the service it’s clear that there were teams of artists who practiced and presented music, media and drama. The pastor was prepared with a message relevant to their world. Everything was thought of; everything was covered. “They must have all the volunteers and staff they need,” thinks the normal Granger attendee.

My guess is this is a common myth in your church as well. Every staff and volunteer leader knows it’s a myth. There’s always room for more volunteers.

• Debunk MYTH #1

• Talk about it. Don’t assume people will figure this out on their own. They won’t. Say the myth aloud from the platform. At Granger it’s a myth we frequently speak to, directly and simply: “There are abundant opportunities to make a contribution. There’s room for you.” And then we’ll point to the variety of areas where our people can jump in and make a contribution. It seems too simple: talk about it. But the simple is easy to overlook. So, I’ll say it again, talk about it.

• “Chunk” new roles: In their book Simply Strategic Volunteers, Tony Morgan and Tim Stevens use this phrase to talk about breaking any volunteer project or role down to its many parts. If you have one volunteer responsible for getting the toddler space ready for the weekend, chunk the responsibilities to include more people: toy washers, floor cleaners, people who copy, cut or collate activity sheets. One person doesn’t have to do it all. As roles are chunked you create more opportunities for volunteers.

• Make sure it’s a myth. If I hear a ministry area in our church boast of having enough volunteers, there’s generally a “come to Jesus meeting” called. If you have teams who can’t find ways to involve more people it needs to be addressed. In more cases than not, that team has stopped dreaming, become cozily settled in their “we four and no more” team of friends or hit a lull in their creative approach to include more volunteers. Only in our band where there are limited instruments do we occasionally find ourselves in a season of “enough.” Tony Morgan puts it this way: “The church can’t afford to have “Not Hiring” signs posted at the door.”

Adapted from Lasting Impressions, Group Publishing

Read Part 1,  Part 2, Part 3

Tags: Mark Waltz, Serve, Volunteer Culture

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