The Caring and Feeding of …Volunteers
Glenn Herschberger
Executive Director of Church Planting
Volunteers - the church of Jesus Christ wouldn’t exist without them. From the very first (Paul was a tentmaker, after all - Acts 18:3) people gave of their time, talent and treasure so the church of Jesus Christ could move forward. As we move toward the fall “start up” season, it might be good to think about these vitally important, yet often taken for granted creatures.
One of my favorite chapters in the Bible is Romans 16 - have you ever preached from it? I relish the opportunities I have to revisit that chapter. Nineteen times the word “greet” or “greetings” is used in this passage; did Paul have some extra papyrus to use up at the end of the letter? I mean, this reads like the Roman phone book! From well known folks like Priscilla and Aquila to unknowns like Tryphena and Tryphosa, they rate a mention. Some opened their homes, others were early converts, some were city officials, some were dear, dear friends of Paul. Grab some references works and chase down some of these names, names like Ampliatus. In the catacombs of Rome is an ornate crypt, with the single name Ampliatus - possibly a slave because they only had one name. And yet, his tomb is ornate befitting a high leaders in the church. A slave who in his limited free time ultimately lead a group of believers? Possibly.
How do you recognize, celebrate and motivate the lay folks who literally run your church? Do we sometimes overuse them? In Ezekiel 3:15 is the prophet was picked up and dropped among the Jews in exile at Tel Abib. It says, “And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days - overwhelmed.” I remember working with a pastor who had to leave his church because of a crisis situation. He found a job in a factory, and I remember calling on him a couple of weeks after starting his job - he was exhausted. He said to me, “I cannot believe what I asked of my people; I never realized how hard they worked!” Wouldn’t it be great if we could live under the motto “One Person, One Ministry”? I know, that’s unrealistic, but it’s not a bad goal. I’ve seen expectations of elders that beggars belief - meetings, home visits, teachings, more meetings, etc (FYI - here’s a freebie - if you are expecting your elders to meet more than twice a month, for longer than 2 hours max, something in your system is probably broken).
Or take Nehemiah - by creating effective systems he was able to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem in record time. He was a master at creating systems - the project was divided into manageable sections with clearly defined tasks. Some people were stationed as watchmen, others as soldiers. Some built, some provided food, some hauled away the debris. And the wall got built! We have a gal in our church I wish I could clone - among other responsibilities, she directs our VBS program. She’ll be starting (if she hasn’t already) on the 2024 program soon. Every year, our church is transformed into whatever theme the VBS program has, and generally we have almost as many volunteers as attenders - and this year we had about 104 kids! And yes, she’s a volunteer.
Treating your volunteers well doesn’t require a lot of money, just a bit of creativity. For example, when I pastored a small church in southern Wisconsin, we “commissioned our Sunday School teachers. Their charter ran from September 1 to May 31, and we created up a spiffy certificate for each teacher. On those certificates we would place medallions for trainings attended, years served, etc. They were presented to the teachers each fall and they were prayed over. Then those certificates were prominently hung in the church lobby as a way of saying, “Our teaching staff is special and we value them!” Interestingly, teacher retention was not a big challenge at our church.
As you start up this fall season, resolve to find new and different ways to recognize, encourage and motivate your volunteers - the results will be very worth the efforts!