“I’m convinced that the influence a church has on its community will be determined in large part not by the personality of the pastor, the size of its building, or how long the ministry has worked in the community. It will be determined, instead, by the percentage of involvement in the ministry of each member. This marks the transition from attendance to ownership, from being consumers to contributors.”

(Wayne Corderio, Doing Church as a Team)

Pastors, this quote represents a consistent message that you must preach over a long time.

Why? Because there will come a time when…

• You will want to do the ministry yourself because it will save time.
• You will want to hire people to do things volunteers can (and should) do.
• A volunteer will not do something right.

You have to stay the course.

And you do that by answering a fundamental question…

Will your church be led by a small band of professionals, or a large army of servants?

Traditionally, we think “professionals” are the only ones to pray, baptize, and speak on stage.

You need to create a church culture where it’s normal, expected and healthy for volunteers to serve and lead.

Bottom Line: Your volunteer culture is created by design or default.

You accept it for what it is, or you curate it over time. Before systems and programs, you know that culture creation must be prioritized.

Why? Because you know…

Your volunteer problem might not be a people problem. You may have a culture problem.

But what’s the end game? What are the benefits to devoting grueling (and temporarily unrewarding) time to building a healthy volunteer culture?

Let’s take a look.

Four Benefits Of A Healthy Volunteer Culture

1. You can hire less staff. We know of a church who did a marvelous job of recruiting, training, and empowering volunteers. Today, they only allocate 33% of their budget to staff (and yes, their church is growing!).
2. You can accomplish more. Two oxen yoked together can pull more than double the combined weight two single oxen could pull.

Plain English: you can accomplish more of your mission and vision when you have more people bought in. You can effectively reach more people.

The more healthy volunteers you have, the more people you can effectively reach. The more people you can effectively reach, the larger you can grow in a healthy way.

1. Giving will increase. People will often give their time before they give their money. But their giving will increase as they become more invested in the church. Statistics almost always show that your healthiest volunteers are your most consistent givers!
2. People will follow Jesus. In Acts 6, the result was not just happy widows, but also a rapid expansion of the church. Serving is one of the main ways people grow their faith.

We want to empower healthy volunteerism in your church. With that in mind, we’re inviting you to check out Volunteer Rocket, a resource that can revolutionize the landscape of your leadership ministry.

Volunteer recruitment and leadership pipelines represent the #1 and #2 problems that the majority of church leaders face.

Simply put, you can get rid of…

• The anxiety of not having enough volunteers for your key ministry environments.
• The vacuum left when the “regulars” can’t show up anymore.
• The lonely, “I have to do it all myself” complex that church leaders face every day.

Go here now to get the Volunteer Rocket System! You’ll get all the info you need when you click on this link.