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DOWN WITH VOLUNTEERS!
(UP WITH BODY BUILDERS!)
by Lavern R. Holdeman
Many years ago, the boys' track coach at the high school where I was teaching recruited me to be a volunteer assistant. Never mind that I was and still am seriously jock-impaired. To be called "coach"–blowing my whistle, making slackers run laps–was a dream come true. So I took the job. After only one week, however, the reality of longer hours and greater responsibility with no additional pay set in, and I resigned.
I was what you might call "a volunteer with a 'tude." I felt that because I was giving my time of my own free will, I had the right to decide how and when I would serve, and to quit when I no longer felt like showing up.
Volunteers with a ‘tude
Unfortunately, churches have their share of volunteers with a ‘tude: the praise team member who often notifies the praise team leader on Saturday night that she won't be at service next morning; the Sunday school teacher who opens his lesson for the first time in the classroom; the ministry team chair who uses over-commitment as an excuse for inactivity in the ministry; the VBS coordinator who resigns two weeks before VBS begins because she feels under-appreciated.
Volunteers with a ‘tude are spare-time, part-time, unreliable pains in the program; and they cause no end of headaches and heartaches for pastors and ministry leaders. However, before casting too many stones, I must stress that I believe one of the primary causes of this problem is the fact that we in leadership have bought into and communicate, through our example, teaching, and preaching, a faulty theology of ministry–a theology that views compensated or "professional" ministry as vocation and uncompensated ministry as volunteerism.
A biblical theology of ministry
Nowhere does the Bible teach that any ministry is a volunteer activity. Rather, all ministry is a divine vocation. The Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12, points out that God has, through his Holy Spirit, sovereignly placed each and every member in the body of Christ as he wills, and has supernaturally gifted them to do acts of service (ministry) that will build up the body. Every member of the body, whether paid or not, is gifted and called to ministry.
Biblically, therefore, every ministry that is being done consistent with the gifts and call of God is neither an option nor a personal choice. Rather, it is a God-given opportunity and responsibility to build up the body. The words the Apostle Paul used to describe his own ministry call–which, incidentally, was largely uncompensated–apply equally to every member of the body of Christ: "If I were doing this of my own free will, then I would deserve payment. But God has chosen me and given me this sacred trust, and I have no choice" (1 Corinthians 9:17, NLT).
A biblical theology of ministry understands that every ministry call is a matter of God's choosing and not our own. Failure to do what God has placed one in the body to do is not the exercise of a volunteer's prerogative but a violation of a sacred trust. The point is that God's people–whether "professional" clergy or unpaid ministers–are called not to be volunteers but body builders! They can no more refuse to do in and for the body what God has called and gifted them to do than the eye can refuse to see, the heart to beat, or the ear to hear. Failure to fulfill that call is not merely disappointing; it is as critical a dysfunction in the body of Christ as blindness is to the eye or paralysis to an arm or leg. The body will still function, but not at the level of effectiveness or efficiency it could if all its members were healthy and fulfilling the functions for which God created and placed them in the body.
The issue for those of us in equipping ministry, therefore, is not how we can more effectively recruit ministry volunteers, but how we can develop body builders and encourage a "body building culture"–a culture that equips every member to full spiritual health, so that he or she might fulfill his or her God-ordained body-building ministry.
From volunteers to body builders
How can we help volunteers become body builders? First, let me stress how not to do it. We cannot do it by railing against members for their lack of enthusiasm about ministry; making fretful pleas for volunteers during announcements on Sunday morning; or using guilt or duty to manipulate people into doing ministries for which they have little enthusiasm or ability. These strategies may gain some short-term success in filling ministry "slots." But in the long term they will produce frustrated, guilt-ridden, burned out volunteers who, if they do not drop out of ministry altogether, will do their "slot ministry" with little of the joy and passion that mark a truly gifted and called body builder.
The first strategy for creating a body building culture is theological (cognitive and educational). We must understand and teach our members what the Bible says about the ministry of all the members of the body. The "body builder" is a particularly appropriate metaphor for helping Christians in the American culture understand a biblical concept of ministry. Our doctors' offices, weight loss clinics, gyms and hiking/biking paths are filled with people who have, through public education, become aware that the health and functioning of the body are dependent upon regular medical checkups, proper diet, and adequate exercise.
The second strategy is transformational (practical and experiential). Armed with theological knowledge, members must be invited to engage in an intentional process of transformation, which will move individuals and the body as a whole from a volunteer to a body building paradigm for ministry. We must lead our members through a process of discovering their spiritual gifts and using those gifts in fulfillment of their calls. We must help them, through spiritual formation, discipleship, and engagement in appropriate spiritual disciplines, to come to a place of consistent obedience to Christ in all that they do in ministry. And we must make certain that the leadership structures of our church provide empowerment for the ministries that God has laid on the hearts of the members rather than exercise jealous control over entry points into ministry. An empowerment structure invites and encourages each member to envision and engage in the particular ministry initiatives God is placing on his or her heart, so long as they are consistent with the mission, core values, and essential doctrines of the local body.
The third strategy is missional (visionary and mission-focused). The Great Commission is the ultimate mission statement for the body of Christ. It is the framework upon which the specific mission of a local body is hung. However, the exact means by which God wants to express the Great Commission through a local body is a matter of "fleshing out" the vision for fulfilling the Great Commission in the local context. What does it mean to make disciples in the inner city? In the affluent suburbs? In the small town and country communities? What does it mean for the local body to engage the process of creating disciples beyond the geographical and cultural confines of its own community? It is important for the church, through its leadership, to engage in a process of vision casting and mission-defining with the congregation as a whole. This process will give both definition and direction to all of the ministries of the church, so that all of the members of the body – though performing different functions and emphasizing different aspects of the mission – are pulling together toward a common goal.
The end result
What should be the end result of transforming volunteers into body builders? What do body builders look like, and how can we recognize them?
First, body builders will see themselves not as voluntary members of an organization, but as important and integral members of one organism, interacting interdependently with all other members for the good of the whole. Second, their primary motivation for ministry will not be self-realization but making the body of Christ more real in and to a lost and hurting world. Third, their goal will not be to receive recognition and appreciation for their superior talents and achievements, but to bring glory to God through the community of faith, understanding that each and every member is equally and fully valued.
But the most important result is that body builders will "do [God's] work and build up the body of Christ, until we come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord, measuring up to the full stature of Christ" (Ephesians 4:12-13, NLT).
May this unity, this maturity in Christ, be the motivation for all that we do as body builders in his body.
Lavern Holdeman is a church health consultant and coach with Living Stones Associates. He also serves as part-time associate pastor of Community Covenant Church in Omaha, Nebraska.
Copyright Lavern R. Holdeman 2004. Permission is granted for use of this article within your local church. For all other uses, contact the author for permission.
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