There is a passage in Ephesians that has been shaping the way I think about ministry and the church: “He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. His purpose was to equip God’s people for the work of serving and building up the body of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:11–12, Common English Bible)
There is something important here that we can easily miss. Paul doesn’t say that God gave pastors and teachers so that they could do all the ministry. He says they were given to equip the people (or “saints” in some translations) for the work of ministry.
That is a very different vision of the church that we’ve seen take over many congregations in America.
For much of the modern American church, we developed a model of ministry that made a certain amount of sense. As churches grew, we hired people to do more and more of the work.
Need someone to lead youth ministry? Hire a youth director. Need someone to visit people in the hospital? Hire a pastor. Need someone to organize children’s programming? Hire a children’s director. Need someone to lead music? Hire a music director. Need someone to manage communications? Hire a communications person.
In many ways, this model worked. It helped churches flourish.
As churches grew, they had more resources. More resources meant they could hire more staff. More staff meant they could offer more ministries and programs. More programs could help churches reach and serve more people.
There was nothing inherently wrong with this approach. But somewhere along the way, something else happened.
We began to subtly change our understanding of who ministry belongs to. Instead of asking, “How can all of us use our gifts to participate in the ministry of Christ?” we sometimes began asking, “Who can we hire to do this?”
When we couldn’t find enough people to volunteer, we added another staff position. The result was a church in which an increasingly small number of people, often pastors and paid staff, were responsible for an increasingly large amount of ministry.
That model could work when churches were growing, giving was strong, and staffing budgets continued to expand. But the church has entered a different season.
Today, many churches are facing declining or plateauing attendance, aging congregations, financial pressures and fewer available volunteers.
Thom S. Rainer has frequently cited research indicating that roughly 65% of churches are plateaued or declining. 70% of churches have fewer than 100 people. The median size of US congregations is around 65. The median budget is $300,000 or less.
Whatever statistic we use, the larger reality is difficult to ignore: a significant number of American congregations are no longer growing in ways that allow them to continually add staff to meet every ministry need.
That raises an important question: What if the answer isn’t to find more people to hire? What if the answer is to rediscover something the New Testament has been telling us all along?
The church was never intended to be a place where a few professionals do ministry while everyone else watches. The church is a body. And a body needs every part.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:12: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”
Every person has a role. Every person has something to contribute. Every person has gifts that can be used for the good of the whole.
This changes the way we think about pastoral leadership. The pastor’s job isn’t to visit every person. The pastor’s job is to help create a culture of care in which people are equipped and empowered to care for one another.
The pastor’s job isn’t to teach every class. The pastor’s job is to equip people who have the gifts, passion and calling to teach.
The pastor’s job isn’t to personally lead every ministry. The pastor’s job is to help people discover where God might be calling them to serve and then give them the tools, training, encouragement and freedom to do it.
This applies to the entire church staff. Our job isn’t to be the church’s professional doers. Our job is to be equippers, coaches, developers, connectors and encouragers.
That’s what Ephesians 4:11–12 points us toward. The goal isn’t to make the staff indispensable. The goal is to make ministry accessible to everyone.
There is another important shift we need to make. We shouldn’t think about volunteers primarily as people who fill the gaps in the church’s staffing plan. They’re not simply people we need to recruit because we need someone to do something. They are people with gifts, experiences, passions and callings that God can use.
That changes the question. Instead of: “Can you help us with this?” We might ask: “What are you passionate about? What gifts do you have? Where do you see God at work? What kind of ministry would bring you joy? How might your gifts contribute to what God is doing here?”
Those are very different conversations. I believe they lead to a very different kind of church.
I’ve become increasingly convinced that involvement has a multiplying effect. Someone may initially volunteer to greet at the door. But then they meet another volunteer. They begin to know people. They discover a place where they belong. They become invested in what happens on Sunday morning. Eventually, they might join a small group, serve in another ministry, invite a friend, participate in a mission project or begin giving more generously.
In other words, serving can become a doorway into deeper belonging. When people move from being spectators to participants, something changes. The church becomes our church rather than the church they attend. That’s important because Christian community was never meant to be something we simply consume. We are called to participate in it.
If we want to recover this biblical vision of ministry, pastors and church staff have an important responsibility. We can’t simply tell people, “We need more volunteers.” We need to build a culture in which people are recruited, equipped, empowered and appreciated.
Here are a few practices that can help.
1. Recruit people personally.
A general announcement that says, “Volunteers are needed!” rarely creates the response we hope for. People respond when someone sees something in them.
Instead of asking, “Who will help?” ask, “Have you ever thought about doing this? I think your gifts would make you really good at it.”
Personal invitation communicates something powerful: We see you. We need you. You have something to offer.
2. Start with gifts, not vacancies.
Don’t begin with, “We have a position that needs to be filled.” Begin with the person.
What do they love? What are they good at? What experiences have shaped them? What breaks their heart? Where do they feel energized?
Then look for the intersection between their gifts and the church’s mission.
3. Make serving easy to understand.
People are often reluctant to volunteer because they don’t know exactly what they’re being asked to do.
A good ministry role should have a clear purpose, reasonable expectations, appropriate training and a defined commitment.
“Come help whenever you can” is vague.
“Serve on the welcome team once every four weeks, arrive at 9:30, greet people as they arrive and help newcomers find their way” is clear.
Clarity reduces anxiety.
4. Equip people before expecting them to serve.
Ephesians doesn’t simply say mobilize the saints. It says equip the saints.
Training matters. Give people the knowledge, tools and confidence they need to succeed. Don’t throw someone into a ministry and hope they figure it out.
Good equipping says: “We’re going to help you succeed.”
5. Give people real responsibility.
If we ask people to serve but require staff approval for every little decision, we haven’t really empowered them. Trust people. Give them appropriate authority. Let them try things. Let them make mistakes. Coach rather than control.
The goal isn’t to create volunteers who carry out staff instructions. The goal is to develop ministry leaders.
6. Celebrate the ministry, not just the volunteers.
Tell the stories. Celebrate what God is doing through ordinary people.
Instead of simply saying, “Thank you to our volunteers,” tell someone about the person who was welcomed because a greeter noticed them, the child who discovered a place to belong, the homebound member who felt remembered because someone visited, or the newcomer who found a community because someone invited them to lunch.
When people see the difference their service makes, they are more likely to understand that what they’re doing isn’t merely helping the church. It is ministry.
7. Create pathways, not one-time opportunities.
Someone who serves once at a special event may have a wonderful experience. But imagine a pathway:
Discover Opportunities → Give It a Try → Begin to Serve → Grow into the Role→ Lead Others → Equip Someone Else.
That’s how a volunteer culture becomes a leadership culture.
The person who once needed someone to recruit them eventually becomes the person recruiting someone else. That’s multiplication.
None of this means that we don’t need pastors or church staff. We absolutely do. Healthy churches need gifted pastors and staff who provide leadership, theological direction, organizational support, pastoral care, creativity, administration and vision.
But perhaps our understanding of their role needs to evolve. The question isn’t: “How much ministry can our staff accomplish?” The better question is: “How many people can our staff equip to accomplish ministry?”
That’s a different measure of success. And perhaps it is closer to Paul’s vision in Ephesians 4.
The church isn’t healthiest when the pastor is exhausted because they are doing everything. The church isn’t healthiest when the staff has figured out how to keep every ministry running.
The church is healthiest when people discover that they are the church and that they have a vital role to play in its ministry.
The pastor isn’t the minister. The pastor is a minister who equips ministers.
The staff isn’t the ministry. The staff equips the ministry.
The ministry belongs to all of us.
That isn’t simply a strategy for churches facing smaller budgets or fewer staff. It is a recovery of something deeply biblical.
When every person discovers their gifts, finds their place and uses those gifts for the good of the whole, the church becomes what Christ intended it to be: a body in which every part is doing its work. And that’s a church with a lot of life in it.
