The Prayer and Need for Inclusion for Volunteer's in Church

The Prayer and Need for Inclusion for Volunteer's in Church

What are the volunteers serving in your church thinking? What are their hopes, dreams and needs? During the last 28 years, I have had the privilege of serving on a church staff and two missions as a Pastor and Chaplain, but the vast majority of my time has been as a volunteer.

To assist pastors and church leaders with better connecting with those who have made the strategic choice to leverage their marginal time and talent to serve others, the following are 10 things volunteers wish their pastor knew about them:

1. We desperately want to make a difference with our one and only life. Everyone wants to live a life of significance. Henry David Thoreau — 'Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.' We have decided the best place to make a difference is our local church and we do not want to go to the grave with the song being unsung.

2. Our time is valuable, so be organized and tell us what to do. We live very busy lives. When we show up to serve, please have us something important for us to do, and be well organized.

3. We want to serve in the context of community. People begin serving at a church for two reasons: first, to do something significant; second, to make friends. Pastors and church leaders need to always build a time of community into every volunteer effort.

4. Our opinion matters. We make important organizational decisions in the marketplace every day of our lives. We build teams and leverage resources. We are also at Ground Zero in regard to what is happening at the church. Smart pastors seek out and value our thoughts and insights. Don’t marginalize us.

5. We want influence, not position. It is a common misconception that if you give someone a title, it will please them. Titles are not bad things, but they fail in comparison to influence. Many leaders in church think that volunteers are after a position and that is quite the contrary. So the church leaders bypass the volunteer and cut off the very people that can greatly help and create exclusion rather than inclusion into the mindset of the volunteer.

6. We want our efforts to be an integral part of making the church’s vision a reality. Volunteers want to know what they are doing makes a difference in the overall scheme of things and is not just a busy task. The difference for one who is paid and one who just volunteers is that the only reason the volunteer has is because they love it, keep that in mind.

7. We want to continue to grow spiritually. The core desire of our hearts is to be connected with the heart of God.

8. All we want is for someone to say, “Thank you. You made a difference today.” Everyone wants to be told they are wanted and to be included. A simple expression of genuine thanks deepens the relationship with the church and inspires our continued efforts.

9. We want you to ask us to serve. The number one reason a person joins a cause or team is because someone asks them. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of qualified volunteers at your church who would love to serve if someone would just ask them.

10. We want the freedom to take a break when we need one. This is critical. There are seasons in your life when you are just tired or have little margin. There must be freedom to take a break for a season. If not, when a volunteer leaves a ministry position, they often leave the church as well because they feel they have no other options.

Pastors and church leaders, I know you appreciate and love your volunteers. We all know you could not get by without them. I trust this post will help you better connect with them and serve them in the way that you wish to.

Are You in Trouble (Afflicted)?

James 5:13-16
13 Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise.
14 Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.
15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.
16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

James spoke about the persecution of believers by the ungodly rich. He had admonished them to patiently endure this suffering. Now he is giving them practical ways to do that. If you are afflicted, pray. Don't pray against your persecutors but pray for them. Get into the presence of the Lord, and you will find fullness of joy and pleasures beyond your persecution (Ps 16:11).

If we are merry (Greek: cheerful), sing psalms. This is great instruction. And we should not just sing psalms only when we are cheerful, but we should sing psalms when we are discouraged to cheer ourselves up. A merry heart does good like a medicine (Pr 17:22).

They had doctors in James' day. Yet James didn't tell the believers to call for the doctor or those who practiced holistic medicine; he told them to call for the elders of the church and get prayer, and the prayer of faith would heal the sick. This is very contrary to the normal practice of the average church today. If believers in the typical church today asked their elders to pray for them, most elders of the church would ask them what the doctor says about their sickness or would send them to a doctor. This is not what this scripture is instructing us to do.

This is not to say that it's sin to go to a doctor. If it hadn't been for doctors, all the Christians would have died because they certainly haven't been trusting God for healing. But this is saying that the first line of defense against sickness is the prayer of faith. Believing God for our healing shouldn't be something we do as the last resort or only in combination with what the doctor can do. We ought to turn to the Lord first.

When asked, the elders of the church should anoint the sick with oil in the name of the Lord and pray over the sick person. As revealed in the next verse, if this is done in faith, the Lord will heal the sick and forgive any sin that may have occasioned the sickness.

The oil that we anoint the sick with is symbolic. It symbolized the power of the Holy Spirit. It had no healing power. The power to heal the sick is our faith in the finished work of Christ.

Prayer doesn't save the sick; it's the prayer of faith that saves the sick. Prayer without faith isn't true prayer.

The Greek word "SOZO," which was translated "save" here, is related to the same Greek word that was translated "salvation" hundreds of times in the N.T. (Mt 8:17). The fact that this verse substitutes "infirmities" and "sicknesses" for the words "sorrows" and "griefs" in Isa 53:4 makes it clear that when Isaiah said "with his stripes we are healed" (Isa 53:5), he was speaking of the physical healing of our bodies. Jesus provided for physical healing as well as forgiveness of sins. The very word "save" (Greek - "SOZO") is translated "made whole" in reference to physical healing in Mt 9:22, Mr 5:34, and Lu 8:48. Jas 5:15 says the prayer of faith shall save (Greek - "SOZO") the sick. Many scriptures mention the healing of our bodies in conjunction with the forgiveness of our sins (Ps 103:3, Isa 53:4-6, and 1Pe 2:24). Healing is a part of our salvation, just as much as the forgiveness of our sins. This shows that biblical salvation isn't limited to forgiveness of sins but includes physical healing.

The mention of forgiveness along with healing suggests that sins can be an inroad of sickness into our lives. Jesus made this same connection in ( Joh 5:14). Jesus showed that sin causes the tragedies that come into our lives. Although it isn't always our personal sins that bring these problems (Joh 9:1-3), the sin of someone is always at the root of the problem. (Example: Herod killed the infants (Mt 2:16). The infants and their parents didn't occasion this by anything that they did. It was the fear that raged in the heart of Herod that caused this mass murder.)

When it is our own personal sins that are involved, these "worse things" come upon us for two reasons. (1) It's the judgment of God upon sin (Le 26:15-16; De 28:61; Ps 66:18, 107:17-18; Isa 13:11, 59:2, 64:7; Ro 2:8, and 6:23), or (2) it is Satan and his forces freed to work in our lives because of sin (Pr 5:22; Joh 8:34, 10:10; Ro 6:16; 2Ti 2:26; 1Pe 5:8; and 2Pe 2:19). Problems, diseases, etc. are never God blessing us (De 28:1-14 contrasted with 28:15-68) or God's method of correction (Joh 15:3 and 2Ti 3:16).

As born-again, New Testament believers, we will not come under this punitive judgment of God (Na 1:2; Ro 5:9; 1Th 1:10, and 5:9). Jesus bore that judgment so we wouldn't have to (Isa 53:4-6, 11; Ro 5:8-10; 1Co 15:3; and Ga 3:13). Therefore, the reason sin is still damaging to us as New Testament believers is that it looses Satan to work in our lives (Ro 6:16).

Jas 5:15 makes a link between sin and sickness (Joh 5:14 as mentioned above). Now this verse is telling us how to disconnect that link. We confess our sins one to another. This isn't encouraging what some do when they confess to a priest. No man has any power to forgive our sins but God only (Mr 2:7 and Lu 5:21). Jesus is the only mediator between God and man (1Ti 2:5). This is just saying we need to humble ourselves and admit our faults and turn from them. This is what true repentance is. But those who refuse to humble themselves but persist in their sins block their own healing.

Are you in trouble, are you sick? Disconnect the link, pray, humble yourself by confessing and repenting (turning from sin to righteousness in Christ), and you shall be saved (healed).

We need to Pray Rather Than Just Vote

We don’t need to pray for change of government, nor change of politician, nor change of laws. We need to pray for change of hearts, for when the heart changes, the politicians change, the laws change, the will of the people change, and the government changes.