Recruiting and keeping church givers and volunteers is harder than it used to be.
Here’s how the party line goes: It used to be fairly easy to get church members to commit to consistent giving and/or volunteering. Ask for a missions or building pledge, and people would do it. Mention the need for Sunday School volunteers and folks would commit every week for decades.
Not any more.
Are people not as committed as they used to be? Have we all become that unreliable? I say no.
People are as committed as they’ve always been. They just commit in different ways now.
Author
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Karl produces resources for Helping Small Churches Thrive at KarlVaters.com.
He's the author of four books on church leadership. His fifth book, De-Sizing the Church: How Church Growth Became a Science, Then an Obsession, and What's Next, releases on April 2, 2024.
He also hosts a bi-weekly podcast,The Church Lobby: Conversations on Faith & Ministry. Episodes feature in-depth interviews about the topics that concern pastors, especially those who minister in a small church context.
Karl has served in small-church ministry for over 40 years, so he speaks and writes from decades of hands-on pastoral experience. He and his wife, Shelley have three children and two grandkids.