Recruiting or Cultivating?
“She just quit, what do we do now?” In First Church, options for volunteers were limited in filling ministry positions. Sunday School teachers or Children’s ministry staff were hard to come by. When a position was vacated, it typically created a crisis. The next step was predictable: scouring the list of potential replacements, approaching these people to see which one could be convinced to fill the position, and breathing easy until the cycle was once again repeated. The main requirements for fulfilling any position was availability and willingness. This type of recruiting was not unusual, and unfortunately it had become the norm for First Church.
In contrast, Community Church did not struggle in filling ministry positions, since church members were aware of the needs, had been given the training for potential positions, and had a well-defined description of the expectations and time-table for each possibility. When a volunteer’s term was up, the leadership had developed an up-to-date list of highly qualified workers, and some ministries actually had an assigned rotation so no one was over-burdened.
The descriptions above laid out two very different models for recruitment. Both are methods for managing volunteers for the work of service in the preparation of disciples in God’s church. Recruiting volunteers in a system resembling the first one is born from desperation (Krych, 2006). If the vacated position was not filled immediately, a room full of kids would have no one to watch them. The second example, which implemented an environment of cultivating leadership, utilized a well-defined discipling process that helped prepare disciples for ministry in a prayerful and methodical way. By enabling the dis...
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Bays, P. (2006). The care and nurture of volunteers. Clergy Journal, 82(7), 8-10.
De Oliveira, J. (2008). A light touch: motivating and leading volunteers. Journal of Applied Christian Leadership, 2(2), 68-73.
Heflin, H. (2003). Theories of motivation and youth ministry's adolescent learners. Journal Of Youth Ministry, 2(1), 57-70.
Krych, M. A. (2006). Church snapshot: Recruiting and training volunteer teachers. Clergy Journal, 82(5), 19-20.
Peers, L. P. (2009). From stressed to blessed: A conversation for recomposing volunteer service in the congregation. Congregations, 36(4), 22-26.
Severe, M. K. (2006). The pac-man syndrome: The missing congruence of philosophy and practice in youth ministry. Journal Of Youth Ministry, 4(2), 75-104.
Smith, M. F. (2005). Recruiting and maintaining a corps of volunteers isn't easy. Executive Speeches, 19(6), 28-31.
Gary McIntosh earned a B.A. in Biblical Studies from Rockmont College. He pursued a career in the business world before being called by God to enter into ministry. He attended Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, graduating in 1982 with a D.Min. in Church Growth. McIntosh has served as Vice President of a church consulting company as well as accepting a call to teach at Biola University’s Talbot School of Theology. In 2005 he earned a Ph.D. from Fuller Theological seminary. He is the recipient of several awards, including one from American Society For Church Growth. McIntosh is a distinguished author when it comes to church growth, appearing in several journals as well as having authored over eighteen monographs regarding church growth.
Although written for church leadership, everyday church members would also benefit from understanding the concepts that Dawn is directing at God-empowered leaders. Ms. Dawn's work is predominantly scholarly, and she cites several other works at great length.... ... middle of paper ... ...
In the book The New Guidebook for Pastors, James W. Bryant and Mac Brunson do a magnificent job of identifying and explaining the practical nuts and bolts that make a successful pastorate and a fruitful church.
The church must strive to have in place a biblical foundation to discipleship that relates to the millennial generation. All of the churches discipleship efforts should strive to build and foster authentic relationships. We are at a precarious point in the life of the church where the Christian community must come to a conclusion to rethink the efforts to making disciples. “Some (though not all) ministries have taken cues from the assembly line, doing everything possible to streamline the manufacture of shiny new Jesus-followers, fresh from the factory floor. But disciples cannot be mass-produced. Disciples are handmade, one relationship at a time.” In today’s culture the church needs new architects to design a way in which the local church community can foster and build authentic relationships that lead to discipleship.
As with any ministry, it takes a person who to be selfless and willing to make the sacrifices that have to be made daily as Ms. Lamb does. For example, she quit a f...
What I really appreciated about this book was how brutally honest Fields was about his first two years in youth ministry. They were not easy, and it could be considered an act of God that he survived in ministry for this long. For example, he took a group of “underage students in an over-21 club” in his first two years, and now he helps new leaders understand how to avoid doing this (Fields 13). While many people will shy away from their failures, Fields is very forthcoming about his own personal downfalls, accepting the full and comical blame for his shortcomings early in his career. This is admirable, because this book transforms itself from a “how-to manual…[to] a heart-to-heart talk,” which is how people should approach student ministry
I even had one of the Deacon come to me after my outreach work had cause a family too become a part of the church, he ask me if they were a asset or a liability to the church. In 2013, my prayer would be answer, from the night that I was told that mission work was not need, I had been in pray. July 2013 my wife and I alone with some of the member of New Friendship would go on to organize The City of Refuge. At the City we were able to do outreach ministry with other organization to provide housing, food, and necessities for families in the neighborhood and surrounding
Paul was very much considerate about the learning, teaching, training, and preaching of his devotees and his vision was that all forms of chief missionary responsibilities exclusively required team work – a team of devoted and passionate men and women both who would work together in the way of God. It is determined from the data collected by Kostenberger (2000) that Paul’s missionary contemporaries consisted of about one third of women. The Disciple Paul was assured of it that the church, as the main organization for Christ’s teachings, having men and women from diverse cultural backgrounds, linguistic skills and religious contextual, can
The desire to be accepted is prevalent among youth today. In a world that is currently suffering from a famine of love that is intended to be given to today’s youth, more and more we see students that desire to be accepted, yet feel accepted by no one. Because of this we see them decide to reach out, and as they do they become accepted into a group that is not a good influence on them, or simply is wasting their time. Here we will look at what exactly the bible tells us in the issue of acceptance, and how it would look in the average youth ministry today. We will then look into how we will follow up with students past their fist visit and finally what utilizing the idea of acceptance to its full potential will do for a ministry.
into a richer experience of worship and a more effect life of service" (Crabb, 1977, p.31). The method to establishing an
Young, D. S. (1999). Servant Leadership for Church Renewal: Sheperds By the Living Springs. Scottdale: Herald Press.
Pastor George Fleurimond of the Emmanuel Seventh-day Adventist Church can best be described as a man full of vigor, spiritualty, compassion as well as nobility. Serving as a pastor for four years, Pastor Fleurimond has spent most of his servitude in Plant City, Florida, where he would preach in a manifestation of as much as 100 people, imparting the word of God to those who sought religious consolation. Not only does he influence the regular-going church members, he also connects with the youth on a weekly basis to ensure they make the right resolutions amongst ever press-ganging peer pressure.
Ultimately, how is youth ministry viewed? What is youth ministry’s societal perception, specifically, as an occupation or a service? A service is defined as “the action of helping or doing work for someone. An occupation is defined as “a job or profession.” However, youth ministry is a service focusing solely on the marrow of loving passionate teenagers, many trying to figure out who they are. Through my interview with First United Methodist Broken Arrow’s Youth Pastor, Paige Gaither, I observed her ministry as a service rather than an occupation because the nucleus of her ministry is people, and working with teenagers is physically draining, yet spiritually and emotionally renewing. Unlike those who obsess over monetary benefits and selfishly sell themselves, Paige selflessly
Jones, Marge, and E. Grant Jones. Psychology of Missionary Adjustment. Springfield, Missouri: Logion Press, 1994.
In ministry it is important to note that the different people involved in your ministry will be at different stages of their spiritual growth. Having an awareness of your own personal theology will be important for how you go about teaching the students who are involved in your youth ministry. One part of personal theology is spiritual formation. Duffy Robbins states that spiritual formation is, “the growing into the likeness of Jesus” (448). Another main part of personal theology is community. Understanding and having an idea of both spiritual formation and community helps with the formation of personal theology of ministry. This paper will share five areas of theology and how they relate to practical theology in youth ministry. The five areas of theology include view of God, view of people, view of sin, view of redemption, and view of scripture.