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Helping Others Serve? Me?
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We all recognize that we all can, and should, be serving others. But we don't often think about how we can help other people serve.
This newsletter is all about the "why" and the simple, practical "how" of helping other people serve, in everyday life and in the church. When you think about it, helping someone else serve is a particularly impactful way for you to serve!
I love the church and its potential for changing lives and communities, so you'll also see here ways that church staff, including pastors, can help others serve. But we start with how anyone can help others serve!
Yes, you!
Top Ten Things Anyone Can Do to Help Others Serve
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10. Pray. Pray that you and others would use your gifts as God directs for His purposes.
9. Thank a volunteer. Mom was right--saying ‘thank you’ matters. Thank the person working at the food drive; thank your pastor for the work he puts into the sermon; thank the clerk at Walgreen’s. “Thank you for serving” tells them that you noticed and it frames their work, whether paid or not, as serving.
8. Comment on others’ impact. (read the full article)
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Top Ten Things Church Staff Can Do to Help Others Serve
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Church staff work hard. They often work long hours for lower-than-average pay. They don’t have time for all that’s on their plate, yet still dream of more ways to expand their ministry impact. And they frequently have church members suggesting their own ideas of what their church and church staff should be doing! I’ve seen and experienced this in my 40+ years as a church employee. So why would I be so audacious to suggest more things church staff ought to be doing?
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Top Ten Things Pastors Can Do to Help Others Serve
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Leadership matters. . .
It’s natural and easy to assume that since the problem is ‘we don’t have enough volunteers,’ the solution is finding ways to ‘get’ people to fill the empty volunteer slots. But we end up using guilt, pressure, arm-twisting, desperate pleas and even bait-and-switch. You and I would run from such techniques, and our volunteers do, too. Changing our goal to helping people serve as God has gifted and called them opens up a world of different techniques and life-changing results.
I contend that after word and sacrament, the people of the church are God's greatest gift to the local congregation. Pastors have immense influence on the leading and managing of that precious resource.
(read more)
Make it a conversation: comment at the end of the article, or contact me.
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