Pretty much the highest praise I can give a book is that it is both deeply thoughtful and highly readable. Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work by Tim Keller (2012) earns that praise. Deep and thorough, itRead more…
Review: But Now I See. . .
Sometimes life throws us a curve — health or job changes, a world-wide pandemic, a midlife crisis. They often cause us to wonder if and how it all fits into God’s plan for us. In But Now I See: FindingRead more…
Tool: A Look at My Serving
What would my life look like if I saw everything I do as serving Jesus? What if I could serve more intentionally, joyfully, impactfully and faith-fully? What if my church family were to do this? What if Jesus’ followers throughoutRead more…
The Covid Pivot
Covid has brought change — tragic changes in health and employment, and inconvenient change, like mask-wearing and limits on eating out. At church we’ve dealt with change in how we worship, share communion, celebrate marriages and bury loved ones. FewRead more…
A Caregiver’s Education for Life-Long Serving
Sunday, June 29, 2010, at age 89, my mother-in-law moved in with my husband and I, at our invitation. Monday, Dec. 2, 2019, at age 99, God called her to the home she longed for. In the intervening 9 years,Read more…
Simplify Your Serving
Some of us don’t need to be encouraged to serve. We’re serving at church and elsewhere so much so that we’re running nonstop. If you’re overwhelmed by obligations, if a relaxed family dinner is a rarity, if you say ‘yes’Read more…
From Compassion to Action
Her commute home from work — that’s what prompted Cheryl Bokelmann’s 17 years of service in St. Peter’s PADS ministry. Every evening, as she walked from her downtown Chicago office to the Metra station, she noticed the homeless; so manyRead more…
Time & Talent & Spiritual Gift Surveys
Time and talent surveys and spiritual gift inventories are two common data-gathering tools in churches. Information about a volunteer’s skills, spiritual gifts, and preferences is always helpful. It allows us to direct our recruitment effort to those most likely toRead more…
Good Stuff: Helping Men Serve
What percentage of your volunteers are men? What types of volunteer opportunities do we offer for men? I asked myself these questions while reading “Men Adrift,”a thoughtful, and lengthy, article on how cultural and technology changes have affected men withRead more…
They ARE Volunteering
You know who volunteers in your church. But do you really know the volunteering behavior of all your people? “A new federal study shows that 1 in 4 Americans volunteered through an organization and two-thirds helped their neighbors last year.”Read more…
Building a Family
He had been coming to the same church for over 30 years. A quiet man, no one noticed him much. Not knowing how to go about meeting new friends in a church, he stayed on the sidelines, going right homeRead more…
In the Store: Putting Spiritual Gifts to Work
Putting Spiritual Gifts to Work: Equipping Saints for Service is a short book (80 pages) by Karen Kogler. It’s available in The Equipper store in two versions: Electronic version: as a download; $8.00 Print version: mailed to you, with aRead more…
My Question: Giving Time Instead of Money
Questions to Talk About A reader sent me a link to a slate.com article, “Thou Shalt Be Debt Free,” in which a columnist who advises on ethical living answered a woman’s question on whether she should reduce or eliminate herRead more…
My Question: the Unemployed as Volunteers
I have a question. “I volunteer on my church’s committee to help the unemployed in our congregation. I want to know how we can reach out to the unemployed and ask them to help with things around the church withoutRead more…
About Time and Talent Surveys
Time and talent surveys are the first thought of many people when it comes to improving volunteerism at their church. Or when they want to find out the gifts and abilities of their members. Or when they’re talking about stewardshipRead more…
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