Seasonal missions or outreach opportunities arise throughout the year: Vacation Bible School, a mission trip, a partnership event at a local school, a chance to show appreciation to first responders, a service project, a Fall festival, or a Christmas invite event. Every church’s list is different and adapts a little over time. But these planned events that involve many people in your church in a joint effort to share the gospel are vital to the life and witness of your church.
As the event approaches, you make the appeal for people to serve. In a group setting, you get blank looks or people’s eyes dart away from your gaze. If you ask someone individually, you often hear the answer, “I’m too busy.”
Pastors have told us this lack of willingness to engage is the most challenging people dynamic in ministry. Seventy-five percent of pastors say people’s apathy or lack of commitment is challenging for them in ministry.
This frustration is valid. God doesn’t call believers to just be in the same room for an hour each week. He calls us to walk together in following Christ. We’re to cooperate to make disciples.
Rather than continuing to underline the frustration, it’s important we begin to prepare people for future appeals to serve and to address the forces keeping people from saying yes. Can we cultivate a congregation of people who are waiting to serve, because we asked them to prepare to do so?
Addressing busyness
On numerous surveys about specific aspects of the Christian life, busyness comes up as one of the top reasons people don’t engage more in church.
When churchgoers were asked what hinders them from serving in prison ministry, lack of feeling called to serve prisoners (26%) was the top hindrance, followed closely by being too busy with family, work, and life (25%).
When young adults who had attended a Protestant church for at least a year in high school but stopped attending for at least a year between the ages of 18 and 22 were asked why they stopped, 20% said they became too busy, though they still wanted to attend.
Among adults who switched churches for a reason other than moving, 11% say they stopped attending their previous church because they simply got too busy to attend church.
Most people have time for what they want to have time for. And our busyness is tied to the commitments we make. If we want people in our churches to have time for ministry, we have to have a conversation about our commitments ahead of time. We have to ask people to think about the value of what they’re busy doing.
Proverbs 10:4 says, “Idle hands make one poor, but diligent hands bring riches” (CSB). Perhaps because of this connection to wealth, our culture celebrates busyness. It is a badge of honor in America to say you’ve been busy. But what churchgoers are busy with sometimes has no more value than idleness.
Pointing to the right things
In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25), Jesus communicates that He wants His followers to be busy. He doesn’t want us to bury opportunities but to be diligent. What His servants are to be busy doing seems so obvious that the emphasis is only on whether they’re actually doing it. But the whole illustration falls apart if the busyness of the servants is on any activity other than the task the master gave them.
If we, as followers of Christ, are busy with the wrong things, we may get the Proverbs 10:4 prize of some earthly riches but also pick up the Matthew 25 condemnation of being wicked and lazy servants.
Matthew follows the parable of the talents with an account of Jesus explaining the final judgment. As Christ separates the sheep and goats, they are confused about what really mattered. The sheep Jesus welcomed into His kingdom had given Him a drink when He was thirsty, had taken Him in when He was a stranger, had clothed Him, had cared for Him in sickness, and had visited Him in prison. These small acts of kindness to “the least of these” are the right kind of busyness. These tangible expressions of the gospel in word and deed are how we invest the “talents” God has given us.
It’s worth noting Jesus wasn’t pointing to programs or events. These are not the end but a means to motivate us and facilitate true care, help, and gospel conversations.
Calling people to commit time in advance for God
Scripture consistently points to prioritizing serving God—from the first of the Ten Commandments, emphasizing the priority we must place on God in our lives, to the Greatest Commandment, requiring us to focus all our heart, soul, and mind on loving God.
Jesus refers to us as sheep, because we have clear similarities to the forgetfulness of sheep. We still think of Him as our God, but we only give Him a fraction of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We need other sheep to intentionally remind and encourage us to do what we need to be doing.
It’s no coincidence that so many of Jesus’s illustrations were reminders and motivational stories for His followers to prepare for His second coming by actively doing the will of the Father.
If you want your congregation to step up and serve in missions or outreach opportunities, consider these seven elements of an appeal:
- Ask your congregation to step away from commitments to other “good” things next year to make room for a commitment of time to God and to ask Him what that activity should be.
- Ask your congregation to consider setting aside a portion of their vacation time next year to serve. Not everyone is employed, nor does everyone get paid time off. But everyone could consider setting aside several days that correspond to a ministry event.
- Affirm the time commitment many are already making to serve in ongoing ministries of the church. Consider if a week off for some ministries is possible when these outreach events are taking place.
- Pick a time during the year to make this appeal when there is a natural break between activities such as summertime or the first of the year. This naturally allows people to consider their commitments for the next season.
- Don’t challenge people to make this commitment right before or right after one of these events, or this request will come across as a guilt trip or just a self-serving recruiting tactic to fill a slot next week.
- Give people examples of ministry opportunities your church is planning to do over the next year so they can be specific with their time commitment. Otherwise, other things will creep in and take that time.
- Ask people to write down their commitment to remind themselves and to share this commitment with you and others. This can start a conversation about preparing for that area of service. Their early willingness may motivate others to make similar plans.
This Lifeway Research article originally appeared here.
