Generating Enthusiasm with Ministry Volunteers

This series discusses how to increase participation from your volunteers. There is no better advertisement for potential volunteers than when existing volunteers exhibit joy and fulfillment for everyone to see. Enthusiastic ministry volunteers inherently create more enthusiastic ministry volunteers!

Joy is bigger than fear and more enduring than the happiness we get from seeking the attention of others. You have seen top-selling books on how to be happy. These types of books are written because most people search for happiness in all of the wrong experiences, and because authors know that happiness is fleeting.

Joy is more sustaining. Joy comes from a permanent, unlimited source. In John 15:11, Jesus told his disciples, “I have said all these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” We are not speaking about an emotional high that is labeled as happiness. This verse suggests that people, including those who lead and serve, can be truly happy when the source is the complete and full joy that Jesus offers.

Now there is something to be enthusiastic about. It is why we can expect that our greeters can stand apart from the greeters they encounter in everyday life. And why our parking attendants can smile and be expressing a real happiness sustained by an inner joy.

Here is something by which all church leaders and existing volunteers could be motivated: Every non-believer who enters the doors of your church is potentially someone who can be led to Jesus and subsequently trade in their fleeting happiness for real, persistent joy. This could be transformative if that central theme would drive our culture of service.

In this video:

We offer many other ways to lift the mindset of a church toward an enthusiastic attitude in serving one another. We share eleven transformational ideas on ways to generate enthusiasm in your church.