Does the church have volunteers?
It depends on how you define volunteer. There are many different definitions. Some apply in the church; some do not.
Most of the definitions touch on the idea of “monetary” reward. That’s because there are all sorts of ways to reward people. Volunteers can be rewarded with everything from a simple smile to an expensive prize for selling the most kumquats (or whatever).
You may think that church volunteers don’t get paid. Seriously?! Do the terms crown (1 Peter 5:4), treasure (Matthew 6:20) or even reward (Matthew 10:42) ring a bell? Of course they do! But we also know that we love and show love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19), not because we expect to gain something from it.
From time to time on this blog, we will come back to the question of whether the term volunteer is right for the church context. As we put together this website, our functional definition is that a church volunteer is a person engaged in the ministry of the church in a capacity other than the responsibilities of a paid staff position.
In the meantime, we delve more deeply into the concept in our article, Are We Volunteers? Click here → VolunteerProject.net – Are we volunteers