10 Principles to Get the Best From Volunteer Church Leaders

Volunteer leaders are the backbone of the Small Church.

In bigger churches, most or all of the first- and second-tier leaders are paid staff. (Namely, the pastoral staff and department heads). That’s a great thing. When you hire someone, it’s much easier to require certain tasks and enforce your expectations. After all, they have a financial stake in how well they perform as a church leader.

But Small Churches are led by volunteers. Volunteers who can quit at any time. And when they do quit, it doesn’t hurt them financially, it actually frees up more of their spare time. So we need to give them good reasons to stick around.

It’s one of many aspects that make pastoring the Small Church a unique challenge.

Of course, in many Small Churches, it can be tough to find anyone to step up and lead. If that’s your situation, you may want to check out my previous post, How to Delegate When There’s No One Around: Six Lessons I Learned the Hard Way, then come back here.

I’ve been in Small Church ministry for almost three decades – over 22 at my current church. In that time, I’ve learned a handful of great principles that help our church attract and keep the best group of volunteer leaders I’ve ever worked with.

Here are 10 of them.... Keep reading