Opening your thinking to a more fluid progression of faith may be a big hurdle if you come from a traditional background, but it’s an extremely healthy move for your church and for the people in it. That said, the extent to which you let non-Christians serve in your church is completely up to you. The approach will look different for your church than it will for mine or for the church down the street. At The Journey, we invite unbelievers to serve liberally alongside believers—peppered into ministry teams that are made up primarily of Christians—because I am convinced that people often have to start belonging to something before they believe.
The worship team is one of the big ways we involve unchurched people in our services. Our team is primarily made up of unpaid professionals—members and attenders—who want to volunteer their time. But we have a lot of services, and sometimes there’s a gap to fill. For example, if we are short a drummer one week, we’ll hire a professional drummer. Every once in a while, we will end up hiring someone who really enjoys working with us and wants to stick around as a volunteer. If he volunteers for more than three months without taking any noticeable steps of faith, our worship pastor will have a conversation with him about where he is in his spiritual walk. Time and time again, these volunteers end up coming to faith in Christ. Why? Because they had the opportunity to interact with believers, be involved in our services, and be shepherded by our worship arts pastor—all opportunities they never would have had in a more traditional setup. (For more on how we manage worship teams and craft worship services for life transformation, see my book Engage: A Guide to Creating Life-Transforming Worship Services [Baker, 2011]. You can also find more information at www.ChurchLeaderInsights.com/connect.)
You can take that model and multiply it out to every other ministry area in your church. As you explore this new idea, define your nonnegotiable areas. For example, we don’t let an unbeliever work directly with kids. She may be able to set up the kids area or clean up after service, but only members who have been screened can interact with the children. Similarly, we allow nonbelievers to serve as ushers and collect the offering, but they can’t count the offering. Only trusted members are allowed to be on the counting team. Decide for yourself what you are comfortable with.
Remember, God has never operated solely through those who profess faith in him. He used unbelievers for his purposes throughout Scripture and often revealed himself to them in the process. As you think through the stages of faith, I implore you to stay open-minded. Question your point of view and have the courage to shift it if you see fit. You could greatly increase both your ministry system and your evangelism potential by allowing unchurched people to belong to the church and begin becoming more like Jesus before they believe.
This excerpt is taken from Connect: How to Double Your Number of Volunteers by Nelson Searcy with Jennifer Dykes Henson. © 2012 by Nelson Searcy. Used by permission. All rights to this material are reserved. Material is not to be reproduced, scanned, copied or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission from Baker Publishing Group.
Order from Amazon.com: Connect: How to Double Your Number of Volunteers
For more on building volunteers in the church, read about how EastLake Church in Washington state creates an environment that mobilizes impassioned volunteers in the September/October 2012 issue of Outreach magazine.
