Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are few.
So pray to the Lord of the harvest to [a]force out and thrust laborers into His harvest-Matthew 9:37-38.
In terms of volunteers, I like to agree with the scripture that labourers for the harvest are few both in terms of numbers and depth of commitment.
There is generally a decline in the level of commitment in service across churches, ministry and other christian organisations.
While there are various factors that can be attributed to this, focus will however be on the social factor.
Tom Horn in his article on strategy for missions asserts: In general, the world is becoming more secular and less religious. As countries modernise and industrslise, faith declines. As choice and change increases, commitment decreases.
The challenge before us now is that while we are yet to complete our assignment of ministry, there is a ‘deficit’ of people that are willing to committ their service over the long haul.
What then do we do? How can we best recruit the few that are willing? How do we make the most of the few that we have?
I would like to suggest:
1. Prayer: what sort of prayers are we offering here? In the Matthew passage above, we are to pray for God to force out and thrust them to the service. In Romans 8:26,27, the prayer by the Holy Spirit is for the alignment of lives with the will of heaven (Voice Bible), not the will or agenda we have crafted for ourselves for our own glory instead of Christ.
2. Connect them with something bigger than themselves. Jason Young and Jonathan Malm in their book, volunteer effect, said that one way to recruit and retain volunteers is to invite them to a mission, not just a role. Offer them a calling, not just a post. A feeling, not just a function.
In other words invite them to engage in a compelling mission.
But what makes our vision compelling? It means that your story is not a stand-alone story, but a story that is rooted in the big story of God. Our story must fit into the overall redemptive plan of God, His master plan of salvation (Eph. 3:20-21) TLB.
Blessings.
John Bako