People often make a distinction between laity and the professionals (i.e., clergy/pastors and other paid staff members). When we start talking about volunteers versus paid church staff, we often move into a “them versus us” perspective. But, is that biblical? How do the two fit together?
What God Says About People Who Serve in the Church
Page through Scripture about the Church and you won’t find a distinction between volunteers and paid staff. Consider these four points:
- God calls leaders (many of which in today’s church are paid) to be servants (Mk. 10:42-43; 1 Pet. 5:2) but He also calls all members of the Church to do the same.
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. (Gal. 5:13)
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. (Phil. 2:5-7)
- In the Church we all belong to each other based who we are in Christ, not whether paid or volunteer. We simply have different functions, some of which may also be a person’s livelihood.
For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. (Rom. 12:4-5)
- Everybody in the Body is to be valued. It isn’t based on position, function, or whether paid or a volunteer.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable … But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. (1 Cor. 12:21-25)
- Everybody in the Body is important to the on-going work and growth of the Church, whether paid or volunteer. In Scripture we find a priesthood of all believers.
From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Eph. 4:16)
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Pet. 2:9)
An Example of a Biblical Perspective of Volunteers Versus Paid Church Staff
In his book, Unfinished Business: Returning the Ministry to the People of God, Greg Ogden shares an example of how a church bulletin lists paid staff:
“Ministers: all the members of [church name]. Assistant to the ministers: the church staff“
So often churches function the opposite with the paid church staff at the top and the ministering members below them. The above example, however, does the following:
- It removes hierarchy of professionals at the top and laity working for them.
- It puts the responsibility for ministry in the hands of everyone.
- It makes it clear that paid staff aren’t doing all the work.
What is your church communicating?
For More about Staffing, Go To: Staffing Ministry Resources