Category: Volunteer Culture

It was Ephesus, and it was spring. Which year, exactly, we don’t know, but we know that it was spring, and we know that the apostle Paul was putting the finishing touches on a letter...

As I type, I’m sitting in my sometimes-remote-office, Starbucks. It’s Tuesday, May 29, in the year of our Lord 2018, and we’re 90 minutes away from The Shutdown. If you’re in the distant future and...

This post originally appeared on December 9, 2010.   It’s the post so nice, I named it twice. If you’re a leader of people, part of your job is to help people help people.  In...

It was an honest question. A haunting question. One that made me pause, and one that made me think: Do we still get excited about this? I mean really get excited about it? Ironically, the question...

A few days ago I attempted to dig up a recently-heard quote. The only problem was that I couldn’t remember exactly where I had heard it. Had I read it in a book? On a blog? Seen...

For three days prior to Christmas, the Summit is going to be invading the Durham Performing Arts Center for our sixth year. We’ll be celebrating the incarnation of Jesus, the majesty of the manger, the...

Maybe you’ve noticed a phenomenon taking over your volunteer teams. It’s one that will suck the life out of your people and zap the personal touch from your systems. Too often our volunteers enter into...

Whatever size church you attend, there will come a point where you feel left out. Unknown. Like you don’t have the friendships and relationships you’re craving. Feeling connected isn’t correlated to size. It seems counterintuitive,...

We tend to wear our busyness as a badge of honor. Often, when I’m asked “How are you doing?” or “What have you been up to lately?” my default answer is, “Man, just busy.” I’m the guy who read...

When it comes to leaders in the church, my favorite Bible verse is Matthew 18:20: “For where two or more are gathered, they shall eventually start griping about their volunteers.” Alrighty, so Jesus never said...