I’ve found there to be multiple reasons why some people aren’t serving with their church families.  Often it is because they don’t know how, where or why to serve. The church doesn’t have an intentional and consistent system to engage members in active ministry.  Most often they aren’t serving because no one has personally asked them. But interestingly enough there are some other REALLY BIG stumbling blocks when it comes to why people don’t serve.

1. Negative beliefs about themselves

I’m not good enough- I’ve done some really bad things in my past.

I’m not smart enough- I didn’t go to school for that.

I’m not qualified enough – I’ve never done anything like that before.

2. They’ve been staked down by a statement, behavior, or attitude made by someone else.

Perhaps a parent, teacher, church member, pastor or friend said something that stuck…and stung and they still haven’t gotten over it. They’ve let the devil imprison them to those ideas. “You’re so stupid.  Who do you think you are? You do nothing but screw up…”

3.  Hearts, attitudes and behaviors can be sour in regard to God and his people.

They’re not in the Word therefore there is a spiritual disconnect. Each of us has to fill our own cup before we can fill someone else’s.

There is conflict between individuals. In the church conflict frequently gets buried rather than addressed.  This leads to people distancing themselves and not getting involved.

There can be wrong motivations for the current leaders for serving such as they want power verses a servant attitude.

Maybe they think the pastor is paid to do that work. “Not my problem is the mantra of the day.”

4.  They may have had a bad serving experience.

Perhaps someone asked them to help and then there was nothing meaningful to do or there was too much to do and the job never seemed to end.

Maybe they weren’t thanked or appreciated for their service or even treated like they weren’t competent to do the job.

One woman reported being a scapegoat and telling the truth got her kicked out of the ministry. She isn’t willing to give her time up again for fear of being burned again. Ouch!

5. They are shackled by low expectations set by our churches and society.

The word membership can be misleading. We are members of country clubs, health clubs and discount stores.  Membership indicates I get something – you will serve me.  The word partnership, I think better describes the church as the body of Christ and we all have a part to play. We serve and are serve by our church family.

The i-phone, i-pad, i-centric world we live in makes us think the world revolves around us. When, in fact the world is all God’s story.  We aren’t the main character.  God is.  We are created for Him, by Him and for His purpose.

 6.  They are held back by human restrictions.

Is someone else’s need for control holding them back? “I’m not sure Joe can do the home visits.  I think I better do them.” Rather than train and equip people, we would just rather do it ourselves.

Perhaps the leadership doesn’t involve others. There’s a woman who would like to help in the kitchen but the leader says, “We’ve got everything under control. We don’t need your help.”  You should never say no to someone’s help.

Perhaps a small group of people do everything and it’s a hard group to get into because you have to do things their way. “We don’t do it that way around here” is a comment you might here from one of your groups. The message is, “Your ideas and suggestions aren’t welcomed here so just keep moving along…”

7.  Sometimes people are personally struggling in their spiritual life with God.

Things like grief or other negative experiences people have not been able to work through hold them back from worship and service to God.

Faith Unleashed is designed to help people be released from self or other imposed restraint. We seek to help people know what their gifts are and help them to find great opportunities to use those gifts.  We work with congregations to create customizable sustainable systems to help people live out their unique calling inside and outside the walls of the church.  If you would like to know more about our services, please contact Lori at 708.431.9496 or [email protected]

So what is holding someone you know back from serving?