Running Head: HOW TO MOBILIZE CHURCH VOLUNTEERS BOOK REVIEW

How to Mobilize Church Volunteers Book Review

Seth Daisey
Messiah College

HOW TO MOBILIZE CHURCH VOLUNTEERS BOOK REVIEW

Introduction
Volunteers are a driving force in almost any ministry. Churches and non-profits
accomplish most of their ministry through the willing service of their volunteer help. However, it
can be extremely difficult to effectively motivate and empower unpaid volunteers to give their
best to the work they are doing. Many times, churches and non-profit organizations are left
without enough volunteers, or with volunteers who are doing their work out of obligation and are
therefore not serving at their best. The issue of how to successfully facilitate meaningful and
effective volunteer work has been problematic for institutions like these for a long time.
Koinonia Ministries, the small group ministry on the Messiah College Campus, is no exception
to these issues and struggles. Therefore, as someone who works with many of the volunteers that
serve in the Koinonia Ministry, I decided to read and analyze Marlene Wilsons book, How to
Mobilize Church Volunteers. This book is very applicable, to mobilizing those who serve on our
Mentor Leader Team, a team of five people who meet with small group leaders to walk alongside
and equip them for their work in small group ministry. Although this book specifically discusses
volunteers in the Church, I think that the ideas and concepts are extremely applicable to our
ministry as well.

Summary
Marlene Wilson takes the first two chapters of her book to juxtapose what volunteer
service should look like in the Church with what the current situation is within the Church as a
whole. She breaks down the theology of why it is important for congregants to get involved and
serve in their local congregations. She explains in this chapter how people are called to serve in
and alongside of the church and service is important. She states that people dont do this because
their view of the church is incorrect (p.12). In the second chapter, she dives into what service in

HOW TO MOBILIZE CHURCH VOLUNTEERS BOOK REVIEW

the Church unfortunately looks like, and how to view these things differently. One of her main
focuses is the idea of people over programs. She states this idea quite a few times throughout
the chapter. She explains how church staff or volunteer coordinators often view service as slots
to fill. The focus is on the positions to be filled rather than the people filling them. The
recommendation she puts forth is that there more emphasis on the people and putting them in the
right positions. By the end of the second chapter, the author makes her point clear that we need
to approach service with a focus on the people and not the service jobs themselves.
In the couple of chapters following, Wilson shifts from the ideological approach to
volunteer service and jumps into some practical instructions about how to effectively mobilize
volunteers. Chapter three discusses tools for management. Specifically, it outlines 5 actions that
need to be taken in order to manage and empower volunteer staff successfully: Plan, Organize,
Staff, Direct, and Control. Each of these sections is broken down in to more specific subsections. In the fourth chapter, Marlene Wilson continues and presents an action plan for
volunteer ministries. These steps include 1) appointing a committee or task force to oversee
volunteer service, 2) Set goals, objectives, and action plans, 3) Inform the leaders and
congregation of your plans, 4) select a volunteer ministries coordinator, 5) plan a retreat for the
leaders in the church, and 6) anticipate and understand attitudinal blocks. Through these two
chapters, Wilson really equips her readers to hit the ground running with starting or revitalizing
their volunteer service programs.
The fifth and sixth chapters finally present common forms of apprehension or anxiety
from people around the area of service. In these chapters, she poses her own thoughts and
perspective on these questions and concerns. Chapter five is nothing but questions relating to
different types of people and different aspects of volunteer service. A couple of those areas are

HOW TO MOBILIZE CHURCH VOLUNTEERS BOOK REVIEW

questions related to gifts and questions related to burnout. Then, in the sixth chapter, she
addresses the question of How do we become the scattered church? In the chapter, she raises
these two thoughts concerning the problematic vision the Church has toward service: 1) We fail
to see the lives of quiet desperation all around us, and 2) Even if we see the needs, we fail to see
what we can do to help (p.113-114). These last two chapters allow readers to grapple with the
subject matter found throughout the rest of the book and equip volunteer coordinators to be
prepared for such questions and concerns when they arise.
Critical Evaluation
Overall, I think that Marlene Wilson presents an excellent piece that gives a lot of insight
into the approach, implementation, and concerns of volunteer service coordination. Some of the
major aspects of her book that stuck out to me that I enjoyed were her understanding of church as
an organism, the integration of an understanding of Maslows Triangle, and the presentation of
McClellands theory of motivation. I believe that each of these characteristics of Wilsons book
helped make her proposed theories more understandable, more concrete, and more holistic.
One of the first thing that Wilson gives special attention to is the perspective of the
Church not as an organization, but as an organism. She says The Church has found itself just
one of many organizations making claims on peoples time and lives (p. 12). I think that this
quote is a very accurate statement that the Church needs to take seriously. People are busier now
than ever, involving themselves in numerous things. I would expound upon this by saying that
the church is not just one of many organizations overall, but the church is now only one of many
organizations that claim that they have an answer for people to find meaning and significance.
There are now many other places for people to get involved in that promise to help people find
meaning in their lives. Just a couple of paragraphs down, she goes on the combat the view of the

HOW TO MOBILIZE CHURCH VOLUNTEERS BOOK REVIEW

church as an organism. Oscar Feucht in Everyone a Minister suggests that the church is an
organism a living, changing, dynamic body rather than an organization (p.12). I appreciate
how Wilson draws from this idea to help shape our perspective of the church as a living thing,
not simply an organization or institutional structure. I think she is right. The church is something
that changes. It changes with culture, it changes with time, and it changes with context.
Presenting this perspective at the beginning of the book really helped me to engage with the text
based on a much healthier view of what the church is and what it is doing.
I think that this idea is very applicable to the Koinonia Small Group Ministry. Just like a
church, the Koinonia ministry is one that is a living thing, and should be viewed as such. The
ministry is a growing, developing, and dynamic ministry. If we simply view Koinonia as an
organization, then it will be very easy for leadership to get caught up in the organizational and
institutional aspect of the ministry and to forget great amount of growing and transformation that
happens in our ministry. The organism approach also lends itself more to ideas of development
and growth. If we see our ministry as a growing, dynamic, organism, then we will be more likely
to initiate plans and missions that will help the ministry to more effectively carry out its mission
and vision.
Another subject that Marlene Wilson brought up in the beginning of her book that stuck
out to me was Maslows Triangle. My only complaint about this was that I wish she talked about
a little more extensively, because I think it is important to grasp when it comes to the ideas of
service and volunteering. She brought up Maslows hierarchy of needs because people will only
look to fulfill a need once all of the needs below it are met. For example, someone who hasnt
met the need of safety is not looking to have social needs met. They are simply looking to fulfill
the need of safety and security. I think this is crucial when looking at service. I will use myself as

HOW TO MOBILIZE CHURCH VOLUNTEERS BOOK REVIEW

an example. I am fortunate enough to live in a situation where I do not have to worry much about
physiological, safety, or even social needs. Therefore, I spend a lot of my time fulfilling needs at
the top, like self-actualization. I think that this greatly influences my ministry. Because it is
extremely important to me, most of my ministry is centered on helping people be the best that
they can be. However, if I am ministering to a youth that does not feel safe at home because he or
she has an abusive father, that ministry will not mean much to them, because they just want to
feel safe and secure first. I think these are the types of things that we have to keep in mid when it
comes to service, especially outreach events.
The third that that I appreciated about Wilsons book was her presentation of David
McClellands three motives for peoples work behavior found in his book, Motivation and
Organizational Climate. In it, McClelland identifies that people are motivated by a mix of
achievement, power, or affiliation. Each person has varying degrees of each of the three to make
up the type of motivation. Achievement-motivated people want to be successful in things that
require excellence. Power-motivated people want to have an impact and influence on others.
Affiliation-motivated people want to be with others and enjoy friendships. After explaining the
three motivators, Malrene Wilson went on to explain how this could impact volunteer ministry.
She discussed how Achievement-motivated and Affiliation-motivated people could clash during
a meeting. Achievement-motivated people might want to take care of business and get the
meeting done in a timely manner. On the other hand, affiliation-motivate people might want the
meeting to involve more personal connection and sharing with people, which could lead to a
longer meeting. This could cause a clash in how people want the meeting to be run. I have seen
this happen on the Koinonia Kore Team, which I am a part of. There was a meeting where some
of us wanted to get the things done and get out, while there were others that wanted to catch up

HOW TO MOBILIZE CHURCH VOLUNTEERS BOOK REVIEW

and share about their week. After this instance, we had to set expectations as to what meetings
would look like exactly. It is for situations like these that I think Marlene Wilson was brilliant in
discussing such a topic.
Wilsons text also provided a lot of opportunity to reflect upon ideas that would be
helpful in future ministry. Many of her suggestions for effective volunteer ministry included
work before the doing of the ministry even begins. For example, she shared that potential
ministry leaders should be identified. They should then be approached and have discussion about
the opportunity before hopefully taking the step into the ministry. This is in stark contrast to the
idea of advertising openings and having people come up and inquire about them. She also talks
about service descriptions for the leaders to outline what they can expect. Both of these things,
along with other topics such as mission, vision, and vision-casting, are very important preministry necessities in order to coordinate and motivate volunteers well. I think that these are
things that I would love to incorporate more into future ministry leadership. I feel like I havent
taken the proper time in these areas with my current team as I should have. These things are
definitely aspects of ministry that I want to integrate into my ministry positions going forward in
the future.
How to Mobilize Church Volunteers was a great read, especially for anyone wanting to
work with volunteers, not just in the church, but in any capacity. She brought up some great
points and ideas including seeing the church as an organism rather than an organization,
Maslows hierarchy of needs, and the three motivators observed by David McClelland. It is
because of information like this, and many more like it, that Marlene Wilson has put together a
book that is very resourceful and useful for those working in volunteer ministry,