It’s a question I get asked on a regular basis: “How do you get folks in the church to volunteer when they think it is the children’s pastor’s job to do the ministry?”

Just the other day in a staff meeting, my pastor reminded our team of the power of recognizing someone by their name. He pointed out that in Romans chapter 16, Paul ends his letter in a very unusual way. After he concludes chapter 15 with a normal “the God of peace be with you,” he proceeds to add one more chapter where he lists more than 30 of his “co-laborers” in the gospel.

Many of us have a hard time accessing the volunteer pool at our churches. I have spent countless hours hosting events to no avail. At times it seemed that nothing was going to work; I would remain short-staffed and frustrated. But over the years I began to recognize that people were more fluid than fixed.

I hear it all the time from Kidmin leaders: “We’re taking the summer off!” “We are canceling kids’ ministry services during the summer and just having kids sit in the adult service every week.” While I completely understand the rationale, here are a few reasons to NOT take summers off.