Valuable Ways to Appreciate and Celebrate Lay Servant Leaders

Church Leadership| Church Calendar - Holidays

November 13, 2023•3 min read

In this season of Thanksgiving, consider how your church thanks their lay servant leaders for serving. How does your congregation show gratitude and appreciation and offer a time of celebration?

There is typically a group of leaders who will end their time of serving at the end of the calendar year when a new group of leaders begin their time of service. Now is a great time to begin planning a time of celebration for this transition at a worship service in early January.

Here are some valuable ways to make this a special time for both those who have been serving and whose time is coming to an end as well as those who will begin a new season of service.

Send out special invitations to those who will be honored detailing why, when, the time, and what to expect during this special worship service.
Consider having either a special message centered on lay servant ministry and/or a gifted lay speaker offering the message for this special worship service.
Call the leaders forward during the worship service whose terms have expired. Introduce these leaders and remind the congregation of the roles for which these leaders have served. Present the leaders with a certificate of appreciation noting the term and position served. If there was something noteworthy about the person or group during their tenure, lift this up for a time of celebration and thanksgiving. If possible and appropriate, offer a small gift of appreciation for each person’s service.
Call the new leaders forward during the worship service. Introduce these new leaders and the roles for which they have been elected to serve. Offering a special commissioning for the new leaders who will be taking new roles of leadership. Ask the congregation for their prayers and support for these leaders.
Consider a fellowship dinner for the congregation to celebrate lay servant leaders.
During the dinner, consider playing some intergenerational games to lift up lay servant ministries (i.e. Bingo identifying all the areas of lay servant ministries in your church and as they are called out, people can cover it if they’ve served in that ministry.) Ask people to tally up the number of years they have served in leadership roles in their church. Give away small prizes for such things as the longest serving leader, the youngest leader, the oldest leader still serving, the person who has mentored the most new leaders, or the person who has served in the most different roles. Have fun and be creative!

Why is it important to show appreciation to our lay servant leaders? According to Forbes.com, showing appreciation to others improves people’s moods, people will engage at a higher level, appreciation will increase trust in relationships, it improves innovation and effectiveness, and creates a story for the future.

The Apostle Paul also reminds us about the importance of appreciation in 1 Thessalonians, “And now, friends, we ask you to honor those leaders who work so hard for you, who have been given the responsibility of urging and guiding you along in your obedience. Overwhelm them with appreciation and love!” 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13, The Message

Kay Kotan

Kay’s purpose is to Equip and Empower Leaders of Faith Communities How to Engage in More Effective Ministry. Kay Kotan is the founder of You Unlimited (coaching, consulting and training company) and The Greatest Expedition – a collaboration of more than twenty thought leaders providing resources and insights for a congregational journey to develop new MAPS (ministry action plans) to reach new people in your community. Kay also launched Multipliers’ Movement – a gathering of kingdom multipliers for sharing, equipping, and encouraging. She is a CoachU and Advanced CoachU Graduate, an accredited coach (PCC: Professional Certified Coach) with the ICF, International Coaching Federation, a Certified Path 1 Coach, and once served on the faculty at Coaching4Clergy. As a passionate lay person, she has a banking background and has been a business owner for more than 25 years. Kotan has served as a church developer for conferences and worked with churches, pastors, conferences, and judicatory leaders across the country for more than a decade. She is most proud to be the wife of Bob for over 30 years and the mother of their adult son, Cameron. Kay is the author of multiple books, workbooks, and resources including Gear Up: Nine Essential Processes for the Optimized Church, Cry From the Pew, Full Schedules, Barren Souls, Being the Church in the Post Pandemic World, and Journey Preparation: Surveying Your Church’s Landscape, as well as the co-author of the books titled: IMPACT!: Reclaiming the Call of Lay Ministry, Small Church Check-Up, Insights on Productivity, Renovate or Die – Ten Ways to Focus Your Church on Mission, Ministry 3.0 and Get Their Name , Ten Prescriptions for a Healthy Church, Necessary Nine – Nine Things Effective Pastors Do Differently, Launching Leaders: Taking Leadership Development to New Heights, Strategy Matters: Your Roadmap to Planning a Strategic Ministry Planning Retreat, Voices of Christmas: A Daily Devotional for Advent and Expanding the Expedition Reach Through Marketplace Multipliers. Mission Possible for the Small Church. Inside Out: Everting Ministry Models for the Postmodern Church, and more. Kotan and her co-author Bradford published their third version of the best-seller, Mission Possible: Simple Structure for Missional Effectiveness. Mrs. Kotan spends her time investing in pastors, laity leaders, congregations, and judicatory leaders through equipping, coaching, and creating resources to help them discover and live into their fullest missional potential of effectiveness and fruitfulness to reach people for Jesus Christ. Through her enthusiasm, truth-telling, and passion, she challenges those who encounter her in both their thinking and their doing.

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