Fellowship as driving force

Abstract

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark is served by its staff and a body of volunteers in close cooperation. Every one of the ca. 2000 parishes in the country involves volunteers in strategic decision-making and subsequent implementation. Yet, so far there has been no information gathered on this target-group. The present survey covers this need: Who are the volunteers? How are they recruited? What tasks do they carry out? And not least, What motivates them to continue year after year? Responses are compared and contrasted to research in other sectors into the nature of volunteer groups and individuals. The results suggest that hardly any church volunteers are recruited through the church’s advertising. Most of them have responded to a personal invitation from within a network of so-called “weak ties”. The over-riding decisive factor for volunteers is church fellowship – first as imagined, then as experienced. The study is based on a mixed-method design, combining a quantitative analysis of 805 volunteers in three East Jutland deaneries with qualitative in-depth interviews of twelve volunteers from two different Danish parishes. It is the first survey of its kind in Denmark.