From Volunteer to Member of the Church Body: How Meaningfulness, Self-Regulation, and Fairness Relate to Giving of Time and Treasure

Churches rely almost exclusively on volunteers and committed members to fulfill their mission. With decreasing engagement and financial support among churchgoers, there is a need to understand what motivates volunteers to give their time and resources. This nonexperimental quantitative correlational study examined the relationships between church volunteers’ self-regulation, perceptions of meaningfulness, and fairness, with their reported level of internalization of the local church’s mission, evidenced by their giving behaviors. Utilizing data collected from 86 church volunteers on self-report measures, all validated from previous research and adapted to church context, correlational analyses showed no significant relationship between giving of time and meaningfulness (r = 0.038, p = 0.731), fairness (r = 0.044, p = 0.684), and self-regulation (r = -0.010, p = 0.925). Similarly, meaningfulness (r = 0.026, p = 0.814), fairness (r = 0.004, p = 0.971), and self-regulation (r = 0.009, p = 0.936) were not significantly related to giving of finances. Integrated internalization significantly predicted giving of time (β = 0.145, p = 0.004). Post hoc analyses revealed significant correlations between internalization and meaningfulness (r = 0.355, p < 0.001), fairness (r = 0.370, p < 0.001), and self-regulation (r = 0.404, p < 0.001). Ordinal regression analysis showed that volunteer perceptions significantly predicted internalization (χ²(3) = 13.56, p < .001), accounting for 27.5% of the variance (R² = .275, Nagelkerke). These findings suggest that volunteer motivation and engagement in local church contexts can be influenced by intentional program design, impacting eternity for the local community.