I am responsible for finance, facilities, IT, HR and internal communications. If you are reading a blog in this section, it’s likely you are too…or you are my mom and think it’s cool that my work is published on the internet. Anyway, there is absolutely no way to get all of the stuff done in those areas from week to week. I rely heavily on volunteer help.
The volunteers I work with are hand picked by me. I have one requirement for volunteers who work with me: They must be able to give out of the overflow of their abundance rather than “take by volunteering” because volunteering meets a need in their soul. If they can’t make that jump…then I direct them to a step that would be more helpful for where they are in their lives. Too many people depend on the results of their work for it to not be done well, efficiently, and without drama.
As a leader in your local church, you don’t have the responsibility to let everyone do what they want to serve. You do have the responsibility to help everyone find their most helpful gift to God and the rest of the body of Christ and get them plugged in there. Everyone agrees with me on this one when it comes to worship. You don’t have someone who can’t sing lead worship. That is just dumb. It is distracting from everyone’s worship of God. For some reason, I don’t think people think much past that. They figure everyone can paint, caulk, shake a hand and smile, watch kids for an hour …etc. This is not true. If it were I would not have had to widen the yellow stripe in front of our building because the last “painter” couldn’t paint a straight line.
It serves the church well when we (the staff) help people identify their gifts and confirm their value in a given ministry area. When we help people find those areas, or confirm that they are already there and their contribution is valuable, we help them serve from the overflow of love and energy that God has given them. When they stay in areas where they are only hurting, or even are just mediocre, they only stay if they need to be there for themselves.
If they can’t serve out of the overflow of the abundance, they will make sure to take some of yours.
Thoughts?
