Sometimes the things volunteers say catch me by surprise. The previous blog is one example. Here’s another than happened about the same time.

I’ve been working alot lately with one particular volunteer. She’s helping me set up a database system to help our people serve. We’re using this database to do several different tasks, and she’s also training and supervising other volunteers who are working in this area. This same woman also loves music. (Somewhere I heard that interests in music and computers often go together, and it sure seems to be true.) She plays her instrument frequently in worship, leads a small ensemble, and spends much time finding and preparing music.

Recently she told me, “I never thought church would be my second home!”

What surprised me is not that she said that — she obviously had been spending many hours at church — but that she said it happily, joyfully, as if she were saying, “Isn’t it wonderful that church is my second home!”

I’ve spent 35 years heavily involved in church work as staff and/or volunteer, and am married to a professional church worker, and church is definitely our second home. Sometimes it feels like our first home. We love our work, but, to be honest, at times we begrudge the number of hours we ‘have’ to spend at church. And I’ve talked to plenty of long-time volunteers, who also love their work, but also half-jokingly complain about never being home.

This volunteer, though, is thrilled to have so much good stuff to do at church, stuff she loves to do. As far as I know, she doesn’t come from a family who put in long hours of church volunteer work. She didn’t get involved immediately at our church. Now she is heavily involved. And she loves it.

She’s a good reminder, even a model, to me of how it should be. She’s doing work at church that she is good at and that energizes her. She gets regular reminders, from me and others, to make sure she’s balancing her volunteer work with her family and work responsibilities, and healthy care for herself, and she’s doing that well. When she’s sick, or there’s other needs in her family, she steps back a bit for a time. She’s making new friends with other volunteers and is comfortable going to staff leaders when she has questions or concerns. She’s regular in worship and Bible study and her work is a reflection of her faith in her Lord.

Yes, working at a church is hard at times, whether you’re volunteer or paid. We’re still sinners, after all. But it’s also meant to be joyful. Working in areas of our gifts, working for a Savior who loves unconditionally, being used by God to make a difference in people’s lives — what could be more fun? what could bring more joy?

Maybe if I remember that more often, it wouldn’t surprise me when people are happy to be working at church!

Kids aren’t the only ones who say the darndest things. Volunteers sometimes say things that surprise me.

 A woman in our church sent me an email in response to a “ministry opportunity” announcement. We sent several emails back and forth, she decided to participate in this short term task, andI set her up for training led by another volunteer.

At the end of one of the emails, she said, “I’m so glad I found something I can do!” If memory is correct, she even had the exclamation point there. She obviously was really happy to have found this opportunity, and my first, momentary reaction was surprise at her joy.

I knew this woman, although not well. About three years ago, she attended a Sunday morning small group Bible study I led for about a year.  She is a quiet person, and was new to the church at the time, with a young son in our day school. After the Bible study, we continued to greet each other when our paths crossed, and at one point, I rejoiced with her as her son was baptized and they joined our church.

In those three years, she never asked me about volunteering somewhere and, to my knowledge, didn’t do any volunteering in the church. But now she expresses joy at finding something she can do.

Sometimes there’s a certain assumption or church-view in the way we church staff and long-time volunteers talk. We talk and act as if ‘everyone,’ all those who aren’t as involved in the church as we are, didn’t care, as if they’re avoiding their obligation, and as if they might not be as spiritual or as ‘Christian’ as we are.  That fits with the thought that we have to badger or pressure or ‘guilt’ people into serving.

But maybe a good many of them are like this woman — dedicated to their Lord, willing to serve, looking for the right opportunity.  And happy when they find it.

So maybe, if we start aiming to help everyone serve (instead of aiming to push people into volunteering), more people will say, “I’m so glad I found something I can do!”And it won’t surprise us at all.

Unintended meanings are sometimes more meaningful than the intended meaning.

I saw an article titled “Church Recycling Volunteers change the world.” It described the good things accomplished by volunteers who promoted and carried out recycling efforts.

But I thought, “How many churches are recycling volunteers? How about me? Am I using the same ones over and over and over?”The same people doing all the work — that’s what burns out our volunteers.

It’s quicker and easier to ask the same people. We know their abilities, their servant heart, their availability. To find someone new to do the task involves a lot of looking, getting to know people, and it has an increased risk that they might not work out. But our task is too important to take the quick and easy route. Our task is making disciples. Recruiting new people, instead of always recycling current volunteers, gives someone new a chance to grow closer to their Lord through serving, and it brings new energy and gifts into the task of inviting others to become disciples. It also gives current volunteers the opportunity to serve in healthful, rather than over-burdened, ways.

Recycling is great for aluminum cans. Not so great for volunteers.

Scheduling and time management issues have come up several times recently.

I start working on my Masters thesis next week. I need to block out 8-12 hours per week for the next 8 months to work on it. That’s not going to be easy because there are many other need-to and want-to projects to work on during the days I’m not working up at church.

I led a staff training Thursday on designing volunteer position descriptions that fit the realities of today’s volunteer. We spent a lot of time (!) talking about how the church is impacted by the fact that everyone has so many demands on their time. The conversation continued later among several of us who work in the same area.

In our Sunday morning Bible class on how God shapes and places us for service, questions about how to use our time keep popping up.

My husband and I are trying something new this weekend. Instead of working off to-do lists, we drew boxes for the various segments of the weekend–Friday night, Sat morning, Sat afternoon, etc.–and then plugged in scheduled items and the items from our to-do list, in order of priority, in those slots. We had to each make a lot of decisions, weighing each special project we wanted to do against the regular tasks of cleaning, cooking and shopping. It wasn’t easy. I’m curious to see how it works out and if we keep it up.

I’m curious how other people deal with issues of time, how they choose what to do, how they deal with the pressures of not enough time. How does it tie to our faith?

It’s certainly not surprising I’d have something from my recent vacation to blog on, but it did surprise me to get a lesson on teamwork from a gun demonstration.

A costumed volunteer was demonstrating the type of gun used by the men of the Lewis and Clark expedition,  with its time- consuming loading process, two types of gunpowder, and its fiery flash and loud noise. His demonstration included a story.

A Frenchman named Cruzotte was part of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Hired for his knowledge and experience in river navigation, he also often played his fiddle around the evening campfire, lifting the men’s spirits on a long and difficult journey. But his vision was not good; he was blind in one eye and near-sighted in the other.

One day, he and Captain Lewis were on a side trip of exploration. They came across a herd of elk, and each shot an elk. Since their group required a great deal of meat for food, they decided to split up and go after more elk. Some time later, Lewis heard a shot and a felt a sharp pain in his leg and backside. He’d been shot. He yelled for Cruzotte, who returned, swearing that it could not have been him who shot the Captain, but the bullet shell was found and convicted him. (It was also mentioned that both men were wearing elk skin clothing.)

The story-teller related that Lewis recovered fully from the injury. He finished with two comments that are as true about church volunteerism as they are about hunting and exploring a continent.

First, he said, “The incident was judged an accident. Cruzotte was forgiven and remained a valued member of the expedition. But there’s no evidence he was ever again sent on any hunting expeditions.” He then reminded the kids in the audience of one of the basic rules of hunting–stay together–and concluded, “Poor teamwork can kill you.”

I think of all the accidents and injuries that can occur when we work together in the church; not so much physical injuries, but emotional ones–anger, bitterness, disappointment, hurt feelings, resentment–and wonder how many are due to each of us going off on our own, doing our own thing, with no thought of how our action might impact someone else’s.  They also can happen when we serve in areas where we’re not gifted, which perhaps is as smart as wearing elk skin in an area where a half-blind, near-sighted man has been sent out to hunt elk. Getting shot in the backside is a logical result

When the right people are serving in the right places, you can expect certain results. You can expect to be surprised–see the last post. And you can expect to have fun.

In early June, our church choir and some instrumentalists spent a long evening singing Christmas carols. It was a recording session to create a CD for distribution this fall. I wasn’t there, but the main thing I hear when I ask about it is how much fun it was. They also recorded hymns last year for a CD. Again, the most frequent comment about the experience was that it was fun.

That’s not surprising. The choir members love to sing, demonstrated by their faithful attendance and hard work throughout the year at weekly rehearsals and frequent singing in worship. The brass players do the same and I am informed by a reliable source that their rehearsals are equal parts hard work and horsing around. Our flautist also is dedicated to her music, being both an instrumentalist and vocalist. The organist displays his love for the hymns in the enthusiasm with which he plays. The sound technician obviously loves what he does; he is almost an institution around church. The only time he’s not at the sound board is when the person there is someone he’s trained. And the director of this project, to whom I happen to be married, not only loves music and his musicians, he loves recording music so that he has another way to share the gift of music.

Put them all together and they have fun. They joke and tease and laugh. They get carried away by the beauty of the music and the depth of meaning of the words. They know each other well and they pray for each other. They think about the people who will listen to the CD and be blessed by the hymns. At the end of the long evening, they go home tired . . . and refreshed.

Are you having fun when you volunteer? Are the volunteers you lead having fun when they serve? If not, ask:

• Do the volunteers have the gifts and abilities to do the task?
• Do they know the purpose of what they’re doing?
• Is the purpose something they care about?
• Are they well supported in what they’re doing?
• Does anyone notice what they’re doing?

Is it important to have fun? Susan Ellis of Energize, Inc. wrote a Top Ten List of Why Volunteers Quit.* Reason #1 was, “It stopped being fun.”

So, go out and serve and have fun!

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*The list was in one of her newsletters, which I cannot find on her website.

When the right volunteer is in the right place, expect to be surprised. With good surprises!

Kerri and I have been in the same small group Bible class for some time. I knew she managed computers at her family’s business for a living, but it wasn’t until I started working at the church and mentioned something I was doing there regarding volunteerism, that I found out she especially loved working with databases. She’s been a great help to me as we added an internet-accessible component to our church membership database system.

But when we decided to do a survey, I started getting surprised. I was very familiar with Excel and Access software and knew I could use one or the other to record and tally responses to the survey. But Kerri offered to take over the report end of the survey. That was fine with me. I had plenty else to do.

She offered to create the Excel doc into which the data entry volunteers would enter the survey results. Did you know you can have drop-down menus in Excel? I sure didn’t! As she worked on the Access database into which she’d import the Excel data, she kept asking me questions and suggesting features and options that I never would have thought of.

I would have called myself rather well experienced in Excel and Access, but having seen what Kerri can do, I’d downgrade myself to an advanced beginner. She’s running circles around me. And I love it. Databases are something I can do. Databases are where she excels. My vision and plan was limited by my ability. Kerri’s presence on the team is taking this survey to places I would never have imagined. What a wonderful surprise!

Get to know people. Find out what they’re really good at and really excited about. Put those abilities and interests to work in your church’s vision and purpose. Support and delegate well. Then stand back. And expect to be surprised.

It’s amazing what I learn when I least expect it.

I met with a group of church ministry leaders this week, to listen to their needs and concerns and to talk about the job descriptions I’ve recently requested from all our church ministries.

Our conversation got around to church-wide invitations into ministry, and I told them I’m planning to wait till fall 2009 to do such a church-wide emphasis. They told me about one church-wide emphasis they remembered very clearly. In a worship service, they were given a many-page handout (”It was really thick!”) asking them to sign up for ministries. Then “they barred the doors and wouldn’t let us out until we signed up.” One of the group told me she had trouble convincing those barring the door that she had completed and turned hers in early. To top it off, the group told me they never heard anything about the results of the sign-up effort, despite their specific requests to find out if anyone had signed up for ministries in which they were involved.

This is so how NOT to do things! Forced sign-ups simply create antagonism. If there had been any introductory talk of serving where you are gifted, or the joy of serving, it was erased by the procedures used. The end result–frustration for both members and leaders/staff, and increased distrust. How does that help the parts of the body of Christ serve together?

I was also surprised to find out this event was only about 10 years ago, so it will be remembered by many of those in our church today. When I am ready to do a church-wide invitation into ministry, I’ll have my work cut out for me to convince people that this is different than the past.

[Note: I typed this blog in late March and just realized today it was still in the ‘drafts’ folder and hadn’t been posted! A symptom of over-busy?]

“The tyranny of the urgent.” So many deadlines, responsibilities, and commitments–and not enough time. So we multi-task, stay up late, rush around, consume more caffeine, and work faster. The ‘urgent’ gets done, but sometimes at the cost of the more important things.

I’m good at preaching the importance of being good stewards of our time and energy, of keeping ‘first things first,’ of saying ‘no’ to things we’d like to do but really don’t have the time for, of doing some things well rather than many things not-so-well. My husband will tell you that I preach it especially well at home—to him. And whenever I recruit volunteers, I tell them to consider this invitation within all their responsibilities and decide wisely.

So now I find myself at the end of a long month, a month with more responsibilities than it should have had. And the next month looks just as jam packed. And I’m tired alot.

At my church, I’m recruiting and training several groups at once—people to interview new members, record-keeping volunteers and a job description team—as I begin to gather info from ministry leaders and free myself from meeting with all new members. I also have two teaching/speaking events coming up. In my Equipper work from home, I have two out-of-town speaking events, one a full-day workshop, coming soon; I wrote a major article for publication; and am keeping up with the monthly newsletter. Plus I’m taking a class for my Masters.

Life is messy. Sometimes an opportunity (or two or three) is important enough that you accept them even though they over-fill the schedule. So to avoid the embarrassment of being a really bad example, as I’m working through this over-busy time, I’m trying to find relatively healthy ways of dealing with an unhealthy schedule. Such as:

• Remember what’s important. Devotions, exercise and healthy eating shouldn’t wait until there’s time. I might cut back on the exercise and time in the kitchen, but I know it’s wrong to drop those priorities entirely.
• Planning becomes more important. I have to check the ‘big picture’ more often so I don’t get too late of a start on the really big projects, and so I can reassure myself that I do have it under control
• What things can I let go? Perhaps I don’t need to dust or vacuum or change the sheets as often as scheduled. No problem there. But I also enjoy reading the newspaper and doing its puzzles, and perhaps those pleasures need to be dropped for a while, too.
• All work and no play backfires eventually. I work in the evening, but I still give myself an hour off at the end of the day. By that time, the brain isn’t functioning too well anyway!
• Time with the people who are important to me won’t happen on its own when I’m busy. So it gets scheduled.
• The over-busy has to be temporary. I’m planning for a recovery period planting some new gardens in May, and the ‘extra’ work will take a back seat for a while.

Thank you, husband, for being supportive in my busy time–and for being gracious and gentle when you quote my words back to me!

I had a conversation today with a woman from a church which shall, in mercy, remain nameless.  She said they use to have a large crew of dedicated church office volunteers but they left because one of the office staff often sat reading a book while they worked. The staff person is now gone–she left for another position–but the volunteers haven’t come back.

I suppose someone could see this as volunteers with an ‘attitude,’ but if I were in their shoes, I would have left, too. There’s many ways to spend my time. Why would I give it when the paid staff can’t find something productive to do?

Whether they recognize it or not, church volunteers and church staff are a team. They are in relationship with each other–either a good relationship, in which they make each other better, or a poor relationship, in which there is no partnership/respect/caring. And most volunteers won’t stick around for that. There are many ways and many places to serve God.

The big question in my mind: why didn’t someone talk to that staff person, or, if necessary, fire her? Allowing things to continue as they did spoke volumes about the church’s attitude toward their other workers, the volunteers (and the other paid staff who were actually working during work hours).