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 Keep the Bar High and the Begging LowYou are not doing anyone a favor by expecting too little from your volunteers.
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I am sitting in my office on a Monday, and I am flooded with calls and e-mails from people in my congregation begging to be leaders in our children's Sunday school ministry. Sadly, I tell them the positions have been filled for months, but I can put them on a waiting list for the next year. I mention I do have an opening two years out, and if they would like to go online and complete the application, they may do so. They are disappointed about this year but are excited about the possibilities of being a leader in two years. I hang up the phone, turn off my computer, and think to myself, "If only I had enough volunteer positions for every qualified person. It is so difficult to place the chairperson of the religion department at the local university on a waiting list. I just had to. The leadership for fifth grade has been filled for over a year." Then I hear a loud tone and realize my alarm just went off, and I wake up. It was just a dream. We have all had this dream in one form or another. We have this idea that everyone who feels called to children's ministry knows their calling and acts on it. We tend to think making announcements in church where we beg people to serve or placing a blurb in the Sunday morning bulletin are enough to motivate people to volunteer for positions they know very little about. Save your energy and your paper. Recruiting volunteers is not like searching for a needle in a haystack (which it sometimes feels like). It is about helping people discover their gifts and equipping them to serve. It is actually my second favorite part of my job. I love helping people find their place to serve and then equipping them for the service. The word equipping was new to me until I read the book The Equipping Church by Sue Mallory (Zondervan, 2001). It helped me redefine recruiting and training as helping people find their gifts, then training them to use those gifts. Looking for Subs in All the Wrong PlacesA friend of mine, who is a children's director, once announced from the pulpit on a Sunday morning that she just needed some warm bodies to be substitute teachers in Sunday school and to help in the nursery. She was later frustrated when the volunteers she ended up with were consistently late and not motivated. When she asked my opinion on what to do, I said, "Well, they were alive, and that is basically all you asked for." She had set the bar pretty low. I believe the bar should be set high for volunteers. I have had Dr. Anne Kerr, president of Florida Southern College, teach second grade Sunday school; I have had Reverend Emily Oliver, an ordained Methodist minister who is appointed to our conference office, teach second grade Sunday school; and Bishop Robert Fannin has served as a greeter and leader for several children's events. Each year several teachers who were voted "teachers of the year" teach vacation Bible school. |        
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Connie Silver
The author loves children and it shows. Children, being the gifts from God that they are, deserve 'the best' in teachers and the best in love and care. Really good article to ponder. Settling just won't do since this is Kingdom work.
Caitlin Booth
What an AMAZING book excerpt!!
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