Community and Service Go Hand in Hand

As a pastor, when I meet with someone from the business community who has recently come into to a relationship with Christ and joined the church, I know they want to make a difference. They want to find their spiritual gifts and learn how they can have impact. Pastors and leaders in churches must be able to assimilate these freshly redeemed people into volunteer positions. How we approach these people can make or break their volunteer experience within the church.

So, why do some business leaders never engage in church ministry? Many times it's an amazingly simple answer - no one asks them. That's right, high-caliber talent sitting on the sidelines because a coach doesn't ask if they want to play!

My wife and I did research on volunteerism for my book The Volunteer Revolution. We not only looked at the church, but also at not-for-profit, political, and community organizations. We asked these groups how they attracted volunteers. When we got into the research and actually looked up the data, do you know what the most cited reason was why people started volunteering? Someone asked them.

Here's another principle that differentiates people's experience when they serve - it's the community principle. We have a huge campus at Willow Creek and a lot of people who enjoy physical labor as their act of service will come out and mow the grass. We used to have them come out and mow the grass alone. We'd give them a key to the maintenance building and they'd come out whenever they could, mow for awhile, and go home. Their serving jobs were done in isolation.

Then we awakened to the fact that we could provide a better volunteer experience. We began having people come together in community, praying with one another, opening up their lives, then riding the mowers. And afterwards, they'd come back to have a cup of coffee and encourage each other before they left for home.

We have learned over the years that we need to design volunteer positions so that they have the value of community pursuant to them. We've done a complete overhaul of the entire volunteer system at Willow Creek so that when you come to serve, you're going to serve on a team, you'll be building relationships and experiencing community while you serve.

There's one more principle that I think is really important for church leaders looking to engage business people into church volunteer opportunities. It's the principle of commendation. I had a guy in our church that had the gift of giving. He earned as much as he could, while living on as little as possible, so that he could donate resources to the work of God in the world.

One day, he scheduled an urgent lunch appointment with me. Not understanding why he had wanted to meet, I wondered if his marriage was healthy or if his business was in trouble. I was blown away when he told me what was on his mind.

He said, "My business partner knows how much I'm giving to the work of God, and he thinks I'm crazy. My accountant and lawyer both know how much I'm giving and they think I'm crazy too. I need for you, Bill, to once a year sit across the table and tell me I'm not crazy, because sometimes I feel crazy."

We face the task of building the kingdom of God in a fallen and sin-stained world, and every one of us needs to be reminded that our efforts are not in vain. There is coming a time when on the other side we'll look back and feel great about every day we were fully engaged building the kingdom of God, and we'll feel remorse about any day we squander on a lesser dream.

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