Leith Anderson - Volunteering: A Guide to Serving in the Body of Christ

ZONDERVAN

Volunteering
Copyright 2015 by Leith Anderson and Jill Fox

ePub Edition June 2015: ISBN 978-0-310-51918-8

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Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Anderson, Leith, 1944

Volunteering : a guide to serving in the body of Christ / Leith Anderson and Jill Fox.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-310-51917-1 (softcover)

1. Voluntarism Religious aspects Christianity. I. Title.

BR115.V64A53 2015

253 dc23

2015004850

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Cover design: Brand Navigation
Cover photo: www.iStockphoto.com
Interior design: Denise Froehlich

15 16 17 18 19 20 /DCI/ 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Molly and Brooke,
my best friends who never stop believing in me

And for all who volunteer:
you are needed, and never forget that God is using you

Contents

CHAPTER 1
Making the Case: Why Volunteer?

CHAPTER 2
Finding Your Fit

CHAPTER 3
Teams Are Tops

CHAPTER 4
Storytelling: Yours, Mine, His

CHAPTER 5
Recruiting: Everybody Can Do It!

CHAPTER 6
Volunteers Get Paid??

CHAPTER 7
The Benefits Package

CHAPTER 8
Avoiding Burnout

CHAPTER 9
Prayer Matters

CHAPTER 10
Ready, Get Set, Volunteer!

Youve heard about the need, sensed the call, felt the stirring in your heart to do something to help others. You want to serve. You want to volunteer your time and effort toward something worthwhile.

But you also have some doubts. You arent sure you can do it. Or maybe youve volunteered before, and it just didnt work out the way you had hoped.

This book is for you. Its written for the person who hears about an outreach or a ministry opportunity in the church or community and wants to know more about whats involved, whether its the right fit, and whether he or she can be successful.

Or maybe you already volunteer, and this book is being used by your leaders as part of a seminar or training workshop. Our hope and prayer is that what you read and learn will inspire you to use your God-given spiritual gifts, your experience, and your talents to do the ministry he has planned for you.

Jill Fox has done the majority of the compiling and writing for this book, so when the pronoun I is used, it refers to her. But the content is a true collaboration between the two writers, so both authors names appear on the cover.

And if you are tasked with leading and training volunteers in your church or nonprofit ministry, wed like you to know that this is a companion to a more complete guide on the subject, The Volunteer Church. Both of the books grew out of the ministry of Leith Anderson and Jill Fox in recruiting and developing volunteers at Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Their experience also includes interacting and working with leaders from churches of all sizes and many denominations, as well as seminary students, over many years.

It was a special night. This wasnt your typical Wednesday evening kids program. The fourth graders were gathered together on the floor, waiting in anticipation for their guest. The senior pastor was coming to share about his recent travels, visiting several missionaries from the church in different countries. For kids whose idea of a vacation involved a couple of hours in the family minivan, they were fascinated to hear about flying across oceans to faraway places that some had never even heard of.

Ty was one of the inquisitive fourth graders listening carefully as the pastor began to talk about the countries hed been to and the people he had met. But then the pastor did something that made Ty sit up straight. He handed each of the kids a single coin and said to them, Your life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you want. But you can only spend it once. Ty sat quietly clutching his coin in his hand. The words continued to circle in his head. That night a seed was planted in Tys heart and mind. He began wondering whether his life could be used to make a difference, maybe even by serving people who had never heard the gospel.

Ty is now in his thirties, but that night was the beginning of a journey toward dedicating his life to serving God with his whole heart. For him, that meant eventually becoming a missionary. That initial challenge is still a beacon for his life, and the words have been burned into his soul. Your life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you want. But you can only spend it once. Those simple words pierced his heart and have set a new course for his life. They helped him see both the freedom and responsibility hed been given to do something meaningful with his time on earth.

The reality is that all Christians have been given our own coins, our own set of opportunities and responsibilities, as Jesus described in the parable of the talents. How will we spend them? How will we choose among the possible paths laid out before us?

Our lives are valuable; they matter. Even if we havent always made wise choices, we still have the chance to use our interests, skills, experiences, and gifts to change the world around us. We can show our families, our friends, and our neighbors how they too can live for Jesus Christ. The question is whether we will seize the opportunities that cross our paths.

And this is not easy. It involves changing how we think and what we do. It means nothing less than becoming like Jesus. I know that sounds like an impossible goal. But let me put it in the simplest of terms: Jesus was the ultimate volunteer. As the eternal Son of God, he volunteered himself for a rescue mission. He became human to serve the whole world, dying on the cross to take the sentence for sin that hangs over all of our lives. Jesus himself declared it this way: The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28). This was his mission, the passion that motivated him to live and to die.

The Bible tells us that we are followers of Jesus. We are Christians who are being changed each day to become more like Jesus. And an essential part of becoming like Jesus, the ultimate servant, involves serving others.

Are you interested in becoming more like Jesus? Do you want your life to reflect the life of the ultimate volunteer, Jesus? You are reading this book, which means you are at least somewhat interested. Maybe youre thinking about volunteering. Maybe youre already serving and interested in finding more ways to help others become like Jesus. Id like to invite you to take a journey, a journey to discover what it means to be a volunteer in your church, in your community, and around the world. And on the way, my hope and prayer is that you will become more like Jesus, discovering the specific opportunities God has in mind for you the volunteer opportunity with your name written on it!