August 22, 2006
Willing Service
As newlyweds my husband worked rotating shifts, while I worked 9-5. We met each other coming and going and were unable work together on the household chores. I soon became resentful doing chores at the end of my day when it appeared to me that Bill spent his after-work hours with his feet propped up reading Louis L’Amour books. Diplomacy, begging and temper tantrums failed to generate a helping hand, so I stopped cooking and doing his laundry. I’ve seen a similar shift in attitude at church in the last few years as we’ve hired additional staff. Our heart of willing service is growing weaker, but just how do you cultivate a volunteer spirit while it appears the staff has their feet propped up?
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Gail;
----How can anyone around that church not notice the disappearance of volunteerism. And I think you are precisely correct about why this has occured.
----Jesus did not make the fellowship and support system of His church to be motivated by the "push and drive" technique. Any ole feller with a bad whip and a nasty enough attitude to use it can get his neighbors off their cans to do things.
----But Jesus does not want His people doing things. He wants His people wanting to do things. When their desire to do things rises above their apprehensions against doing things is when volunteers start appearing, and things get done.
----The ole feller with the whip won't be sparking too many desires in the hearts. The guy who will do that is the one who loves genuinely from a passioonate heart. He is the guy who sees the hurt and the need in the lives of others and is compelled to reach out and try to fill those needs from his own supply. The joy that resonates from that situation is a little bit inspiring to others. And when that situation is played over and over, soon others begin to join in because of the "sparkin'" that's been happening in them, too.
----Jesus made the fellowship and support system in His body to opperate by this "lead by example" mode. Study the qualifications for elders in the Bible. They are attributes of men who have it together in the Lord and use it out of pure desire to do things with their own time and hands. It should not be a surprise, it is completely within His character.
----Nor are they the qualifications of deligators, drivers, and CEO's. Yet, the personalities of so many selected for leadership today seem to have more to do with the ability of shaping new ways in which others can serve and holding ground against those who don't understand, than they have to do with bowing down and serving needs themselves, letting others do likewise according to their particular talents.
----So with God's church tuned to operate on the "do according to example" thing, I hope that church is ready to invest in a whole lot of footstools and whips.
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