Article: The Pastor's Volunteer Life

The Pastor's Volunteer Life

Have you ever preached a zero-impact-at-ground-zero sermon? Let me explain what I mean. Ground zero is the point at which an explosion originated. If a bomb is dropped - ground zero is where it hit. When we as pastors preach or when a Bible teacher teaches - ground zero should be our own life. The effect of the sermon or lesson will relate directly to the impact that sermon or lesson had on the one giving it. Let me put it this way - you can't teach what you don't know, and if it hasn't impacted you, any passion you try to put into a message will be purely manufactured passion.

A zero-impact-at-ground-zero sermon will fail to accomplish the results that you are looking for - because it will be fairly obvious that you are not practicing what you are preaching. Over the past year I've started to be convicted about a zero-impact-at-ground-zero ideology that I had been preaching. I wasn't teaching anything non-biblical - I had been preaching on the importance of believers having ministries, and was talking about the unbiblical mindset of a Christian who wasn't ministering.

If you are involved in full-time ministry, and have a whole-church view, you probably realize the necessity of volunteers in the church. A church can't function without people giving their time to ministry. You're also probably familiar with the fact that many churches struggle getting more than 20% (1 out of 5) people involved in ministry. The ability for a church to expand its ministry effectiveness is directly related to the increase of people being willing to involve themselves in ministry.

Here's where the zero-impact part started to hit me. I was asking people in the church to give their time to the church, and yet whatever I did was work for the church. The more I examined this, the more dangerous I found my mentality to be - for several reasons.

First - I sometimes characterized fun events that I felt some expectation to be at, because of my position as pastor, as work. Some examples could be a church softball league, basketball leagues, or a men's ministry golf outing. There may be an expectation for me to be there, but I could freely say no and not have any ministry at church impacted. If I don't go to those games some people may think I don't care about that event, but I certainly do not need to go to them. Counting a softball or basketball league as work is really stretching it.

Second - I would classify events that I would have volunteered for had I not been in ministry as work. Some examples for me could be helping at the community Relay for Life event, running a campground service, helping a family move, or hosting a small group. In almost all of those situations I was asked to help because of my position as a pastor, however - I probably would have volunteered my time even had I not been in a paid ministry position. If everything I do is work, where is my attitude of volunteering for kingdom work?

Third - I found myself feeling a sense of martyrdom when I would look at my weekly total of hours worked. I didn't always track it well, but when I did - and I included some of the above mentioned items, I would find that it was fairly easy for my hourly total to easily hit the 50-55 hours a week range. In busy weeks, especially in weeks that included extra evening meetings, a wedding, or a funeral (or in some cases, funerals) that total could hit 60 hours a week (or more!) When that weekly hour total increased, it was easy to drift into an "I am so overworked" attitude.

Fourth - I often found myself feeling underpaid and/or underappreciated. The more I worked, the less I made "per hour." My salary felt small compared with the amount of time I was sacrificing for the job. The salary I thought was so great when I started looked less satisfying when compared with people working in "normal" jobs, who only worked 40 hours a week.

Fifth - I started to under-appreciate those who were giving their time to the church. I somehow mentally compared what I was doing for the church with what they were doing for the church, and couldn't understand why they wouldn't (or couldn't) do more. How can I give so much time for the church and they give so little. Why would they let me work so many hours and not participate? Why couldn't I get someone to volunteer their time when I was doing so much I was getting ready to set up a cot in my office and schedule the family for visits just so I could see them? Why couldn't people give more of their time to make the church run smoother?

Because of these reasons - and perhaps a few others - I realized that I needed a fundamental change in approach to how I viewed my job and my ministry. There may be some who disagree with me here, but my pastoral duties, while they certainly include a calling, is better classified as an occupation than a "ministry." That's not to say that the work that I do does not minister to others. Certainly, a large part of my occupation as a pastor comes under the scope of ministering. I'd like to think, however, that if God had called me to be a businessman, a teacher, an artist, a musician, a salesman, a tradesman, or a farmer that I would minister there. All of us have callings from the Lord, and all of those callings involve a responsibility to be representatives of Christ. My "job", if you will, is to be a minister. It is the unique calling that God has given to my life. That job means that I, as part of my occupation, will be reading, studying, preaching, comforting, visiting, teaching, guiding, discipling, vision-casting, encouraging, and being all the other things that are expected as a part of me in the job-role that I fill as pastor. To be certain, it can be a high-stress/low-reward occupation. It is however, the calling that God has given me to do, and I can't imagine myself in any other role.

If I adopt this approach, then I can begin to be on equal footing with those in my congregation, who also all have jobs and occupations. They all have time demands and work responsibilities. All of them have callings that they need to give time and energy to on a weekly basis. If I from the pulpit am going to encourage those who are already investing themselves into the occupation God has called them into to increase their weekly load by volunteering for a "ministry" at the church, then I need to also define some of what I do at the church as my "ministry" - time that goes above and beyond my occupational duties.

What I did began with taking a purposeful look at my schedule. What were the things that I was doing that were expected because of my occupation? These things were inflexible parts of my schedule. These were the responsibilities that would take up XX hours a week. What things were I doing that I had added in that weren't necessary, but I was counting them as work? Some of these things needed to be counted as recreation time, not work time. What things was I doing because of other people's expectations - but could be dropped to free time if necessary? Some of these things needed me to remove myself from a sense of involvement, and almost all needed to be dropped off what I thought of as part of my occupation.

What I ended up doing was shaving my "workload" by 5-10 hours a week. Instead of averaging 50-55 hours a week, I now average approximately 45-50 hours a week. Some things got dropped out of my schedule, others "reclassified." I also purposely worked into my schedule a ministry that I was volunteering at. My role as a small-group leader is something I no longer classify as work. That's one of my ministries to the church. I give my time at church work days as well - why shouldn't I? Everyone else does. (Incidentally, I play on the worship team - but I count that as work. Why? Because I don't have a choice in the matter! If I didn't play, no one would fill the gap. If I ever "mature" in that area and choose to "give" that time to the Lord, I'd drop my work week down to a 40-45 hour work week, and increase my volunteer time by that 5 hour block of time.) When special opportunities come up that are related to my occupation - praying at a community service - I count that as volunteer time, not work time. This has helped me practice what I preach, and has increased my sense of appreciation for others in the church who are giving their time. It challenges me to look for ways to volunteer. It also makes me aware of my responsibility to give time.

There are a couple of tools I can recommend to help you with this process.

1. I would recommend making a spreadsheet or table that can help you track your time. Across the top, make columns that represent your regular job responsibilities. Leave a few blank columns to track miscellaneous activities that you participate in. On the left, make rows that represent the hours that you work. I merged four rows together in the far left column - so my table looked like something like this:
   
   

   Hours	Planning	Scheduling	Study/Reading
   9:00 AM

   
   

   This gave me the opportunity to track my time in 15 minute increments. It seems like a lot of busy work, but was essential for me to be sure I wasn't exaggerating what I was doing. A day spent in sermon preparation often really involved hours of other things, including reading news, correspondence, and other things that were better classified in other categories. Track your time and then evaluate your time.

2. The second tool I'd recommend is a program called Clock-In Pro by Innovate Solutions. You can try it free for a month, and then it's a $60.00 charge if you decide to keep it. It takes some time to figure it out, especially if you don't like to read documentation, but it gives you an easy clock-in/clock-out tool so you can keep track of your time once you get your system established. As church employees we often do a poor job of tracking our time. We talk about how much we work, but sometimes we exaggerate a little, or round up the time each day. There are "manager" options that allow you to enter in extra time, so if you have an emergency visitation call after you're home, you can enter it in the next day, so you don't always have to go to the church to "clock-in." It's definitely a program that I am considering implementing on a staff-wide basis, not so I can be an evil ogre, but so that the staff members have a good idea of their actual time worked. Try it for free, if you don't like it - uninstall it.

Let me encourage you to make your sermons on people having a ministry in the church have a greater impact by evaluating what your life says about volunteering.