Glorious Mud

Church services are a lot of work to pull off. It doesn't matter if you attend a mega-church with a disneyland like children's ministry and performing monkeys onstage or a rural church of 100 people. Unless you attend a house church in your own home with no other families with kids, you will probably be confronted with the need at some point to recruit people to help you pull everything together for a church gathering. When I came on board with The Journey in 2006, I was immediately hit with the need to recruit enough volunteers to staff a new service (we were, at that point, moving from three to four services). I had a leadership team I was already developing - but I needed around 40 warm, caring, entertaining, and energetic bodies - and I needed them quickly. The problem was compounded by the fact that I didn't even have enough people to cover all the needs at the other services. So, I put in a request to God. I asked him, if he wouldn't mind, slowing down the gr...

I didn't always work for the church. I consider myself, in many ways, the accidental pastor. I set out to become a high school English teacher who would move into administration. Well, kind of. I didn't really set out to do anything - but that is another story. But I did land in education and I spent 17 years working with kids or with those who work with kids - as a teacher (public and private), a board member, and a principal. During this time, I worked mostly with employees, not volunteers. There are advantages to leading employees - they pretty much have to perform in order to receive a pay check. There is an internal, intrinsic motivation to move the organization toward success - "If I don't do my job, I will lose my job." There was also a freedom to lead in that environment because there was a stated agreement - you are being paid to do your job and I am being paid to make sure you are doing it well. If I push you to improve in that environment, it i...