Any Volunteers?

As a teen, I found out that you could get to do cool things if you volunteered. My second time volunteering for a Christian concert promoter, I was in the "DMZ" between the stage and the standing-room-only crowd at a Petra concert. It was a blast! Over time, I became a volunteer supervisor with the promoter and recruited my own crews, something I personally viewed as my ministry, enabling people to hear the message of Christ in a relevant way. Later, it was one of the items on my resume when I applied for a job with a national ministry to recruit volunteers for the conferences they were going to do, and I'm certain it opened a door for me.

I was interested when I found this recent article from FoxNews, Study: Midwest Tops Coasts for Volunteerism. An author of the report on the study, Robert Grimm said "Volunteering is not something that's just nice to do, it's necessary to solve important community problems." I couldn't agree more. Without volunteers, some ministries could not function. My sister-in-law is a nurse and she works as a counselor for at-risk youth. Could they afford a nurse's salary? Not without cutting back somewhere else. I edit a church newsletter that wouldn't see the light of day without volunteers. Recently, my wife's surgery required that she stay off her feet for nearly a month. Because of my disability, we would have been unable to cook, clean or do simple housekeeping without a volunteer coming in and helping us. How much of our community is made better by volunteers? Probably more than we will ever realize.

As a homeschooling parent, I want to help my kids find the joy in volunteerism. They participate in fundraising for the local pregnancy center. They help lead home group for the kids. As they get older, they'll gather experience in other opportunities, experience that will open doors for them like it did for me. More importantly, however, is that they learn to tithe with their time as well as with their money. God will bless them for it, just like He's blessed me.