Volunteer thoughts

As Hillcrest has ventured into her more missional work in the community, there have been some interesting byproducts. One of those byproducts is that we added a new volunteer category, and one that many might not have been participating with before. With a church like Hillcrest continuing to offer programs and ministries for its attenders and also working missionally in the community, you might say that there are two different categories of volunteer opportunities:

• Category 1: Programs and Ministries at Church- this category includes typical church programming: children's ministries (nursery, preschool, elementary, etc), student ministries, worship teams, small group leaders, ushers and greeters, food teams, etc. The distinctive here is that this category directly serves church people.
• Category 2: Community efforts: this category is essentially limitless, but around Hillcrest includes being a reading buddy, a mentor, Wednesday Night Service, the backpack program, foster care, etc. The distinctive here is that this category directly serves the community.

I used to think that was it-just these two categories. But lately I'm thinking that we need to add a third category:

• Category 3: Behind the scenes at Church: this category includes much of the activities in a church that do not bring you into direct contact with church people. This category includes finance people, facilities people, landscaping people, people who sit on ministry teams and departments, etc. Much of their work is behind the scenes- no doubt very important to the ministry of a church- just not as visible (until they stop doing it!).

I do not think (nor am I suggesting) that we do away with any of these three categories. I think knowing that these three categories exist, though, can serve a few purposes:

• For those who recruit: ministry leaders ought to know first, which category they are recruiting for and second, what other categories their prospective volunteer might already be serving in. It might be easy for a ministry like children's to look around and identify all of the non-cat 1 volunteers, but they might not know that many of those folks are already cat 2 and 3 volunteers.
• For those who connect: which category is best for people who are newer to a church? who have been at a church for some time but have yet to serve? who are looking to meet new people? The answers may vary, but having the discussion is a good start.
• For those who lead: for a church that is missionally engaged in serving the communities, again, I don't think categories 1 and 3 should go away. I do believe, though, that the onus in those leaders to connect their ministries with the overall vision of missionally engaging the community. Whether it's Children's Ministries raising money for City Mission, small groups serving at the monthly mission project, facilities inviting more community groups to use our building, the more that category 1 and 3 people connect with category 2, the better.