Yearly I struggle with how to appreciate all the volunteers
that make up the department at our ministry that I oversee. There are nearly 150 volunteers and 3 full
time staff under my supervision. (How
this came to be is a complete mystery!)
Anyway, one thing I care about deeply in ministry is that
people be given opportunity to serve in their gifted area, using their
God-given talents AND, that they feel connected and appreciated.
My primary job at the church is to create unique worship
services each weekend as well as all the special event services at our
church. This includes the areas of
drama, oversight of sound, selection of and execution of music, video,
lighting, set design and I direct the services each weekend as well. So these are all the teams that were invited.
So the struggle remains – how do I show volunteers that
serve 52 weeks a year how much they are needed by the local church, how they
are making a difference in people’s lives for eternity and how much they
personally mean to me? Tough!
I concluded that there were two things that would help to
accomplish this.
1. 1. Invite them to our home
2. 2. Show them how much of a mess our ministry would
be if they weren’t serving in areas in which they are gifted
I decided to ask each team to switch places with another
team that they normally do not serve on.
They were handed instructions and given 15 minutes to prepare before the
‘service’ began (and I use the word very loosely).
Our regular vocalists became the tech team. Their duties at the picnic included: writing out all the song lyrics by hand and
cutting strips of Poster Board that they had to hold up as the song was sung. (A typical service at Crossroads uses Media
Shout to project the words on screens).
They had to choose 2 people to hold colored light gels up in the air at
just the right place in the song representing lighting color changes that would
typically be programmed for our services.
And 2 people that had never run sound before ran the small soundboard. (Really badly I may add)
Our regular band members become the actors. They performed the ‘’doctors office” skit
where one actor catches all the other actors ailments as they enter the office.
Quite entertaining!
Our regular tech team became the singers. (This was hideous)
Our regular Drama team became the band. (This was HILARIOUS)
Our Youth Band became our
liturgical painters during the music portion of the service.
And, we had a grand finale featuring the 3 staff guys in our
department destroying “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy “ – this horrifying ballet
will be etched in all of our brains forever!
I really don’t know when I have laughed so hard and for so
long as I did Sunday night. And the real
treat was listening to all the faithful team members laughing as well.
We capped off the night with a repeat attempt to jump our
creek by one of our team members with his Hummer. (This attempt has become a picnic tradition).
It was a repeated fail as he once again buried his Hummer up to the doors in
mud. This resulted in an ‘after dark’
pulling from the muck by a backhoe graciously loaned to us from our neighboring
Snow Resort – two driveways down the road.
I felt like our mission was accomplished! We demonstrated to our teams how much they
all contribute by serving in their gifted
areas and how much we all appreciate the fact that they serve in their gifted
areas.
I watched as team members who usually don’t get to serve on
the same teams got reacquainted (our teams serve one weekend each month). I watched as several new team members just
completing their training “Joined” the team, fitting in perfectly as they began
their future with our ministry. And, as I
watched them interact I noticed that age and experience no longer
mattered. We were one team.
I would encourage all of you who lead in ministry to
consider this type of event. It was well
worth the investment of my time - I
suspect, more than I even know.
Lori Biddle
Director of Programming
Crossroads Community Church
Mansfield, Ohio
www.loribiddle.com
We all can only build into a limited number of people in our life. We are with some people daily and with others only very occasionally. Such was the case recently when my fathers' side of the family got together for our yearly reunion. Some of my cousins I feel I know well even though I only see them occasionally, nieces and nephews are beginning families of their own. This is making it more and more difficult to feel connected with one another's lives. 
