National Volunteer Week and the CRC

This is National Volunteer Week in both Canada and the USA, a time to recognize and appreciate the contributions of our volunteers in all areas of life. It’s also a good time to ask, “What do volunteers add to a church? How do they contribute to its ministry?” Let's try to imagine a week without them…

You walk from your car to the entrance of the church and note the weeds poking up between cracks in the sidewalk, the soggy build-up of last fall’s leaves in the corners – the grounds committee isn’t around to clean all that up.

You enter the building and look for someone to greet you, to shake your hand with a smile and welcome you to the church – but no one is there.

You shake it off, and head for the door of the sanctuary, looking for a bulletin. If your church has paid administrative staff, you’ll find one eventually, but the ushers won’t be there to hand it to you or to help you find a seat.

The service is short - a few accapella songs, the message…but there are no deacons to take up the offering, no praise team or other musicians to lead in worship, no readers – who would be hard to hear anyway, because there is no one in the sound booth.

Parents of small children might appreciate the short service, since there are no babysitters in the nursery. After the service, failing to find coffee and all the fellowship it brings, you decide to check out the library – but there is no librarian to help you find something to read through the coming week.

And it could be a long week, since GEMS, Cadets, Youth Group, Small Groups, all committee meetings, and just about every other church activity through the week have been cancelled – there is no one to lead them.

It’s quite a picture, isn’t it? And that’s just the volunteers who give their time and energy in the day-to-day life of the local church.

There are also the participants in short-term mission trips and disaster response, mentors, board members, outreach organizers, pray-ers, fundraisers, gardeners….The variety of roles and services offered by volunteers is almost as wide as the variety in the volunteers themselves.

Young parents, elementary school students, retired people of all backgrounds, teens, and every age in between fill roles as volunteers, giving their gifts and time to serve.

“There are thousands of volunteers in the CRC,” says Carol Sybenga, director of ServiceLink, a ministry of the Christian Reformed Church. “Many organizations couldn’t exist the way they do without volunteers. There’s no way they could do what they do, without volunteers.”

A big part of Sybenga’s job with ServiceLink is helping churches and ministries recruit, train, and recognize volunteers.

A successful volunteer program, she says, requires more than just putting a person in each role. ServiceLink offers a wide variety of resources, including one to help church members identify their gifts so that they can choose a volunteer role that will be a good fit.

There are also training resources available. Many volunteers agree that training is an important – and often overlooked – aspect of volunteering.

“There’s an assumption that because they’re in the church, they’ll understand the role – for example, an usher or a deacon. But that’s not always the case,” says Sybenga.

“People need to know what it is they are to do – a job description – and how their role ties in with the vision of being the church. They need to see the impact and feel like they are making a contribution.”

Derek Hoogland, director of Partners Worldwide, knows the impact of volunteering. He also understands that the impact can go both ways.

It was a three-month volunteering experience in the Dominican Republic that helped to direct the course of his life.

“It was 2004 and my final year of high school, but I was unsure of what to do next. I hopelessly flipped through the career handbook but nothing stood out,” he says.

Wanting to expand his horizons and better understand life outside of the comparatively privileged world he had grown up in, he signed up through ServiceLink to live in Santo Domingo for three months, helping CRWM missionaries Max and Kina VanTil as they hosted seven work teams from the US and Canada, building schools, churches, and homes.

On returning home, he enrolled in the International Development Studies major at Calvin College.

“My studies at Calvin, a semester in Ghana and two years interning with Partners Worldwide in Liberia have all been formative events…but it all started with those three months in the Dominican Republic. I will always be grateful for the opportunity to grow personally and for the experience that led me to where I am today,” says Hoogland.

Two Ontario moms wanted to share the impact of volunteering with their daughters – but there are not many volunteer opportunities open to young children.

One of the moms contacted ServiceLink, and Carol Sybenga was able to find a few places in Hamilton that would welcome their help.

The moms and their daughters prepared for their three-day service trip by baking cookies, which they brought with them to Welcome Inn, a ministry to seniors.

Together, the moms and daughters passed out cookies, painted fingernails, and brought smiles to many faces. They also spent time packing, sorting, and shelving at a food bank.

When asked why they wanted their young daughters to have this experience, one of the moms replied that each week, they gave their daughters money to put into the collection plate.

Now they wanted to show them where their collection money went, to see other ways they could contribute, even at such a young age.

About all of the hours and efforts put into the church and its work throughout the neighbourhood and around the world, Carol Sybenga says firmly, “You can’t put a value on that.”