Volunteers Rock!

I find it interesting that around the time I stepped down from leading the tech team at my church is around the same time that I lost my drive to write on this site.  Both were dwindling for several months and at the end of 2008, I walked away from it all.  After chilling for awhile, I thought I wanted to get back into it here but my heart wasn’t in it, no matter how hard I tried.

For the 5 years or more that I have been writing here, I have had a real heart for volunteers in church, especially in the area of technology. It has always fascinated me how much volunteers do around a church, in so many ways. I never lost my heart for volunteers and I was very excited when we revived this site, with the sole purpose of being a site for church tech volunteers written by church tech volunteers. However I struggled to feel it. If you haven’t noticed, we have a great team of men and women here who contribute to this site, a bunch of very skilled and talented volunteers, most who serve in their local church and share their stories, their frustrations and their successes with us here at CTM.

I have apparently been leading the way, yet I told them early on that I am probably not going to write much anymore. That in itself didn’t set right with me because I will typically lead by example. If I’m leading you, I will likely be working or serving right beside you. Whether it’s at work or at church or where ever, I will either be working with you on whatever the project is or watching and asking questions and learning from you because you are better at it than I am. I rarely manage or lead at an arms distance. I will definitely give you space to own your area and do it in your own way if that’s how you roll but I still won’t be too far away. So, trying to lead this team of writers in a hands off kind of way is not a normal thing for me.

In my defense, I will say I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t walk away from this site. I tried, believe me, I tried. Once we breathed life back into it, I wanted to see this thing succeed, even if my heart wasn’t in it. Yet I have always felt a stirring inside me that this isn’t right, leading in this way wasn’t right. For me.

I hesitate to say that I’m back because I have done that before and it doesn’t stick. I will say I feel like I’m getting back in my element the more I get plugged into LifeChurch.tv #ChurchOnline. The juices are flowing in my brain and the thoughts of the great value of volunteers are rolling around in my head.

I am sure I’ll have more to say about all of this in the coming days. I am honored to be a part of what is going on at #OnlineChurch and so excited about the conversations I am having and the stories I am hearing.

If you can, stop by #ChurchOnline Thursday evening at 9:30CT, join the kickoff party for this new experience! Join us in chat and worship with us. I’m excited about my opportunity to work with a new team of volunteers.