The concept of needing tools to make or repair things is not new to us. Mechanics use tools to fix our cars, cooks use tools (utensils) to cook a meal, carpenters use tools to build a house. One of the ways you can tell if you have found a professional or an expert to do a job is to notice if they come equipped with the appropriate tools. (A plumber who asks if he can borrow your wrench would hardly evoke your confidence.)
Yet in the important business of building up the church to be fully functional and alive, we have neglected to identify or use many of the appropriate tools available to us. We often flounder around believing good intentions and pure motives will make everything come out all right-especially since this is God's work we are about!
Most seminaries have not even acknowledged that these tools are important, nor have they done anything to help our professionals (the clergy they ordain) know how to use them. It's assumed they either already have them or will somehow learn by osmosis on the job. I have had countless pastors of several different denominations confirm this and express how desperately they wish that concepts and tools like those covered in this book bad been a required part of their seminary training. They come out well grounded in theology but sorely lacking in management and motivational skills, and that is where congregations are in trouble.
If we are serious about wanting to close the gap between our theology of involvement (Chapter 1) and the reality of today's churches (Chapter 2), we must acquire the tools to help us do it effectively. The tools I am referring to are the tools of management. Because of some of the preconceived notions people have about business and corporations and in light of my earlier comment that the church is an "organism" rather than just another organization, I can imagine immediate resistance to this solution. But think about it in comparison with a human body. Nothing more highly organized or intricately coordinated exists in the world. When even the smallest part of that organism fails to function, it affects the entire body. I would maintain the same is true for the church body.
I first began to realize how important sound management is in working with volunteers when I was director of a volunteer center in Boulder , Colorado. We helped recruit, interview, and place vol unteers in 90 different health, educational, welfare, and recreational organizations in our county. I held that job for seven years, and during that time I interviewed hundreds of volunteers. One question we always asked them was, "Why did you leave the last place you volunteered?" I was astounded at bow frequently the reasons were: "I never knew what they wanted me to do; I didn't even have a job description;" "I didn't know who I was responsible to, so I never knew who to go to with questions, ideas, or problems;" "They never provided any training to help me do what I was asked to do;" "Nobody ever told me if what I was doing was helpful or not;" "I was asked to do more and more and finally just burned out!" These problems occurred because, at that time, many volunteer organizations were not utilizing management tools either-and volunteers fell through the cracks.
During the past decade the field of volunteerism has seriously addressed these problems and enormous strides have been made in correcting them. College courses, books, and workshops all offer sound, practical help in the management of volunteers.
After having been deeply involved in the secular volunteer management field for 15 years, it came as a shock to me to realize how I had been separating my Sunday and weekday worlds. I had seen clearly the need for management skills in secular volunteer groups, but it took a long time until it occurred to me how similar the need was in the church. Church volunteers were leaving in frustration for all the same reasons that volunteers were leaving other organizations. It took them a bit longer to burn out, but when they did they were even more disillusioned because they felt the church should somehow have cared more about them than it apparently did.
What volunteers repeatedly have said they want and need are:
- to be carefully interviewed and appropriately assigned to a meaningful task;
- to receive training and supervision to enable them to do that task well;
- to be involved in planning and evaluating the program in which they participate;
- to receive recognition in a way that is meaningful to them;
- to be regarded as persons of uniqueness;
- to be accepted as a valued member of the team.
All of these needs can be dealt with if we acquire and use the management tools presented in this [book].