This Sunday was a HUGE Sunday for us at NewSpring (especially in the Majestic)! We had our normal four services (although I don’t think its fair to call the normal…they are extraordinary) and we talked to the kids about what it means to be unselfish. I loved one of the things God hit me with to share with them:
“Being unselfish is simply this…choosing to do things for others and TRUSTING that if and when God wants me to have something (that deep inside a part of me wants or needs) He will give it to me if or when I need it (because God knows my needs better than me).
See I think that’s true for all of us…we choose to ACT and GET what we want because if WE WON’T then WHO WILL? And we miss out on the blessings of God because we try to GET it all ourselves! We choose to pursue our selfish desires and not the glory of God! That part is more on an adult level though!
Lately one of the things I have LOVED is listening to a few PODCASTS that have been simply ROCKIN! I had to get some help from Tony on how to link you guys to these podcast (BTW Tony is having a comment party right now in celebration of his 1000th post…stop by and drop a comment). Hopefully I did it right and you should be able to check them out. So, if you have the time you should definitely check these PODCASTs out….
- Perry Noble (NewSpring Church)
- Andy Stanley (North Point Church)
- Brain Houston (HillSong Church)
- John Piper (Desiring God Ministries)
I am a firm believer that we should be always filling ourselves up with the WORD of GOD! The more we can get our hands on it, our hearts in it, our bodies living it the less likely we are to give into temptation and the more likely we are to glorify God with our lives.
This Sunday we had a training for our volunteer leaders. We figure…the bigger we get the less likely it is to be able to bring in 100-200 volunteers X number of times per year. So one of the things we are beginning to push really hard are our volunteer leaders and setting up a STRONG foundation there.
It was so great to share with them what God has been laying on my heart! God didn’t let me rest much last week because there was so much I felt like He wanted me to say. Later this week I am going to put out some more information out on the blog. For instance:
- Some organizational charts (past & present)
- Why we are changing things up? (Were there any issues before…da, da, dom…)
- Maybe the audio of our training…MAYBE, then again maybe not…we’ll see!
All in all this has been some random ramblings but God has so been rocking my world lately and it just one of those things you just keep telling everyone about. Plus, I am running on about four hours sleep and have been going since about 5:30 this morning.
One of the challenges God has been hitting me with lately is exactly what Perry spoke about this weekend (check out the podcast listed above)! WE ARE CALLED TO LIVE ABOVE REPROACH!
Fellow pastors & leaders…OUR CHARACTER MATTERS! Just because we are in the ministry doesn’t mean we have the “right” to sin! Live right, finish the flippin’ race strong, so one day we can stand before God and hear Him say…”Well done!”
See you guys on Tuesday…
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Pudge,
One thing I would be interested in hearing concerning volunteers is training what initial training do you give, is a class or hands on, and what do you do for ongoing training?
thanks
April 23rd, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Sam,
You ask a great question and I think the answer varies depending on the size of your volunteer base. For us, the bigger we get the more we realize it is unlikely to have a class or hands on training before they get plugged in. What we do is pair them up with another volunteer who is doing something they would like to do and let them learn from them. Staff or volunteer leaders will follow up from there.
Initially, we do make sure our volunteers know our policies and procedures and have a basic understanding of the room and what goes on. The more we grow the more we use our volunteer leaders to help us with a lot of this. For me, the best way to train our new volunteers are to use current volunteer leaders we have. I go into a little more detail on the post called “Volunteer Structure (part 2).”
I know that doesn’t give a concrete answer, but I think it comes down to this…”What do we need to do so that our volunteers are taken care of, passionate, know the vision, support the leadership, and are well informed (all the while being a good steward of their time)?”
thanks!
pudge