Humble Volunteers: The Secret Sauce in Your Ministry
One of our staff members at Elevation used to work at Chic-fil-A. He claims to know the secret about how they make the chicken taste so delicious. He shared it with me. Interesting theory. Sorry, I’m sworn to secrecy.
People have asked me quite a few times over the several years something like this:
What is the secret sauce that has helped Elevation to grow rapidly and make a big impact?
Obviously, the secret sauce is Jesus.
But that’s not what they’re asking. They’re looking to learn how Jesus through the Holy Spirit is working through us in a specific, tangible way.
Additionally, it always feels funny to try to explain what you’re doing right when you know there are so many areas where you want to do so much better.
With that said, I do think there’s a secret sauce that you would discover if you spent some time behind the scenes at Elevation Church. It’s something that I’ve seen God bless over and over again- not just in our church, but in churches, businesses, and families all over the world. And it has nothing to do with my preaching or the Sunday morning worship experience.
The secret sauce? It’s the humility of the volunteers on our team.
By humility, I don’t mean sheepishness. When I say I’m inspired by the humility of our team, here’s what I mean:
They submit their pride and preferences to God’s plans and purposes, and deflect the glory to Jesus.
- Our creative team has had to completely scratch a finished product that took them hundreds of hours to create because it wasn’t the best thing for the worship experience.
- Our ushers have had to respond with kindness to angry parents who dropped F-bombs when they were asked to leave the auditorium with a crying baby so that people could hear the Gospel undistracted.
- Our worship leaders have practiced and performed many songs they didn’t personally like with a great attitude and wholehearted effort because it best supported the message.
- Our volunteer leaders have accepted hard correction about the way to lead their teams, made the adjustments, and come back the next week, even though they’re not paid to.
- In the administrative department- I walked through and saw 7 people in Volunteer Headquarters pounding away on keyboards, entering first time guest data just moments before I wrote this. Very few people have any clue about the hard, tedious work they do. But that’s not why they do it.
And on and on.
Elevation team- thanks for serving up the good stuff with humility every week.
You’re the secret sauce that God uses to make this thing so special.
Read more from Steven here.
Tags: Church Volunteers, Elevation Church, Serve, Steven Furtick, Volunteer Culture
