Church Media Team Volunteer Burnout

Along the lines of my last post.  How many times have you gotten just burned out as a volunteer?  It’s happened all too often to me.  I guess I brought this on myself by my desire to get involved in the first place, but now I get phone calls from church staff members telling me what I need to do.  I love the staff, they’re great people, but they need to understand that this is not my job.  I don’t get paid to do what I do, I’m a volunteer!

If I had the time, I would love to create graphics, videos etc. every week, run powerpoint and audio for all those little events that happen each week, but it’s just not possible.

If you’re a church staff member or pastor and you’re reading this, please make sure you consider that your tech volunteers are just that: VOLUNTEERS.  They most likely love to help you out, but can’t always do what you’d like them to do.

More churches need to consider hiring technical people.

Media Team training

I’m a volunteer at church for audio and visuals.  My time has always been somewhat limited to spend in training and recruiting new people to help with media, but it’s not been more limited than it is now.  With my kids so heavily involved in activities, I just don’t have a lot of time.

So in talking with my associate pastor last night, he helped me figure out how to get the ball rolling on training new people.  We’re going to get a big boost in the number of people to help out in running things on Sunday mornings, as well as to create the content during the week.

We have several hundred people who come to church on Sundays and aren’t involved in anything.  I know there’s a few who want to do something but just haven’t been asked. 

Some things never change

Technology changes - Think about what a cell phone looked like 5 years ago and compare that to the upcoming iphone.

Family life changes – It’s amazing to me how different family’s lives are today as compared to when I was a child.

Society changes – It amazes me how far downhill our society has gone in the last generation.  We’ve taken what used to be regarded as evil and called it good. 

God Never Changes – Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”  He doesn’t change his beliefs based on popular opinion.  He doesn’t show us love one day, then turn on us the next.  He’s not a Buckeye fan one day and a Wolverine fan the next (everyone knows he’s always been a Buckeye fan).  He always loves us unconditionally, even when we do things that don’t please Him.  He is constant; he’s always there for us, always ready to forgive us when we ask, always there to talk to.  In a world that’s in such a mess, it’s good to know this.

Life is Busy… Deal with it!

I’m the type of person that loves to just be at home.  I generally don’t like to go out and be busy doing things all the time.  I can easily keep myself busy at home, but I would rather not be in the car driving all over town constantly.

But having kids has a tendency to change your ideals.  Yesterday I came home from work, scarfed down some leftover pizza, then headed to the soccer field for practice.  Tonight I’m leaving work and heading straight to the baseball fields where I’ll meet my wife for my son’s practice, then she’ll leave for a meeting at church which means I’ll have to leave my son’s practice to pick up my daughter from dancing and bring her back to the ballfields.  Then after that, we need to stop by the church for a while to do some things.  By the time that’s all over, it’s time to get the kids in bed and then another day is over.

Time can get away from you quickly with the whirlwind of activities that comes from the combination of children and springtime.  I have to constantly be aware of how I manage my time.  My family is very important, so I try to make them a priority, although sometimes I let church activities get in the way of that. 

I just have to learn to deal with a busy life and do the best I can with the time I’ve been given!

Spring Sports

What an exciting time of year.  I’m looking forward to spending time at the ball fields and soccer fields.  Ethan is in his second year of Little League baseball, Madison is in her very first year playing baseball and she’s also playing soccer again.    Now if only the weather would go back to what it was a couple days ago!

Mission Work

For some reason I was just thinking about a friend I know who I haven’t talked to in quite a while.   He’s a single guy who has spent a lot of time on mission trips to Russia.  I found Justin’s blog and discovered that he’s actually in Russia right now.  He dedicates his life to serving others both here in the United States and overseas.  He’s a man full of energy who loves God with everything he has.  How do you serve God?  Are you excited to do it or is it just one of those daily tasks you have to endure?

Is Church Relevant to you?

I’m very much involved with my church and we have a service we call Eleventh Hour that’s been a big part of where I spend my time.  We try to make it not like a regular church service.  It’s held Saturday evenings at 6:00 pm.  We really try to focus on building relationships with people and not try to spend our time “Preaching” to people, but we do want people to know who God is and how much He loves them.  We want people to understand that God wants a personal relationship with them, He doesn’t want us to be drawn into legalism and praying certain prayers and doing certain things to win favor with Him.  God wants a relationship with you; He wants to know you, and He wants you to know Him.

Our Eleventh Hour service is focused on relationships: We sit at round tables and have plenty of time to discuss issues at the tables.  We have plenty of coffee and snacks and plenty of time to just hang out before and after the service.

I’ve come across a great blog called Relevant Christian that really hits me with its content.  I especially liked what was posted today called They Like Jesus…Not the Church which references an article from Outreach Magazine.  It’s well worth reading.

So is church relevant to you?  How do you think of church?  I’d love to hear comments.

Spring Break

Ahh, spring break is here.  For the first time, I’ve taken off work during the same week as the kids.  It’s a beautiful day here in central Ohio: 73 degrees and partly cloudy right now.  I put the screens in all the windows, the bushes are starting to bud and the grass has turned noticeably green over the last week.  My son is outside playing basketball on his new hoop and my daughter is upstairs cleaning/playing in her room.  I decided to go ahead and get some of the patio furniture out so I can enjoy it while it’s nice.

We went to the Air Force Museum in Dayton yesterday.  Wow is it big.  I was really impressed with how nice it is.  And it’s FREE admission!  They have planes from the Wright brothers all the way up to today.  It includes the massive B52 bomber and the impressive B2 Stealth bomber.  It’s a great history lesson.  They also have an IMAX theatre (for a fee) that includes about 3 different movie options each lasting about an hour.  Even our kids seemed to enjoy it at their young ages.

Family Meeting Update

Well, after one week the ticket system seems to be successful.  Both kids ended the week with one hour to spare.  I was a little worried on Monday when our son used 2 1/2 hours the first day, but he quickly realized that he would run out of time soon so he held back the rest of the week.  It’s definitely making them think about their use of time.

Our son Ethan lost a tooth in the middle of the night Friday.  He woke up at 2:45 and tells mom his tooth just fell out.  We told him that it was too late for the tooth fairy to get there that night and that he’d have to wait a day.  Even the tooth fairy has a cut-off time for orders!

One of those weeks

I’ve had one of those weeks where you sort of wish you could just rewind your DVR and start over.  And actually, a DVR does sort of play into the equation.  Part of my week involves something I’d rather not get into specifics on here, actually I don’t even want to get into generalities here either.  So we’ll just leave that alone for now!

Other than the unmentioned above, it’s just been a bunch of little things gone wrong that make me want to start over.  I’ve been late for work the last 2 days, once just b/c I overslept and today I had the heavy rain during a Columbus rush hour to blame.  I’m sure one of my bosses will become aware of this soon.

My biggest problem so far this week has been at church.  I was supposed to go in there last night and record a broadcast from CCN on Creating Innovative Outreach Events.  This is where that DVR comes into play: We don’t have one.  We need one!  I hooked up a VCR to our satellite to record the program.. I put in the tape.. it goes in most of the way but not all the way.. I try to pull it out.. it rips the tape in 2.  Great!  I try another VCR and get the same results.  I nearly threw 2 VCR’s through the window, but somehow I managed to keep the window intact.  The program did not get recorded.  I had to apologize to our Associate Pastor about not getting it recorded.  I hope he’s ok with that.  He was going to show it to a group this morning but I hope he had a backup plan.  Now I’m determined to get a DVR so I don’t have to deal with a VCR tape ever again.

I’ll move on and things will get better.  I think God wants to make sure that I’m counting on Him to reign in my life as opposed to living life by my terms.  God is constant even though my life looks more like the twists, turns, and loops at Cedar Point.