Friday FOCUS February 7 2025

Volunteerism

When was the last time you volunteered?

Over the past few months our Federal and Provincial Governments have been presenting "King Charles III Coronation Medals" honouring individuals across our country. Three of the people honoured in the Cowichan Valley are also members of St. John the Baptist, Duncan.

Glen Ridgway has been recognized for his work in providing Pro Bono legal advice in the community.
Susan Smith has received the Scroll of Honour for outstanding volunteer service in the community.
Michael Bapty has been honoured for his work as a Volunteer Tutor at VIU Elder College.

At this time, parish churches are preparing for their Annual Vestry Meetings (AVM). With each AVM comes a variety of opportunities to volunteer.

Often, it is the same people each year filling these positions.

Reflecting back to the first few months of 2020, due to COVID restrictions, we realized that Church worship services would need to see significant changes.

Remember the tape measuring to ensure we were the proper distance from each other? We even had to close for a time and could not meet for ‘in-person’ worship. We became rather creative and adopted ‘drive-through’ sacraments, virtual prayers, and many other formats for creating ‘community.’

Zoom became the gathering format of choice, and some would still like to have Zoom worship services. However, I am personally a bit disappointed to see that so many programs have remained Zoom-driven in our post pandemic days.

We, in the Christian church, have traditionally stressed the personal value of meeting together.

One of the pitfalls of these variations has been that they were ‘administration driven.’

As we look back, five years on, we can see how the roles of volunteers have diminished in the process. Most of the church became centralistic; most of the work of the mission of the gospel was directed through the parish office.

Although 97% of the churches returned to ‘in-person’ worship by the spring of 2021, they have discovered difficulty in hosting religious programming. Everything from Sunday School, and Bible study programs to a variety of other programming have been difficult to ‘package.’

The reason for this difficulty: lack of volunteers.

One researcher has said, “A drop in volunteerism is more significant than a drop in church membership.”-Scott Thumma

Thumma said in an interview, “Having fewer people in worship service doesn’t impact a congregation as much, because you still can have the worship service,” he said. “But when you don’t have the volunteers you need, that has an immediate effect.”

I have observed, to the credit of our diocesan leadership, that some programs have been introduced to gather volunteers. One such program is the Licensed Lay Worship Leader, and here at St. John’s, we are fortunate to have two lay people licensed: Carole Gill and Kathy Mills.

However, the “song” continues among Christian leaders. We are doing as much as we can: our limitation is the lack of volunteers.

Perhaps, the lack of volunteers should not be viewed only as a spillover from COVID. (From my observation, volunteerism was shrinking prior to COVID.)

With the affluence of our society the tune being sung from the sidelines is, “Just hire someone.”

The question remains, “When did you last volunteer?

Blessings,
Archdeacon Brian+

Friday FOCUS February 7 2025

Volunteerism

Glen Ridgway has been recognized for his work in providing Pro Bono legal advice in the community.

Susan Smith has received the Scroll of Honour for outstanding volunteer service in the community.

Michael Bapty has been honoured for his work as a Volunteer Tutor at VIU Elder College.

At this time, parish churches are preparing for their Annual Vestry Meetings (AVM). With each AVM comes a variety of opportunities to volunteer.

Often, it is the same people each year filling these positions.

Reflecting back to the first few months of 2020, due to COVID restrictions, we realized that Church worship services would need to see significant changes.

Zoom became the gathering format of choice, and some would still like to have Zoom worship services. However, I am personally a bit disappointed to see that so many programs have remained Zoom-driven in our post pandemic days.

We, in the Christian church, have traditionally stressed the personal value of meeting together.

One of the pitfalls of these variations has been that they were ‘administration driven.’

As we look back, five years on, we can see how the roles of volunteers have diminished in the process. Most of the church became centralistic; most of the work of the mission of the gospel was directed through the parish office.

Although 97% of the churches returned to ‘in-person’ worship by the spring of 2021, they have discovered difficulty in hosting religious programming. Everything from Sunday School, and Bible study programs to a variety of other programming have been difficult to ‘package.’

The reason for this difficulty: lack of volunteers.

One researcher has said, “A drop in volunteerism is more significant than a drop in church membership.”-Scott Thumma

However, the “song” continues among Christian leaders. We are doing as much as we can: our limitation is the lack of volunteers.

Perhaps, the lack of volunteers should not be viewed only as a spillover from COVID. (From my observation, volunteerism was shrinking prior to COVID.)

With the affluence of our society the tune being sung from the sidelines is, “Just hire someone.”

The question remains, “When did you last volunteer?

Blessings,
Archdeacon Brian+

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Friday FOCUS February 7 2025

Volunteerism

Glen Ridgway has been recognized for his work in providing Pro Bono legal advice in the community.

Susan Smith has received the Scroll of Honour for outstanding volunteer service in the community.

Michael Bapty has been honoured for his work as a Volunteer Tutor at VIU Elder College.

At this time, parish churches are preparing for their Annual Vestry Meetings (AVM). With each AVM comes a variety of opportunities to volunteer.

Often, it is the same people each year filling these positions.

Reflecting back to the first few months of 2020, due to COVID restrictions, we realized that Church worship services would need to see significant changes.

Zoom became the gathering format of choice, and some would still like to have Zoom worship services. However, I am personally a bit disappointed to see that so many programs have remained Zoom-driven in our post pandemic days.

We, in the Christian church, have traditionally stressed the personal value of meeting together.

One of the pitfalls of these variations has been that they were ‘administration driven.’

As we look back, five years on, we can see how the roles of volunteers have diminished in the process. Most of the church became centralistic; most of the work of the mission of the gospel was directed through the parish office.

Although 97% of the churches returned to ‘in-person’ worship by the spring of 2021, they have discovered difficulty in hosting religious programming. Everything from Sunday School, and Bible study programs to a variety of other programming have been difficult to ‘package.’

The reason for this difficulty: lack of volunteers.

One researcher has said, “A drop in volunteerism is more significant than a drop in church membership.”-Scott Thumma

However, the “song” continues among Christian leaders. We are doing as much as we can: our limitation is the lack of volunteers. Perhaps, the lack of volunteers should not be viewed only as a spillover from COVID. (From my observation, volunteerism was shrinking prior to COVID.)

With the affluence of our society the tune being sung from the sidelines is, “Just hire someone.”

The question remains, “When did you last volunteer?

Blessings,Archdeacon Brian+

Office Hours

Location

Mailing Address

However, the “song” continues among Christian leaders. We are doing as much as we can: our limitation is the lack of volunteers.

Perhaps, the lack of volunteers should not be viewed only as a spillover from COVID. (From my observation, volunteerism was shrinking prior to COVID.)

Blessings,
Archdeacon Brian+