Initiation by Fire

A few weeks before Easter I met a lady who was interested in serving during one of our Easter services. I had a hunch from the beginning she would be great. That and the fact that while showing her the classrooms my son LOVED her. I'm learning that kids can be a great judge of people who should be serving kids.

During our Easter services she volunteered in the toddler class for half a service and the nursery the other half of our 7:30 service. She also volunteered in the 3 yr. old class during our 9:00 service. I encouraged her to try out different spots to hopefully find a place that fit. The following Sunday she was willing to come back again this time trying out the 4 & 5 yr. old class. It seems after serving in that class she may have found a fit. We decided she would come back again the following week (this past week) and serve in the same class.

Our second service 4&5 yr. old class has two great regular leaders who have been serving in there for a long time. They work together as a team and balance eachother well. Both existing leaders agreed this new volunteer would be a great addition to the team. However this past week one of the regular leaders (who does the main teaching in the class) was out of town celebrating her 30th wedding anniversary with her husband. I spoke with our new volunteer and told her how we would be short on help but that I would step in after large group to help lead the lesson time knowing that's not the role our other regular leader plays and not wanting to force our new leader into it.

I have to admit I was a bit surprised when I walked into the class with 35+ kids, two leaders looking kind of frazzled and two junior helpers trying to lead simon says at the front of the class. We also had ladybugs who had escaped the nature center flying around and a flood of water on the floor starting to seep out into the hallway. I grabbed the microphone and tried to gain control. It was not easy but somehow with everyones help we made it through. After the kids were dismissed I stuck around to talk about the experience with the two leaders. When it was time to go our new volunteer went to grab her bag and realized it had been sitting in a pool of water that we missed during the clean up. Her bag which had her cell phone and other important things in it that should remain dry.

This was definitely not the serving experience I had planned for a new volunteer. I'm praying that God would still be putting the desire in her heart to serve and that the relationship already established with the other leader would help too. I have learned two important lessons from this experience.

The obvious one being you cannot control or project the attendence. One week a class may have 20 kids, another week 15 and another 35+. Even if we only have 10 kids we should be prepared for 40. After all isn't the point to grow anyways reaching more kids. All of a sudden Kevin Costner in the movie Field of Dreams is coming to mind, "if you build it they will come." I want this ministry to want to grow and be ready to reach out to as many kids as possible. How sad would it be if I put a cap on it and said we could only handle so much.

The second lesson may not be as obvious but just as important. No class should have only one teacher in it. When one of the teachers/leaders is out there should not be an obvious void because everyone (with the exception of jr. helpers and check in check out roles) should know how to teach and lead the class. I want every teacher to always be mentoring new volunteers who should be able to assume the role if needed.

Although I don't recommend the above scenario of what happened in our class yesterday to be used as a recruiting technique I'm thankful that if anything this new volunteer has already learned the above lessons with me.

Tania, welcome to Noah's Club!