Last episode, I talked about my nerves of jumping into the volunteer life with church tech after taking some time off. A rotation has been set up with over 15 volunteers for the ministry so that people can rotate in just one weekend a month. You are still donating over 8 hours of your weekend to serve, but it is nice to have time in between serving.
Of course, one weekend in and I’m already messing up. Volunteering is definitely important to me, but Ohio at this time of year with fall is also tricky and I forgot about the activities. Every weekend we seem to have something going on. And of course, calendars ended up clashing.
Priorities And Scheduling
A month prior to signing up to volunteer, my family decided to go to the county fair. As I was looking at activities, I found that there was going to be a demolition derby. I’ve been looking for ways to spend more time with my kids, especially my oldest who is starting to really enjoy spending time with me. He has never been and I wasn’t sure how he was going to like it.
Of course, I didn’t consult the calendar.
So 10 days before that weekend where there was a clash of activities, I realized my mistake with scheduling. My commitment to my word that I was do something is high, but my priorities with family are even higher. I messed up and I had to own it. I offered to serve twice the following month since it was a five-weekend month. They graciously allowed me to take off with so little hassle.
Volunteer Guilt
I’ve been on the side of leadership and knows how it feels to mess up things for your volunteers. I treat them as a precious resource. I bend over backward when I screw up because I need to keep them on. That guilt has transferred over to this side of serving as a volunteer. I never considered how they would feel if they messed up. I would forgive them left and right, reminding them they are giving their time and they were a blessing to me.
I still want to make it up to the ministry, but I also feel better knowing that nothing went wrong and they were able to easily find someone.
Our church believes in family, so it was an easy sell to them.
But I have to be better organized. I know they are. Maybe I’ll talk about our setup sometime.
As leaders of ministry and volunteers, how do you handle that guilt when you screw something up for other people you serve with?
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