New jobs and such

I began a new job this week.  As of yesterday, I am the Volunteer Coordinator for Accolade Hospice here in Lubbock.  This will be my first non-church career, so it's been quite an adjustment already.  Like any job in the medical field, most of this week will be training videos and reading, which makes for thrilling days.  But I love the organization that I am working for and get the sense that they believe that I'm the right person for the job, so I'm excited about where this may be going.  I really feel like I'm working with a great team of people.

In addition to watching the standard training videos this week, there is also a national volunteer conference for people in my position.  So, I have watched a couple of these conference webinars in an attempt to better understand what it is that I am supposed to be doing.  Yesterday I watched a seminar on how to approach faith communities about volunteering with a hospice organization.  While the webinar is going on, there is a chat window where people can interact and ask questions based on what the speaker was covering.

It was pretty astounding to watch what people's perceptions of churches are.  Comments like, "I approached one pastor who asked me why he would let me try to drum up volunteers for my organization when they won't even volunteer for children's ministry." Or "Pastors don't want anyone that can't help out their church."  Or "One pastor asked me how much money I wanted.  When I said I didn't want any, he told me that they couldn't help me."  Over and over again the comments painted a church that was only concerned about itself and what was needed to keep the machine of church running.

It really saddened me, because I think the vision that Jesus had (and has) for his church is so much larger.  You can argue with me if you would like (that's what the comment section below is for), but I believe that Jesus expects no less from his church than the redemption of the world.  Pretty major vision.  Or, as my Twitter friend Bob Goff says it, "God's plan for the world is as simple as it is inexplicable: It's us."  When all the world sees in us is that we only care for ourselves, our people, our programs, something has gone terribly wrong.

Something has gone terribly wrong.