Editor's Postlude: Volunteers or Disciples

I was caught off guard by a question on this year’s annual statistical forms for The United Church of Canada: “How many volunteer hours are contributed by people in your congregation?”

This question led to an interesting discussion by our church council. Are we volunteers at church, or do we understand what we offer in this context as something different? The unanimous agreement was that we don’t volunteer at church in the way we might volunteer for another organization. Our contributions to our community of faith—of time, energy, skills, and resources— are about living a call to discipleship. It is about vocation, not volunteering. As one council member declared, “Jesus didn’t call volunteers. Jesus called disciples.”

Indeed, Jesus didn’t call volunteers to give a bit of time to his cause. He didn’t say, “Simon Peter and Andrew, do you have a few hours to spare?” Rather the call was clear: “Come and follow me and I will make you fishers of people.” The response was equally clear. It is reported that Simon Peter and Andrew abandoned their nets and followed him.

The scene is played out again when Jesus approaches the Zebedee brothers, John and James. Jesus invites them to join in his band of disciples, and they too abandon everything, including their father, who is left alone to mend the nets.

Jesus called disciples to devote themselves fully, body, mind, and spirit, to living the Way he taught. This was no partial or occasional responsibility. Being disciples of Jesus was about a total commitment. It was giving one’s whole self over to learning from Jesus and later preaching the Good News he shared.

The word volunteer comes to us from Latin through French and into English. The Latin word voluntaris meant that one was willing, doing something by one’s own choice. The first use of the word volunteer in English is found in “Of Arthour and of Merlin,” a Middle English poem of the 13th century. The word is used in reference to the devil possessing a woman so that she would do his will (volunteer) entirely. The modern use of the word begins to appear in the 1600s, and up to the mid-19th century, it was usually defined in relation to military service.

In some ways, modern definitions of the word fit with what we offer as disciples of Jesus. We offer our time, skills, energy, and resources of our own free will. Yet, naming ourselves as volunteers at church and counting the hours we volunteer reduces discipleship to time and numbers. The organizational strictness of planning and tracking the hours spent volunteering in the church is a mammoth task, creating unnecessary busy work and taking people away from the sense of vocation with which they devote themselves, body, mind, and spirit, to living their faith through their participation in the community of faith.

Being disciples of Jesus means total commitment. We aren’t just disciples for a couple of hours on Sunday morning or when we drop by the church to participate in some ministry or church activity during the week. When we choose to follow the Way of Jesus, we shape all of our lives around that choice and commitment. Every aspect of our lives is carried out from the perspective of being a disciple of Jesus. Body, mind, and spirit, we seek to be attuned with the spirit of Jesus.

Then, when we volunteer for other organizations, we do so out of our belief that Jesus calls us to love and serve others. In our paid labour and professions, we work with the excellence, care, and compassion called out of us as disciples of Jesus. When we have a difficult interaction with another person, we seek to respond with clarity and respect, doing as much as we can to bridge and build relationships, just as Jesus did. When we spend time with someone who is grieving or celebrate with a family who has welcomed a new child, we live out the call to share one another’s joys and sorrows.

Our rising and our sleeping, our working and our playing, our living and our dying are all reflections of our commitment to following the Way of Jesus. We are disciples, not volunteers.

Susan Lukey, Editor