Want to Volunteer to Help?

AWESOME!!!

We need help.  Del Rey Church relies heavily on the faithful commitment of our volunteers, who serve the congregation in numerous ways to facilitate our gatherings and ministries. Rather than fostering a consumer mentality within the church, where we passively benefit from the efforts of a few, we are all called to serve one another as Jesus did and who declared, “I am among you as the one who serves.” (Luke 22:27)

HOW DO I HELP?

How one gets involved in serving is an important journey.  If you are new to church, you may have a lot of questions, and you may even be eager to jump right in and start helping.  Admittedly, we can be confusing to people wanting to help, because on the one hand, we say "HELP," and on the other hand, we really encourage people to take their time in finding a place to help because we want to make sure people are valued for who they are and not what they do.  

There are two extremes in the culture today: on one hand, consumerism, and on the other, workaholism. Consumerism drives people to never serve and only to suck resources. Workaholism drives people to find their worth in work and not in the more fundamental identity they have as creatures made in the image of God.  We want to balance enjoying things with our commitment to contributing to things through serving. We are not human-doings; rather, we are human-beings who are called to do things for the glory of God.  Our doing is not meritorious, we know this from the gospel.  So the gospel drives our volunteerism and service. 

Okay, with this in mind, we want to explain to you our passion and process for serving at Del Rey Church.

Our passion is rooted in God, the Gospel, the Bible rightly handled and the family of the Church. With that said, we place a high priority to assure that our volunteers are a part of the family in meaningful relationships, obeying the Bible, sharing the Gospel and deeply enjoying God. Simply put we want to know our volunteers personally like family and make sure they are really real Christians, not walking in hypocrisy or holding weird doctrines. This is our passion. Hence, our process involves welcoming and screening.

Our process is guided organically by time and prayerful discernment. Volunteering at Del Rey Church is a lot like dating a godly man’s daughter. You win the trust of the father, and he might let you have a date. Like a godly father, we are not impressed by talents or resumes – it is really all about trust. A guy could have graduated from a great college, have a great job, and be handsome, BUT none of that matters at the foundational level for a godly father. The godly father wants to discern first if the man loves Christ and if he is trustworthy, hardworking, and virtuous. The man telling the father these things is not enough; it must be seen over time. Likewise, when someone says “I want to help in Kids Church” or “I want to help in music ministry,” we only consider it if we have an existing relationship of trust in the person’s character and commitment to God. Often, we test people’s motives in serving as a part of our process, by looking to see if the person really has a servant’s heart. This test is quite simple. Someone says “I want to serve in youth group,” and we say, “That’s great, but we need someone to serve in the food pantry or in bathroom clean-up.” The person without a servant’s heart will likely reply, “Well, gee, that’s not my gifting or calling.” The fact is, the Bible doesn’t teach that serving is always tied to gifting or that calling to ministry is needed to serve in something you’ve been asked to do.

The Bible teaches us that those who are faithful with little things will be given bigger things (Luke 16:10). And the fact is, serving in these other ministries is not littler anyway, so asking someone to do something they may deem as “smaller” helps us gauge their motive – do they want to serve where they are needed, or just where they want? As it relates to gifting, in some ministries we pragmatically want to see humble talent. If a person wants to teach kids but is bad at teaching, that can be problematic. If a person wants to sing in the worship team, but cannot sing, that is definitely problematic. We do our best to help people grow, but sometimes it doesn’t work. Some people just can’t sing and yet some can be taught to improve; likewise, some people can get better at teaching. All of that to say the process begins with spiritual testing and midway moves to testing of talents, abilities, and practical things. The benefits of this approach are many. It allows us to value people as people and not because of what they do for us. It protects us against division and the “stepping on the toes” feelings that people can have. It also helps us with ministry burnout, since we keep a slow organic pace to things.

Over the years we have found that talented people have a hard time sitting on the bench and waiting their turn. Unfortunately, it is most often in music and worship ministries, which is ironically unfortunate.  In these cases, their desire is not actually to serve but to show off.  Worship in our gathering, of course, is aimed to draw attention to God and not us.  Since we are called by God to disciple people, we see our process as a tool in God's hand to purify motives and teach humility to those who are talented.  A guy who can play piano better than the current pianist but is excited to serve wherever needed is a blessing, but the one who constantly boasts of his skill or hides his pride under the guise of doing things before the Lord with excellence is a serious threat to genuine worship and unity in the church.  We have learned lessons the hard way over the years, letting those with talent lead when they shouldn't have.  The valuable lesson is that talent often takes people places where their character cannot sustain them.  In church, we do not select leaders by talent.  Often God uses the untalented in Scripture to make this point and teach us how service is ultimately about bringing glory to HIM, so motives that detract from HIM must be addressed.  All of this to say, we believe firmly in the process and taking our time, which ultimately serves the good of our passions in the gospel and honoring the Bible as we seek to enjoy God more deeply as a church.

 

OUR VOLUNTEER APPLICATION PROCESS:

1. Believe the gospel: Repent of sin and be saved by Christ.

2. Love the church.
a. Regularly attend on Sunday and in a small group for fellowship and accountability.
b. Faithfully give in offering, showing the value of Christ above the things of this earth.
c. Prayerfully intercede for our mission in the gospel, the church’s leaders, and our body.
d. Intentionally have deep relationships in church with others who will vouch for your character.

3. Pray for God's blessing on how you can serve.

4. Let us know your interests - fill out the online Volunteer Application.

5. Email the completed form to connect@delreychurch.com

6. A ministry leader will get back to you. We thoroughly screen all of our volunteers, for the safety of the congregation.

If you are reading this and want to help, we are excited. And if you are not a part of our family, we encourage you that your first act of service would be to join our church family.