I have another question for you.
What has been your favorite Volunteer experience in 2007? This could be your experience with a Volunteer that served you over and beyond or your experience as a volunteer and how God used you to serve another and were blessed in return.
**If you cannot post on this site e-mail me at sherry.moorhead@newspring.cc and I will post it for you (I’ll even proof it first for you if you’re worried about a typo).
I am the luckiest person in the world to be able to serve with the most amazing volunteers and staff ever. God’s the coolest!
I have the privilege of greeting the attendees that enter from my side of the building every Sunday. It is most difficult to narrow down a single experience but as far as rewarding go, some do stand out more than others…
-the father that moved here from Georgia with marital problems without his kids…now he attends every Sunday with all 3 children!
-the father that was unchurched without his daughter who now attends every Sunday with his daughter and his mother visits also.
-the…
I selfishly ask you to consider the volunteer experience so you won’t know where to start when you are presented with this same question.
In closing, when someone comes up to you with tears in their eyes and say “thanks, you made a difference in my worship experience”, is there really anything else more important?
Consider allowing Sherry and her staff assist you in finding your sweet spot of servitude. Join the revolution for Christ!
I have only been volunteering for about 6 months, but-hands down-my favorite was the tailgating baptism we had in the main parking lot.
It was so ABSOLUTELY amazing to see so many people assembled in one place for the same purpose on a day when they could have been doing anything but church.
I held one of the front doors open and greeted people as they came to register and then I held the door open as they filed out to get “dunked”. The tears of joy, excitement, thankfulness, love, and surrender to Christ were overwhelming and emotional for me!
It really brought me back to question what my walk with Christ is all about…it’s about going public! All those who were there tailgating and getting baptised were not afraid to say “I LOVE JESUS!” (whether with an RV, a banner, or a blue baptism shirt on)
It was amazing and will always and forever be ranked as one of the most memorable experiences at NewSpring.
My most memorable experience was Unleash. Everyone kept calling me by name .. i know i had on a name tag but ALL i was doing was walking back and forth wiping down bathroom doors and fixtures and taking out garbage .. and people still looked at my name tag and called me by name. I hated to leave to go to class that night i wanted to stay till the end. Cant wait till this year I will be there again and again i will have to leave eary for class because it is a Thursday. SO worth it anyway!
1. Handing out and collecting umbrellas in the pouring rain! That is an awesome ministry that really touches people. Followed closely by…..
2. Helping someone get a wheelchair out of the van or pushing them into the auditorium or carrying someone’s child who has 3 hands full.
My wished for moment as a volunteer is to say “Welcome to New Spring!” to all, especially the man who, like a gunslinger, greets me first every Sunday morning as he walks in from the parking lot. How does he get me every week???????
Greeting is such a blessing!
Oh! Oh! Oh! Pick me! Pick me! I LOVE being an usher. I was once told that, as an usher, I should get to know my “regulars” and hopefully be able to greet them by name someday. OK I can do that BUT what I didn’t expect was the outpouring of love! The hugs I get every week, the stories of children and grandchildren, the folks I have seen accept Christ and even get baptized! WOW! I was gone for a week and my husband had to explain to several folks for me that I was away at a conference and would be back next week. I was missed! I don’t even get love like that at work! One other thing. It seems to be that ushers like to be “promoted” to the front of the church where the “action” is. Not me. No way. No how. I would never leave my peeps. I love them all!
So many volunteer experiences, too little space to write…… But for me it has to be the simple task of holding the door open and pointing people where to go to sign up for our last baptism. I couldn’t contain myself and as the tears rolled down my face all I could say was, “Thank You Jesus”, so many people siging up to go public for Christ.
Then Baptism Saturday, the newspaper guy actually quoted me(mispelled my name)but quoted me right. “WE all are excited about the tomb being empty.”
It is not the moments that I know about that have had the greatest impact on me. It is the moments that I will never know about.
I am a Majestic Greeter. A position that I dearly love, but understand its difficulty. It is not something everyone is cut out for. I have often been asked why I do this and my answer has always been that I believe in NewSpring’s philosophy of age appropraite worship.
But it is more than that and that makes my most memorable moments. I will never know about the parent that received Christ because I helped them get their young child to the appropriate location and they were able hear the message distraction free. I will never know about the child that learns about Jesus and finds themselves ready to welcome Him into their lives because they learned at a level they could understand. I will never know about the lives changed and families healed because of the help that I offered, but Jesus will. And that is all that matters.
Thank you NewSpring for the chance to help others. I look forward to so much more serving in 2008!
I had the awesome opportunity to be one of the nurses who went to the Gauntlet with Alden and Brad and gang!! It was a wonderful week–tiring physically but refreshing spiritually. I met some great kids —many of them just needing a little TLC during the week and served with a great nurse–Wendy Hankins.
My favorite memory/memories involved several rising-6th grade boys who needed the most TLC;I love watching these little men grow and find their place. My best memory is my son sharing EXACTLY what Perry preaced about when I had to miss a sermon due to a sick child needing care—his excitement and his new openness to spiritual things is a treasure!!!
Sherry, I enjoy talking to my “regular customers” by asking their name, where they live, etc. I have 1 guy I call the “row monitor” as he always sits at an end seat. A lady I hadn’t seen before was in my section a couple of weeks ago. I asked her a few questions and she told me she was there because her son had passed away a few weeks before and he was a member at NS. She said she just wanted to be closer to him by being at the church. I told her that I hoped she would find some peace from the service. That is a pretty incredible story.
I’ve only been a volunteer for about a month or two @ Ignite. But I’m amazed at how this has changed my life…
When in college it is so easy to try to “be cool” or fit in, and fall into the routine of church-going and praise/worship. Looking for something different, I turned to NewSpring.
My greatest volunteer experience so far is watching these kids worship every week, with arms held high, jumping up and down, and totally being sold out for Christ! God is bringing a revolution to Anderson through these students, and I’m so glad to be a part of it!
Volunteering at Summer Blockbuster was awesome. I put my name in late in the game and hoped that I’d be perhaps helping at volunteer headquarters or maybe greeting parents as they came in. I was told that I would be a third grade group leader. I panicked inside but smiled and accepted it.
God really stretched me that week. By the second night I was really having a blast, which leads me to my most awesome volunteer moments. Singing and dancing with the kids and the actors to the “Roundup” was the bomb and we got to do it every night. Seriously, if you could bottle up the “Roundup” goodness and crop dust it all over the world Bono would be out of a job. It’s that good.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to help and experience the joy this summer.
By far the best experience for me was “ushering” ie crowd control, at the Pulse student event. The energy level that night was incredibly awesome.
As a member of the Production Team every volunteer experience is incredible because of the opportunity to work with the very talented and professional NewSpring staffers that add visual and audio spice to NewSpring services.
But my favorite experience was the Sunday last Spring when Ken, DJ, and Will created the video back drop of the “glowing” handwritten names on the walls of NewSpring and shots of dark city streets, while Justin and the band covered U2’s “The Streets Have No Names”.
I was pretty certain that as the volunteer Assistant Director I wasn’t supposed to have tears streaming down my face throughout that video, but the same thing happened to me in all four services that day.
So moved was I by all those names on the wall, which included my brother living in Maryland, that I couldn’t help the tears of joy at the prospect of the people who would be brought to Jesus through the prayers of our church.
I emailed the internet link of that service to my brother, in hopes he would enjoy the excellent video and music from that one portion of the service. Turns out he watched the entire service….twice!!!
From then on, he never missed a NewSpring internet broadcast. And when he visited me in August and attended NewSpring in person, he accepted Christ during Perry’s invitation.
Back in Maryland he has found a church, joined their verison of Basic 5, joined a small group, volunteers on his church’s Production Team and will be baptised 11-18-07(oh heck yes, I’ll be there!!!!!).
I am convinced that God used the emotional power of my NewSpring volunteer experience on that single Sunday last spring, to guide me in encouraging my brother to reach for salvation.
Talk about God’s grace, love and power….He poured it all over me, and my brother, as just ONE of the personal rewards for doing a volunteer job at NewSpring. A volunteer job that by the way, I absolutely LOVE doing…as soon as one service is completed I can’t wait for the chance to work the next service!!!!!
Volunteering at NewSpring is the real deal….