Campaign Launched to Equip Churches for National Volunteer Month
by Staff
April 9, 2008
(christiansunite.com) -- ChristianVolunteering.org has launched a campaign and website www.christianvolunteering.org/churchvolunteer.jsp to equip churches for national volunteer month this April and volunteer week on April 27-May 3. The campaign site provides a searchable directory of nearly 3,000 volunteer opportunities in 1,800 organizations to equip churches to volunteer in their communities.The site also provides a complete toolkit for churches wanting to launch a community volunteer program including the following sections:
Directory of over 40 sermon outlines, bible studies and small group materials on the importance of service and Christian social justice
Group volunteer opportunity search for churches and small groups that want to volunteer together
Church volunteer toolkit and Wiki encyclopedia on church volunteering
Webcast presentations to train volunteers and volunteer coordinators
Multimedia directory of thousands of sermons, workshops, videos and MP3s on justice topics
Short term missions directory with opportunities across the world
The goal of the website is to enable churches to launch volunteer campaigns. Pastors can find ideas for sermons on service and justice in the sermon outline directory. Then they can have their church small groups do Bible studies on the importance of service and justice. They can use the volunteer opportunity search to find volunteer opportunities in their local area where small groups can volunteer. Then after volunteering, they can have follow-up sermons and Bible studies to reflect on their experience.
According to the United States Department of Labor, faith-based volunteers are the largest pool of volunteers, representing over 34.8% of volunteers. The value of the time donated by faith-based volunteers is $51.8 billion each year in the United States alone (Corporation for National and Community Service and Department of Labor). The challenge is that very little of this volunteering happens outside the walls of the church. According to Lester Salamon of the Institute for Policy Studies of Johns Hopkins University, only 7-15% of volunteering through churches helps the larger community.
The purpose of this campaign is to get more volunteers from churches serving out in the community with the goal placing over 1 million volunteers in the next ten years. ChristianVolunteering.org's partners include the Salvation Army, World Vision, Gospel Communications, the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions, the Christian Community Development Association, Campus Crusade's Here's Life Inner City, YouthPartnersNet (formerly Compassion USA) and the Urban Youth Worker's Institute. ChristianVolunteering.org is a program of TechMission. For more information visit: www.christianvolunteering.org/churchvolunteer.jsp
