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It seems that I have often seen the discouragement in Priesthood leadership in trying to get volunteers. It seems that culturally the church has always relied on the eager beavers, and those who are not timid to “step up” and do their duty. Everyone has different reasons or motives to serve, and obviously they cannot all be pure motives. The guy that fills up the baptismal font, the guy that has to clean up the church, the guy that cooks the hot dogs/hamburger for the ward party. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t envy the Bishop for dead guy duty (aka officiating at a funeral).
The true volunteerism I have seen is clean up after an event. It is pretty easy to slap the chairs back into the rack and put the rack away. It is somewhat social and since guys see other guys do it they follow suit.
However, when it is one of those activities that is out of the norm and isn’t the “social activity” it is hard to get volunteers. Some examples include: Church lock up, Church clean up, exchanges with missionaries, Picking up someone and taking them to church. So wouldn’t it make more sense to just cast lots and have fun with “the sacred geometry of chance”. Ancient Israel and all the way through the time of Christ they cast lots to determine who would do certain things. For example Zacharias had a lot cast so that he would burn incense in the temple the day the angel appeared unto him and told him to name his child John and then he was stuck dumb. In calling a new member of the 12 the Acts of the Apostles mentions how the lot fell upon Mathias to replace Judas Iscariot. Wouldn’t casing lots be more suspenseful and take away the sign up sheets without a name or only one name on it. Are we so official in our western ways that we have to sign things to show commitment? Why not bring back the casting of lots. Kids love it when you pull a number out of a jar and then you call that number. Adults we only like numbers being called if it is a Bingo card or a lottery ticket, or would such an aversion to doing things in the church change if we went back to casting lots?
I love the idea – but our lives are so different now as to timing and availability (work schedules, travel time to and from church, calling commitments, children’s activities, both parents working, etc.) that it would be hard to have a system like casting lots actually work equitably. I also don’t want to make a single mother who works full-time and is raising four children, for example, to feel guilty if she can’t volunteer as much as many others. I agree totally with the need to avoid the 80/20 rule as much as possible – and I’d love to read suggestions on how that could work on a practical level.
It would make church more exciting… but I admit, I would go to church even less often, if I thought I had a chance to walk away with an assignment. jamison wrote:It is pretty easy to slap the chairs back into the rack and put the rack away. It is somewhat social and since guys see other guys do it they follow suit.
Yes… but this does bring up a pet peeve of mine. For the love of all that is holy, please do not fold chairs and lean them against the table. I don’t know when that practice started, but it is decidedly unhelpful. For one, it is unstable, making it harder to clear tables that have chairs precariously perched against them, and I see chairs falling all the time. For another, it “pins” the tables, so that they cannot be moved or broken down until the chairs are put away. For another, even if it where not hurtful, it wouldn’t be particularly helpful, as the long pole in breaking down chairs is not FOLDING them, but RACKING them.
On Own Now wrote:For the love of all that is holy, please do not fold chairs and lean them against the table. …
That is funny.
I won’t do it again.
Perhaps priesthood opening exercises should be changed into the “bubble gum, bubble gum, in a dish” model? If I’m not doing the whole tithing settlement thing anymore…you can forget about trying to get me to cast lots. Each family in the ward should be required to have their children from ages 12 to 18 put their names in a glass bowl to have random names drawn as tribute to take down chairs, the 12 year olds put their name in once, 13 yr olds put their name in twice, and so forth so the 18 year olds put their name in 7 times. One boy is chosen and one girl…let the hunger games begin!! 
Ok, sorry about that. In all seriousness, I think there are appropriate times to make assignments, we don’t always have to ask for volunteers.
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