Guest Services

By Jake Miller / Director of Guest Services / Browns Bridge Community Church

If you’ve ever had the privilege of casting vision to your volunteers, then there is no doubt you’ve learned this very simple truth: saying it once is not enough.

Vision leaks quickly. In order to keep vision in front of our Volunteers, we have to repeat it regularly. We must continually look for opportunities to remind them what our mission is, why it’s important, and how we’re going to accomplish it. By doing this, we begin to create a culture in which our Volunteers not only know and understand the vision, they own the vision.

Last week, we hosted a Night of Worship at Browns Bridge and I got to see an example of what it looks like when Volunteers own the vision.

Night of Worship is an event we do four times each year, primarily for our “insiders”, that consists of Worship, Prayer and Communion. It is a much different environment than a regular Sunday morning. A handful of our Guest Services Volunteers help facilitate communion but, unlike most Sundays, they have no other responsibilities. They are there to attend, just like everyone else. If you had joined us last Thursday, however… you would have guessed differently.

Throughout the night, I observed our Guest Services Volunteers opening doors, welcoming guests, helping guests find seats and answering questions. They were going above and beyond what was expected of them in order to create a wonderful experience for each of our guests. Were they asked to do this? No. They were simply demonstrating ownership of the vision.

They get it. They understand our mission. They understand why we do what we do. They understand that their role as a volunteer with Guest Services is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ by welcoming, informing and serving our guests… even when they’re not “on duty”.

At the end of the night, I found them and celebrated that. The next day, I celebrated it again. I followed up with every Volunteer, recognized what they had done, and thanked them.

And you know what… I’ll use their story to cast vision to other Volunteers down the road. Because we’re not there yet. Vision leaks. People forget. Next week, I’ll be casting vision. The week after that, I’ll be casting vision again. I would love for every single Volunteer to own the vision the way those Volunteers did last week. But, I realize that in order for that to happen… saying it once is not enough.