At Elevation Church the other day they had a “No Show” Sunday. Only children’s volunteers were allowed to serve. Nobody else. Really proved a big point. Check out the post from Steven Furtick’s wife’s blog:
August 10, 2009
Monday Morning Commentary… No Show Sunday
Yesterday we had No Show Sunday. We had a service that was completely void of volunteer help (except for children’s programming). No greeters, no ushers (except for a few cheaters who just could not not ush, Mike S. :)), no parkers, and no set up, which meant we had acoustic worship and no video.
I was so eerie all day. No music playing anywhere, no greeters, people searching for seats and a general look of confusion for most people as to what was going on.
My husband preached from John 2 when Jesus turned the water into wine. My favorite part of the message was then he made the point that only the people serving got to see the miracle, the transformation. Everybody else at the wedding simply enjoyed the end result. This is so true at Elevation. Sure, the worship service is great, but if you don’t volunteer, you don’t see the miracle. You don’t get to see the life change.
My husband said, “You are never more like Jesus when you are serving.” As a volunteer at Elevation you may do ordinary things, like park cars or hold babies, but when we put the whole experience together, God takes the ordinary and makes the extraordinary. People continue to come and lives are changed.