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The Difference Between a Volunteer and a Disciple printer-friendly

By Harold Dean Trulear; Reprinted from Prism Magazine, 2010

The passage of the Second Chance Act of 2007 made federal funding available for, among other things, community and faith-based mentoring programs for persons returning from incarceration. This critical legislation moved to address and support the tremendous need for personal and community support among people transitioning from prison back into society.

Mentoring has proven to be an important strategy in assisting persons struggling with any number of social challenges, from incarceration to unemployment to fatherlessness. But mentoring programs are not a magic bullet for social ills. In some cases, we have allowed ourselves to settle for mentoring at the expense of discipleship. Our sense of "volunteer" needs biblical and theological expansion.

Two decades after "a thousand points of light" and a decade beyond "compassionate conservatism," we have learned something about volunteers in general and church volunteers in particular. Simply put, while volunteer programs continue to grow and flourish with structure and funding, the basic ethics and ethos of truly voluntary work escapes many. The word "volunteer," from the Latin verb "to will," indicates that there should be a genuine willingness on the part of the individual to engage deeply in the work, whatever it is.

However, our willingness to engage deeply is often circumscribed by the structure of the volunteer programs we are offered, whether by church or government. We volunteer as mentors to work with troubled youth, we volunteer at soup kitchens to feed the hungry, we volunteer for prison ministries to preach the gospel to the incarcerated. We do the work - but does the work go deep? Does it catalyze a change of heart, a transformation that reflects a regenerative experience with Jesus Christ?

I raise the question because after over 20 years of studying, monitoring, documenting, and even participating in good volunteer programs, I see that something is still missing. I see people volunteering to go to prisons - but not building friendships or offering support to people in their own congregations with incarcerated family members. I see people volunteering to mentor children of prisoners - but failing to show care for children under stress in their own congregations and communities. I see people volunteering to mentor people coming out of prison - but shying away from seeking out any in their own church or neighborhood who need the ethic of the Good Samaritan.

I once served as pastor of a congregation with an active soup kitchen. We had one rule: No one eats twice. Our rule was well intentioned, designed to help us maximize the number of people we could feed with our food supply. One day, the minister who operated our soup kitchen came to my office and said, "Pastor, we have a problem! People are eating twice!"

"They're breaking the rules," I responded.

"No, Pastor, it's worse. They come in and eat, then go outside and change clothes with each other so we won't recognize them and come back for seconds!"

I was now horrified. "They are fooling us while we are trying to help them!"

"No, Pastor, it's worse," he replied. "You see, if you and I changed clothes, everyone would know. The bad thing is that the only reason they can fool us is because we don't know them!"

What an indictment! To any casual observer, we had a successful volunteer ministry. But the truth was that, although voluntary, our program's "will" suffered from tunnel vision. We wanted to rescue, not relate, feed, not fraternize, assist not adopt and heal.

The passage of the Second Chance Act of 2007 made federal funding available to the faith community for one dimension of the process of providing social support to the formerly incarcerated. But other dimensions of the process remain. It is still easier to volunteer for a formalized mentoring program with social service agencies prescribing the "matches" than it is to be open to the mother in our own congregation whose son is coming home and needs help. We are more likely to approach the citizen returning from incarceration with a proscribed agenda based on training in "evidence-based practices" than we are to search our hearts and the Scriptures to see how we might respond. It is more popular to start a prison or reentry ministry as the particular province of a faithful few "trained volunteers" than it is to create an environment in the congregation that treats incarceration and hospitalization with the same resources of pastoral care and congregational support, acknowledging that both are part of the Matthew 25 criteria of how we serve our Lord.

What about it? How are you going to treat the Inmate who died for our sins? Hand him a Bible and a plate of food, or wrap your arms around him and walk with him for a spell?

Harold Dean Trulear teaches at Howard University School of Divinity and consults for the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Faith and Families Portfolio.

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