During half term I took my nephew to the Imperial War Museum. He has to do a history project, which for some bizarre reason includes his having to build a model of a trench. The Museum has a good presentation on the whole course of the First World War including a life size reconstruction of a trench with appropriate noises and smells. Before you reach the trench, however, there is a video presentation of recruitment posters including Kitchener’s famous finger – Your country needs you’. Nowadays one might principally be struck by the naivety of the propaganda and the emotional blackmail used to persuade young men to volunteer to fight for their country. The posters think of every way of shaming those who haven’t volunteered, even persuading young women to send white feathers to their sweet hearts if they haven’t marched away. And then of course there is the little girl on her father’s knee What did you do in the war, Daddy?’
Perhaps it was the First War that first got volunteering’ a bad name in this country certainly those posters are pretty shameful. Nowadays, however, we are a much less volunteering society than is found, for example, in many parts of suburban America. There are signs that it is about to become a political issue. How much should the state do for us, using our taxes to make general provision for our needs and how much should we do for ourselves, through local projects, fund raising, self help and volunteer groups, restoring a sense of local community and local action?
The word volunteer’ originates in a military context in the 17th century implying someone who enrols rather than being a regular member of an army. By poetic analogy both things and people can volunteer or put themselves forward to serve a particular purpose. The word comes to us from Latin via French it is difficult to find an equivalent in the Bible. Scripture talks of offering rather than volunteering, of willing sacrifice in response to what God does for us. To volunteer implies a free choice or decision to do something; Christian volunteering is an expression of gratitude. Christian self offering the offering of time and talent and service springs out of a recognition that life comes to us as gift. Such a recognition is one aspect of conversion. At first my world seems to be what I have made it, what my achievements have produced, what I earn and buy and grow and nourish and save. Conversion is the re-ordering of a perspective, as when the playwright, Tom Stoppard, says, When I have completed a piece of work I don’t feel lucky, I feel grateful.’
Of course the problem for the church is that it can’t elicit volunteers by the kind of emotional blackmail seen in those first world war posters. It can’t make people feel grateful so that they respond in the way the church wants. We have elsewhere in this magazine listed a variety of tasks for which we would like more help. We have included a questionnaire in which we invite you to tell us what you are good at, what experience you have, what you enjoy doing, so that we might try to match that to our church’s present needs. We recognise that many people are time poor doing something for the church might reduce yet further the scarce amount of time you have for relaxing and being with family and friends. Which is why we recognise the importance of making the most of what you might be able to give without wasting any of your time. All volunteers deserve clear guidance, a definite task in a fixed time frame, and helpful feedback, together with a clear sense of doing something positive for this community.
To mark this season of Lent this year the Church of England has invited people to sign up for text message alerts which will appear daily on their mobile telephones suggesting a simple act of kindness forty in all between now and Easter.* The logo for this exercise is Love life, live Lent.’ Our volunteer leaflet doesn’t suggest forty tasks but publishing it as Lent begins we would like to think of it in the same terms. Lent isn’t primarily about giving things up it’s about creating more space for God in our lives and hence a deeper look at ourselves and all that we do in the light of God and what else we could do or do differently in that light. Perhaps we should have a Lenten poster competition: Do not ask what you can do for your church but what your church can do for you remembering that you are your church.’
With my love and prayers,
Fr Stephen
The Vicar writes
Stephen Tucker