In the spirit of, you could say, the Big Society, The Department for Culture, Media and Sport have pulled together some interesting statistics on volunteering. They show how Christians consistently volunteer more than others.
The data is based on opinion polling, and although the question wasn't asked in 2009, it is clear that every year it has been asked for the past six years Christians shown higher levels of volunteering that others.
BRIN point out that this is in line with other studies, including the British Social Attitudes Survey and the Citizenship Survey.
It has been mooted that perhaps part of the reason why Christian motivation is figure high is because the [traditional] Church has a greying older demographic, which therefore tends to be more community-spirited per se.
Undoubtedly there is more than an element of truth that when you retire you will have more time to volunteer than someone bringing up a young family, working all hours under the sun to provide for them. However, I want to throw some doubt over that conclusion.
In my own tribe, the Vineyard movement, our demographic is much younger, which inevitably has to do with being a young movement. Yet I have to say almost all of our regulars are involved in a voluntary ministry in church life, which, if you think about it is pretty impressive. Well, I am impressed!
This is because we see volunteering as 'serving', as it falls out of our relational worship with God. Our giving of our time is an important and central manifestation of our sacrificial offering to God. It is an act of thanksgiving. It is so much more more than being community-spirited. In short, the two are inseparable in the Kingdom of God.
Deut 4:6 says that emphatically that we are to love God and love others. Volunteering is a outward response to an invisible grace.
Therefore, as it is impossible to separate serving the community to serving the Lord, maybe we should argue more confidently that our motivation has more going for it than merely being down to an ageing benevolent congregation.
ASD
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Posted by: maviyan | November 21, 2012 at 02:54 PM