Most church or temple volunteers have spent long quiet hours on the campus taking care of things that the main congregation is never aware of or even notices. Sometimes they are accused of living there.Lots of detail things and thankless chores from posting members offering totals to sanitizing the toys in the nursery, trying to get pizza grease out of sofas in the youth lounge to weeding the clutter in the deacons medical supply closet.. Its easy to get resentful that so many folks, who just come and sit in the pews and then go home, seem to take so much for granted. Any discerning eye can always spot facets of the campus that beckon for help, whether it is a physical issue or programmatic. The dynamics vary sharply from small congregation to megachurch. Smaller congregations rely heavily on a core of dedicated handymen who end up spending long hours making repairs and adjustments and doing troubleshooting. They may even have to mow the grass, fix sprinklers, clean up trash, tidy the pews, put oil into door closers, wash windows and tighten the screws on hinges and seats. Keeping paraments pressed, traveling to church to staple newsletters and showing up to let in the piano tuners are other more common things. You can usually tell who is a good church volunteer because he or she has a church key. Many churches hold spring and fall workdays to tackle other kinds of projects like trimming branches, painting, taking care of garden areas and stripping and re-varnishing floors. Larger churches employ competent maintenance teams and farm out responsibilities to teams paid or unpaid. They may wear uniforms and function much like trained maintenance personnel at a company with big toys to reach bulbs in high sanctuary ceilings and dig trenches for irrigation lines. It seems like whenever I visit a church for a news story, professional repair people or volunteers have something torn apart or are busy on repairs or replacements in a sanctuary, hallway or classroom. The M & O budget (maintenance and operations) traditionally is an orphan account, perpetually underfunded and unprepared for the emergencies like when several air-conditioning units go out, a sewer line ruptures or the church board decides to add a new community program and wants space changed to accommodate it. In nearly 35 years of official and unofficial church assignments, I have watched the cavalcade of campus life a veritable changing culture that is driven by such forces as strong personalities, deaths of take-charge volunteers, periods of pride and periods of neglect and a younger generation of church members seemingly less inclined to the business of "doing church." Obviously, retirees must always be eyed years before their schedules open up so they can be strategically put to work in realms of the church. Ive often advocated for my church to create a matrix with the name of every able-bodied person on the rolls, keeping track of everything each volunteer does, then ensuring that each has tasks, so the work is spread around. Some say it would defeat the whole idea of volunteerism. When you pass by a house of worship at an off-hour and you see one or two vehicles there, it might be clergy working late or early. But fat chance it is a volunteer answering a call to carry out some perfunctory detail that most never notice and just take for granted.

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