Kurt Cobain said it best: Here we are now, entertain us.
I find that attitude inexcusable in any context, but especially in evangelicalism because they offer more opportunities to serve and lead in greater numbers than I've seen so far in the Catholic Church.
And believe it or not, that isn't a criticism of the Mother Church. It's a criticism of evangelicalism. My view now is that ordained clergy should lead everything or, in things they simply can't because of time constraints, they nevertheless keep the lay-leaders on a tight leash.
But when I was an evangelical, I saw so many opportunities to serve in leadership that my mind was blown when people would whine about being unable to get involved. I guess they were waiting for the lead pastor and a group of deacons to visit their home and beg them to do something.
In any case, I served in various things. Initially, I handled Southern Baptist Church #1's podcast. It was easy work so I was happy to do it. I knew less about audio editing then than I do now, otherwise it would be even easier to do these days. Which is really saying something.
Speaking of brainless work, after that I was a member of a small group for 20 and 30-somethings and handled the group's attendance records. I passed around a spiral notebook into which everybody wrote their name and then filled in the blanks on the necessary form. As redundant as it sounds, there was a method to the madness for doing attendance in such a roundabout way. I just can't remember what it was.
Finally, as I've said before, I became that small group's teacher. That went fine for a while. And then all hell broke loose. But I've talked about that before.
Throughout, though, what I noticed was that church members were encouraged to get involved in such things. They had to be encouraged. Usually once or twice per month, the lead pastor of SB Church #1 would bring it up during his sermon, whether it was a casual mention in passing or if that was the entire point of his lesson.
What NEVER happened during my membership class though was someone affiliated with the church presenting a list of different options and asking me how I want to contribute. But during my last RCIA class, the Catechist told my group of Inquirers that when we're fully accepted into the Church, we'll be given a month or two or three to just be Catholic, after which we'll meet with somebody (a priest, a deacon, SOMEBODY), be shown a list of different things we can do and then asked which we'd like to consider.
Apart from being welcome at least to me, this was abjectly foreign to my church-going experience. I was accustomed to having the very highest levels of church bureaucracy practically begging people to get involved, mid-level church bureaucracy gumming up the works and apathetic members sabotaging anybody who tried to make an effort.
So the notion of the Church proactively reaching out to help the laity figure out where they can fit in and make a contribution beyond just writing a check was and is a new idea for me.
Apart from that though, the Catechist rattled off a few suggestions. Here's an incomplete list of what was already an incomplete list:
Extraordinary Eucharistic Minister- My parish has such a huge number of members that there's no way the priests can personally distribute Holy Communion so they use laypeople as extraordinary ministers. Not sure what to think of this, actually. I'm not opposed to it. And I definitely want to help. But part of me thinks it'd be weird for someone so new to the faith distributing Holy Communion to people who were knee-deep in the faith before I was even born. So I don't know.
Usher- This looks most attractive. It's a small but important task.
Catechist- Skipping the Church's lingo for just a minute, I'd be teaching again. No thanks. I don't do that stuff anymore. No.
Cantor- I can't sing so this one's out.
Lector- This is the second most attractive after the usher.
Those were what I can remember the Catechist mentioning but I'd imagine there are other choices. But as I say what impresses me is that the clergy from the get-go is extracting some kind of commitment and involvement from the new Church members. Everybody's expected to contribute something. That works for me as the Body of Christ is made up of many members who perform diverse functions. We should all be doing this.
To put it another way, Rome's bureaucracy works while at least SB Church #1's bureaucracy simultaneously begs for and chases off volunteers.
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