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This is a picture of Sophia.  When her three adult children died, she was left with caring for her five grandchildren – a tough task since she was living in poverty in Africa.  But thanks to a packet of seeds from a church in Illinois, she was able to drastically improve her life.  After planting the seeds and putting in lots of hard work in her garden, she can now feed her grandchildren.  Her family tripled their income by selling their extra crops, meaning she is finally be able to afford the uniforms needed to send her grandchildren to school.  Her family’s life has drastically improved.

I love that I can tell you this story.  It’s an example of how I understand, in a real way, how the service projected I volunteered for at my church this week is making a difference in someone’s life.  And a lot of it had to do with the intentional communication pieces that surrounded this event

As a church, we packed envelopes of seeds that are going to impoverished families in Zimbabwe.  The act of doing this is understandable and practical in itself.  It’s not a stretch to understand how the work we were doing will help.  But the cool thing the church did was show the results of a simple bag of seeds.  In a short video, we got to see pictures of people with their harvest and hear the stories of how their lives have changed.  The video gave a vivid skin to the packet of seeds.

I’ve attended churches in the past that don’t do a great job of communicating why a volunteer opportunity matters.  There’s a plea for help without a real explanation of why it matters.  Even after a service event, there are times where there have been no updates on the outcome or the impact.  It’s a lot harder for someone to get motivated to serve again if they’re not sure their most recent service mattered. 

You may not be able to create a slick video like in the seed packing example.  But I bet you could show pictures and tell a story.  If you’re partnering with another organization, can they provide you with some content?  If you’re doing your own event, can you take pictures and talk with those you are serving to get stories back to your congregation?  If this is a yearly or reoccurring project, can you show what happened the year before?

Intentionally communicating the impact of service will make people want to do it again.  It’s a motivator.  When there’s no sense of achievement, it’s harder to get people to volunteer again.