Every organization has a desire for their message or product to influere , virally flow into the market . In fact , “ going viral ” is a modern term used in social media to describe a video or post that is digitally shared across the population at a rapid , unchecked pace . This is what “ influence ” is all about .
However , the opposite of influence is another Latin term , involvere , which means “ to roll up ” or “ to participate .” This is the root word for the English word involve . Many times in nonprofit organizations , we ask volunteers to “ get involved ” in some way , shape , or form in our programs . This is the direct opposite of influere , which seeks to “ flow into ” the population .
Over the years of my work with volunteers , it eventually became evident that this was something I had been missing . The volunteers I worked with weren ’ t just people to be rolled up and involved in our programs in order to meet our organizational needs . They were people who needed to be released to flow out and influence a dark culture in desperate need of the light found only in Jesus Christ .
This slight shift in mindset had a profound effect on my philosophy of ministry . I started looking for ways to place more value on our volunteers . I wanted to create more movement , not more management .
One of my first encounters with this principle was in my third year as the senior high youth pastor at one of the largest Southern Baptist churches in the country at that time , First Southern Baptist Church of Del City , Oklahoma . Our youth program had students attending our church from thirty-six different schools in the area . Our church was planning for our annual highattendance Sunday . This consisted of all the various ministry departments planning something special for Sunday school . I had gotten really good at planning and marketing highly entertaining programs featuring celebrity speakers , worship artists with bright lights and fog machines , pizza , games , and anything else that would keep a teenager ’ s limited attention . But I was becoming increasingly disillusioned with this process .
The brighter the light , the bigger the attendance . But there never seemed to be a real spark in the eyes from our forty volunteers that taught our Sunday school classes . They were involved , but what was missing was real ownership of their role . I also noticed that we would have a brief spike in attendance with each event , but our retention rate was abysmal . I felt like our program was operating like a hamster on a wheel , generating lots of activity and energy but going nowhere .
I decided to try something different to get the teachers more engaged in the planning of high-attendance Sunday . I placed more responsibility on the Sunday school teachers for getting their class to attend and bring friends . The plan was to create a universitytype class course on high-attendance Sunday . We did a survey of all the students to determine four course subjects . The
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