The Myth of the Casual Volunteer

It’s that time of year when lots of sun worshippers pack up the SUV and race to secure their idyllic spot on the white sands. In tow is a mammoth ice cooler—a command bunker on casters—the culmination of manufacturers’ expectations shaped by engineers who believe every family beach outing should remain viable after a collapse of civilization. It’s packed with ice, beverages, and contingency rations to sustain a small coastal village during an economic downturn, all for a 6-hour excursion to a tourist trap. In the fog of war, the three hours spent filling it seemed like a worthwhile exchange.

The cooler tucks in nicely alongside the full-size beach canopy, sandbags, and stakes that promise a 20-minute WWE-style wrestling match with the wind, winner-take-all—prompting sympathies for someone erecting a circus tent in a Category 2 gale. The beach carts are loaded with chairs, sandcastle construction equipment, and enough hyperventilation-inducing inflatables to substitute for a cardiovascular workout.

And these aren’t your run-of-the-mill carts. Modern vacationers want rugged back-to-nature essentials like built-in Bluetooth speakers, device-charging power banks, and matching drone-landing ports that double as laptop workspaces. There’s even a special compartment for storing noise-canceling headphones, a portable cooling mist fan, and a tropical-design sleeping mask.

The only thing missing is a sense of proportion.

Now, it’s your turn. You follow the tradition to the letter. About the only regret you have is in your choice of reading material. Out of habit, you’d dropped your tattered, pina colada-stained paperback of Bridget Jones’ Diary into your mesh beach bag—right on top of your beach towel that masquerades as a king-size comforter. But on a whim, and for reasons you now can’t recall, you swapped it for a hardback copy of Richard Mather’s 1643 Apologie of the Churches in New-England for Church-Covenant, whose physical and literary girth offered a counterweight to the cooler.

Bold move.

No counting calories or cigarettes here.

Three pages in, you find yourself nostalgic for tax law.

If I were there, I’d save you the trouble. I’d tell you that Mather’s mid-17th-century Apologie is plot-starved, and that it argues a true visible church forms not by geography or ordination alone, but by believers voluntarily covenanting together to walk in gospel fellowship. It defends New England’s practice as biblical and ancient, therefore not one of those trendy innovations from the previous decade that all the kids are raving about.

Mather is answering pointed theological objections from a named critic, point by point, in the dense syllogistic style typical of 17th-century Puritan controversial writing — lots of “Object. … Answ. …” structure, scripture citations stacked like cordwood, and careful hair-splitting over terms like “implicit” vs. “explicit” covenant. Mather displays a habit of anticipating and rebutting every possible counter-objection before moving on to his next point. Occasionally, he anticipates objections that had not yet occurred to anyone, then rebuts them just to be safe. One suspects Mather occasionally argued both sides just in case one of his own counterarguments proved unexpectedly convincing. It’s an argumentative tome in the legal-brief sense and not a page-turning narrative.

Fun read.

Seventeenth-century Congregationalists (and many Baptists) could describe the Church as voluntary while simultaneously holding an extremely demanding view of church membership. Church members bound themselves not merely to attend worship but to walk together, submit to discipline, admonish one another, and pursue Christian faithfulness together—you know, like they were a family.

Voluntary membership did not mean voluntary responsibility. By voluntarily entering a covenant with other Christ-followers, one undertook a series of obligations. In the Old Testament, people freely offered themselves because they already belonged—to God, His People, and to a shared mission. Modern volunteerism can imply the opposite: I am an independent person donating some discretionary time to an organization when circumstances permit.

Sometimes, we approach service with the spirit of a sorority “Campus Cleanup Day”—showing up in color-coordinated outfits to pose around a single trash bag for an Instagram-appropriate photo.

But Biblical voluntariness is never portrayed as casual. Its principal settings are:

Giving costly possessions for God’s dwelling—Exodus 25; 35; 1 Chronicles 29; Ezra 2–3.
Offering oneself for battle—Judges 5 and 2 Chronicles 17:16.
Accepting personal hardship for the community—Nehemiah 11:2, where people willingly relocate to Jerusalem.
Psalm 110:3—willing people presenting themselves in the context of the Lord’s power and holy warfare.

Thus, there’s a striking relationship between willingness and stakes. The thing is voluntary precisely because the person could have withheld himself. Meanwhile, the thing is virtuous because he does not. I did some of my best research, but I couldn’t find an equivalent to modern casual volunteerism in the Old Testament. There’s no:

· I’ll help if I’m available. Check with me closer to the event.

· You can count on me, unless something more enticing comes along.

· It’s an unpaid position, so keep your expectations low.

· If I don’t show up, remember—I’m only a volunteer.

· I’m actually not even an official member here.

· My spiritual gift is discerning when others serve.

The passages I found were concerned with sacrifice, danger, generosity, and responsibility. In every case, willingness operated inside covenant rather than outside it. Hmm. Perhaps Mather was on to something.

The New Testament doesn’t relax the pattern; it intensifies it. 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4 all treat the church as an organic body, where every part has a function. The New Testament is thick with reciprocal commands—love one another, bear one another’s burdens, admonish one another, encourage one another, show hospitality to one another, submit to one another, etc.

In each of his letters to the Thessalonians, Paul takes the occasion to call out “idleness.” He says, bluntly, “if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat,” and even instructs the church to “keep away from” the persistently idle. Whatever else we make of the passage, Paul clearly doesn’t regard membership in the family as a relationship free of expectations. Quite the opposite. Because the idler is a brother, his conduct becomes family business.

Conspicuously absent is any class of non-functioning members who merely attend and occasionally donate time as virtuous. And 1 Peter 4 treats the gifts themselves as entrusted resources to be used in serving one another, not as private assets to be divvied out when convenient.

Nowadays, the term volunteer arrives at church with more baggage than a family beach vacation. Bundled inside are modern assumptions about personal autonomy, flexible commitment, and limited accountability. Volunteerism doesn’t attack covenant. It politely asks whether covenant can lower its expectations just a tad.

Bridget Jones v. Richard Mather. In the end, Bridget wins out, because counting calories is less painful than counting covenant’s cost.

And it’s covenant that answers the volunteer’s perpetual question, “Is this my responsibility?”

And it always gives the same answer.

The seaside party comes to a close. The overstuffed beach bag straps dig into your sunburned shoulders while Mather’s treatise rests at the bottom, slowly absorbing the saltwater from soaked towels. Packing everything back in the SUV is a grueling exercise. Ironically, it never crossed anyone’s mind to offer to volunteer.

Yet somehow, without much discussion, it gets done. No one passed a sign-up sheet. No one offered a subtle reminder that this was an unpaid gig. No one insisted that family participation needs to be flexible. The responsibility belongs to everyone because the trip belongs to everyone.

Years from now, when you reminisce about that beach vacation, no one will cite packing up as their favorite part. It was never the highlight. But it was never optional either, and no one treated it like it was. It’s funny how covenant changes expectations.

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This post was previously published on Daniel McAnally’s blog.

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