Business veteran volunteers full time at church

A veteran of the business community said he is confident his professional experience and church involvement will prove invaluable in a new volunteer position designed to put individuals to work in volunteer ministries.
   
Although he does not officially assume his duties as coordinator of ministry involvement at Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, Homewood, until the first week of April, Tom Thompson was busy weeks beforehand laying groundwork for what he hopes will help people realize how they can make a difference in Kingdom work, both at Dawson and in the community.
  
What is unique about Thompson’s position  is that he will not be compensated. Gary Fenton, Dawson’s pastor, said although the word “volunteer” is not being used to describe Thompson, he will not be paid for the full-time position.
   
“What I see I’ve got to do is really pretty straightforward,” Thompson said. “On the one hand, it’s to help the members of Dawson identify their God-given gifts, as well as clearly identify the skills and abilities they have from life experiences.
   
“On the other hand, it is (my job) to identify all the ministry opportunities that are out there,” he said. “A lot of those are in the church, obviously, but there are a seemingly infinite list of those outside the church and in the community.”
   
Thompson, who recently retired after 33 years with BellSouth, said he became interested in the position after Fenton and Don Steen, Dawson’s minister of human resources, first proposed it to the church’s personnel committee more than a year ago. Thompson, who serves as chairman of that committee, said they subsequently developed a job description and presented it to the personnel committee, which accepted the position.
   
“One of our goals for our church is to help people find their passion and find their gift,” Fenton said. “We realize that if they can find their passion and find their gift — match that up — then they have meaningful service and they grow in the Lord.
   
“His responsibility will be helping us with our existing members and our new members, helping them go through the spiritual gift process, then seeing where they might serve,” Fenton said. “For some, it will mean beginning brand new ministries, because God’s led them here and they’ve got that ministry on their heart — that means God led them here for a purpose.
   
“For others, they may be thinking of options they never thought (about) before,” he added.
   
Describing Thompson as “a competent business leader,” Fenton said his professional contacts will help in putting volunteers to work throughout the community.
   
“There is such a tremendous need throughout the community where you need volunteers to go do work to help people,” Thompson said.
   
“We do not anticipate this being just finding volunteers to work at Dawson,” Fenton said.