Too Much Information

To set this up properly, here's what you need to know: as a Liberty student, we're forced to complete a certain number of hours of community service, or as they call it "Christian Service" which gets abbreviated to "CSER". I agree that it is a good thing that we should be pouring back into the community that poured into us, and even more so that as Christians, we are called to serve, but at the same time, to force it seems like it might lead to lack of enthusiasm or lack of a genuine heart to serve. I also understand that if it isn't mandatory, then many people would probably not do it at all.

To fill these hours, it's just community service in which you just document the time you've done, where you've done it, and what you did. At least as far as I know. I've technically not logged any hours whatsoever, but that's mainly because I don't know how to log the hours that I do over the summer. So on paper, I'm way far behind. I could and probably should just find something to do during the semester, so that I don't have to worry about it, and that it doesn't build up to a seemingly impossible task to make up (of which it's already beginning to look like that).

This time around, I actually was trying to consider some options for what I could do. My friend's church is looking for volunteers to help out during their Wednesday night youth groups. I expressed some interest, and then got hit with a application form and a background check form.

It was coming out of left field, so to speak. I mean I get it, you want to make sure the person qualifies for what they are seeking to do, and that since I'd be helping out with minors, that I'm not some criminal or anything. But at the same time, these forms are asking for a lot of personal information. I don't just mean stuff like name and date of birth.

The application form asks for stuff like marital status, when your anniversary is, and your driver's license number. I'm not really sure why they need that information. What does it matter if I'm married or not, and even if I am, why do you need to know my anniversary? Then why do you need my driver's license identification number? It's not like I'm driving any of these kids anywhere, I'm only driving myself. So as long as I have a license, who cares? You don't need to know my number.

Then on the background check that my friend gave me last night, I'm extremely hesitant to fill it out. Honestly, I just don't want to bother volunteering at this church anymore because they are asking for even more personal information. They want my social security number and my state ID. I know the former, but not the latter. I can understand it's a background check, and that the only way to really do a background check is to have the government run my SSN. But just like the application form, I felt and still feel uncomfortable to just give away this information to a church I know very little about.

Side note: On the application form, there was a question asking if I agree with the church's doctrine and if I will fully lend my support and uphold their views. I do not even know anything about their doctrine, so I'm not signing my name to that. I chose to neglect that question.

Maybe I'm being too harsh or too paranoid or whatever you want to call it. But I don't know anything about this church, and I don't really want to just give away my SSN or my driver's license number willy nilly just to get the required volunteer hours. I know that they are supposed to be a church and that whatever they truly do with my sensitive and personal information is between them and God, but while I'm on this earth, these numbers are of high importance and are not to just be shared.

I was thinking about this before, and I realize that the one time I just wrote my SSN on a form was at Liberty's gun club for when my friends and I went shooting. Honestly, I'm not sure what the difference is now. I don't know if I even hesitated to write my SSN for the gun club to make sure I'm not some criminal and going to use their guns to shoot people up. I'd like to think that maybe it's because Liberty already has my SSN because of college applications. But still, I cannot remember what I was thinking or not thinking when I wrote it down.

Am I being paranoid? Should I finish out this process? I mean I neglected all of the sensitive info on the application form, so I doubt that even if I actually fill out the background check 100%, that they would ask for me to come in. Not only after filling out these 2 forms, I still have to go in for an interview.

Honestly, it just seems easier to try to just figure out how to log these service hours based on the stuff I do in the summer. My home church never asked for my SSN, at least as far as I know. But even if they did, I was a minor when I initially began to volunteer, so it was my parents' decision, and I've also gone to that church ever since we moved in, 17 years ago (give or take a year or two since we started going when I went to preschool, so maybe 15-16 years we've been at that church). I've only been to this church in Monroe, VA for I think 3 times this semester, and once a long while, so 4 services attended, and I don't really know anything about them.

Whatever it is, I'm just going to think about this. I should probably pray about it, and maybe I should call my parents and see what they say I should do. I'm not sure.