Church Ministry: Obligation or Blessing?

Let me just cut to the chase. I've attended several different churches throughout my life. I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to running and organizing a church and its various ministries. Sometimes it feels like the church's ministry machine is constantly seeking more and more fuel (i.e. volunteers), just so it can keep running. It often doesn't feel like there's much thought put into why a certain ministry/program exists or why the local church exists, for that matter. Sometimes it just feels like there are programs to be run, and we need people to run them. Period.

One area in churches where I feel this mindless assignment of tasks often occurs is in preschool ministry - i.e. nursery duty. [ Cringe ] Before I go any further, let me say I love the preschool director at my church. She's a joy! She also only takes volunteers for service in our preschool ministry. And lest I be prematurely judged, let me clarify I do not have an axe to grind when it comes to serving in the church nursery. In fact, for the past year and a half my husband and I have been the caregivers in our church's infant nursery every Sunday at 9 AM. (Okay, got that out of the way.)

My previous church had a nursery policy where everyone who had children in the preschool program had to serve one (sometimes two) Sundays per month. I remember feeling like an indentured servant with the birth of each child, which meant another 5 years of obligation to the church nursery. Basically, the church was assigning people to serve in the preschool ministry based purely on demographics - not on giftedness or calling. That's akin to asking all the men who use the church restrooms to rotate duties once a month to clean them, or it's like asking all the families who park cars in the parking lot to serve once a month as parking attendants. Sounds absurd, doesn't it? That, unfortunately, is the rationale behind many church preschool programs. Consequently, serving in the church nursery for many is an obligation - not a blessing.

So, this begs the question: why do we need a church nursery in the first place? Well, the answer is obvious. The parents and the children both need a place where they can learn and be fed spiritually. Now, what is the ultimate purpose of your local church? Is it to have lots and lots of ministries and find people to fill them, just so they can keep running? I submit the primary purpose of the local church is to strengthen and equip the body of believers, so that they can, in turn, go out into the rest of world and shine the Light of Jesus for all to see. That means the church doesn't exist just to keep a multitude of programs afloat. It means that in addition to teaching, the church must assist believers in discovering their God-given gifts and their unique callings, so they can be effective ministers everywhere they go.

That kind of ministry is a blessing to everyone who is touched by it.

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

Ephesians 4:11-13 (NASB)

God: The Playwright

Quoting an excerpt from Tim Keller's The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (pp. 122, 123):

When a Russian cosmonaut returned from space and reported he had not found God, C.S. Lewis responded that this was like Hamlet going into the attic of his castle looking for Shakespeare... If the God of the Bible exists, he is not a man in the attic, but the Playwright. That means we won't be able to find him like we would find a passive object with the powers of empirical investigation. Rather, we must find the clues to his reality that he has written into the universe, including into us. That is why, if God exists, we would expect to find that he appeals to our rational faculties. If we were made "in his image" as rational, personal beings, there should be some resonance between his mind and ours. It also means that reason alone won't be enough. The Playwright can only be known through personal revelation. That is why we have to take a look at what the Bible says about God and the human condition.

In the Christian view, however, the ultimate evidence for the existence of God is Jesus Christ himself. If there is a God, we characters in his play have to hope that he put some information about himself in the play. But Christians believe he did more than give us information, he wrote himself into the play as the main character in history, when Jesus was born in a manger and rose from the dead. He is the one with whom we have to do.

Sharing The Light of Christmas

Christmas Eve is always a busy and exciting day for our little family, and this year was no exception. First, we began the day with a much-anticipated brunch with my side of the family at my brother, Kirk's house - literally just around the corner from us. It's a wonderful tradition that my family began over a decade ago, and it truly is a time of fellowship for my family. No presents to open or wrapping paper to clean up. It's just about eating and being together. The adults always sit around the table long after the meal is over while the kids play in the other room. It's a wonderful way to start the day and the Christmas festivities. I highly recommend organizing a brunch (or other special meal) with your family and friends around Christmas without gift opening or any of the extra hub-bub. In fact, we always host a brunch at our house on Christmas morning for friends and family who have no other plans. But, I digress.

The clandestine assembly of a brand new trampoline in the backyard consumed our afternoon on Christmas Eve. Santa (my husband) and his helper (my brother, Kevin) were able to assemble the trampoline while I took the kids out for errands and to visit at my parents' house for the afternoon - returning after dark.

Ultimately, the busyness of the day led us to stay home that evening and not attend the service at our church, as we had intended. At first I felt a bit negligent, thinking my children might forget the true meaning of Christmas; however, it turned out to be a blessing that we stayed home. We were able to do something as a family that I believe was even more meaningful to my young children.

We gathered around the kitchen table, lights dimmed. The Christmas tree sparkled in the nearby family room, as I handed each family member a cupcake with a single, unlit birthday candle. There was barely enough light in the room for me to read a Christmas story aloud. Everyone listened intently, as I read aloud the children's picture book, The Light of Christmas. The book explains in a rhyming, poetic manner that our world was dark with sin, and we needed a light from Heaven, so God set forth a plan to send Jesus - the Light of the World. It's a beautiful and touching children's book. We began to read with our candles still unlit. At the appropriate moment in the story, we lit all of our candles to represent the Light of Jesus entering our world, and the glow of our candles illuminated the room. It was undoubtedly a very powerful and memorable visual for the kids.

Once the story was finished, we all sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, blew out our candles and enjoyed our cupcakes. Even the littlest of us learned a great deal through our homemade Christmas Eve service. Ever since, whenever I ask my 2 year old daughter to sing the birthday song, she says, "Happy Birthday, Jesus!"

Building a Home Full of Grace

As I looked through my bookshelf recently, I came across Building a Home Full of Grace by John and Susan Yates and family. I remember when I first read this book several years ago, I was so struck by the real-life, practical wisdom the Yates family offered in this joint publication. John and Susan along with their five grown children produced the book, in which they describe through personal experience how to build a home characterized by grace. Theirs is a home in which grace is freely given to those within it, and that same grace overflows into the lives of others. Because of their gracious lives, family friend, John Stott, encouraged the Yateses to pen this book. It's definitely a good read.

Grace is certainly a virtue my husband and I hope to cultivate in our home and lives. There's still much progress to be made, but I feel we're moving in the right direction.

The scripture passage below (in The Message paraphrase) makes me think of grace-filled lives.

You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand -- shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:14-16

Dunk-O-Rama

My in-laws have a vacation home in Duck, NC, and whenever we are down there with my husband's entire family, the men of the group spend hours designing and executing plays around the basketball hoop in the pool. Here's a video with just a sampling of what this looks like.

Just in case you're wondering... my husband is the guy who actually puts the ball in the hoop each time. He's a 36 year old with the athleticism of an 18 year old! The little boy in the background jumping in the pool is my son, as he tries to get in on the fun. Oh, yeah, and in the second half of the video, that's me sitting in the lounge chair looking on unenthusiastically.

Oh, How the Years Go By

Oh, how the years go by.
Oh, how the love brings tears to my eyes...

Those are a few lines from an old song by Amy Grant. I've been thinking about them today because my baby boy turned six years old today. I know it sounds so cliche, but it really does seem like yesterday that he was born. I can still recall so vividly the moment of his birth when I first saw his adorable doll-baby face, and my husband said, "I think he might be a looker!" I think there's something unique about the birth of your firstborn - that special moment when you're instantly transformed into a parent, with your heart suddenly living outside your body. You know right then that your priorities and desires will never be the same.

Well, I'm feeling all sentimental today because, for the first time, my baby boy is closer to his 10th birthday than he is to his infancy. It's a solemn reminder that time with my children is short and so precious. I don't want to look back with regret, feeling that I spent too much time on the mundane tasks of life and missed the special moments that make our lives memorable. I don't want to look back and feel that I spoke too harshly, hugged too infrequently, and said "no" too often when I really could have (and should have) said "yes".

Starlight

This afternoon I was fiddling with a new star-shaped Christmas tree topper, and I couldn't get it to stand up right on the top stem of our artificial tree. The wiry limb was just too flimsy to hold the weight of the new ornament, and in my frustration I said to my son, "I don't know. I think we'll just have to put a bow on top of the tree." He immediately responded incredulously, "But, Mama, bows don't have anything to do with Christmas!"

How cool is that? He was thinking about the Star of Bethlehem and not packages and bows. Even though he's got a Christmas list a mile long, when it came to the significance of our tree topper, he was focused on the true meaning of Christmas and really wanted a star to shine on top.

Of course, upon hearing such wisdom come from the mouth of my own offspring, I committed myself to finding a way to make the star stand up tall on top of our tree. Where there's a will there's a way, and I did indeed find a way. A couple of small wooden craft sticks and a few forest green pipe cleaners (to match the tree, of course) formed a supporting brace for the deficient limb, which now is festively adorned with a shiny, gold star.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him."

Matthew 2: 1-2