Reflections from the Building

In my previous post, I shared some memories about the church I attended while I was in college. There are many more memories tied up in the place, because the building hosted the ministry I was involved in. I wanted to share a few of those memories here.

While in high school, I felt that I was being called into some kind of vocational ministry. So far, the closest I've come to that is working with this ministry, named SALT, which stood for Students Alive in the Lord's Truth. I was involved in a variety of ways in my four and half years there, but here I want to focus on two main lessons/impressions about ministry that were directly tied to the church building.

The first involves a giant tree on the wall in the church foyer that shows all of the different churches that have sprung from the ministry of this church. The church is almost a century old and was the first Southern Baptist church in the state of Arizona. The trunk represents the church I attended, and each leaf a church that sprang from it. Each leaf has the name of a church engraved in it. The leaves closest to the trunk are the churches that are planted directly from the first one. As one goes down the branches there are more leaves that represent churches those churches planted, until you can see that church A planted church B, which planted church C and so on and so forth. There are dozens of leaves representing several generations of church planting.

As a part of SALT, there was a group of people who got to the church about an hour early every week to pray for the upcoming service and those involved. Before walking throughout the sanctuary in individual prayer, this group would pray together in the lobby, often sitting on the benches under this tree. It served as a powerful reminder of what the body of Christ is called to do. Not only are we to support one another, but we are to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20). This tree was a visual picture of the this. None of the leaves would have existed if people from the trunk hadn't gone. In fact, the trunk wouldn't have existed if people hadn't come from somewhere else, going all the way back to the men and women who actually heard Jesus speak this command. This tree represents a thumbnail sketch of the interconnectedness of the body of Christ regardless of time, denomination, or location.

It's important for all believers to remember this connectedness and history. Its even more important for the kind of people those students that sat under that tree and prayed represented. Those who were beginning to serve and lead in the church whether as a lay person or on staff. Young men and women who would need the perspective of the past as they led into the future.

The second main lesson I learned about ministry in this building was the incredible amount of work and the dozens of people that no one knows about that are involved in what most people would consider "formal" ministry. For example, most of the people who spoke at our weekly service were local pastors or people who ran some kind of ministry. If these men and women were making small talk with a stranger and were asked what they did, the answer would be some form of "I'm in ministry." 

What most people didn't know or think of is what goes on behind the scenes in order for those people to get up and speak. There is a different amount of labor involved in every setting depending on the location and permanence of whatever is going on, but there is always a lot of work, and a lot of people who quietly do that work without ever receiving an once of credit or recognition. 

For our service in particular, there was a group of people who met weeks in advance to plan out topics and speakers. Someone had to orchestrate all of that with many phone calls and glances at the calendar. The day of the service, a different group of people would start bringing over and setting up equipment, usually around one or two in the afternoon for the service that started at nine that night. Between four and six depending on the day's schedule and the plan for that night, the band, sound guy, and person running the slide show would show up for practice.  By eight the previously mentioned prayer group would show up, get briefed on the plan for the night and any problems that may have been occurring. Shortly after that, another group of people would show up to greet people as they came in and give them any instruction they might need. After each service, another group of people would tear all of the equipment down and pack it away until next week, while others folded up chairs and picked up any trash that may have been left behind. Altogether, besides the band and the speaker that people actually saw on stage, for each service there were between twenty and thirty people who had put in several hours of work over a span of weeks for a service that lasted just over an hour.

Whew...that makes me tired just typing it all out! You're probably thinking, "I'll bet. It makes me tired reading it. Why should I?" Two reasons. One is that I hope it prompts you to do a little investigating behind the scenes at your church and/or ministry and find out the names of those people who do all the kind of stuff I just wrote about. Take some time this week to write them a note or give them a call and tell them thanks for all of their work. These people don't do what they do for the recognition; they do it because they want to serve the body of Christ in any way they can. However, everyone benefits from a kind word, and everyone appreciates being appreciated. 

The second thing I hope reading about that might do is cause you to find out where you can get involved. There are so many needs waiting to be met, and many hands make light work became a saying for a reason. Chances are, you aren't aware of kinds of things you can do that don't seem like much but actually make a big difference. Most of them don't require a huge time commitment, especially if spread among many people.

You can do this even if you aren't involved in a church. There are little ways to help out in every area of life, whether it's at work, home, or out at the grocery store. For example, when I sub in a class that we used textbooks in that day, I almost always make sure they're up off the floor at the end of the day. Those of you who know teenagers know that most things end up on the floor; multiply that by 100-130 of them throughout the day, and you can imagine how may of the books stay on the top of the desk. It's nothing for me to have everyone looks around them and make sure there are no books left on the floor. It takes them about ten seconds. My few words and their ten seconds save the janitor a ton of time in effort. Instead of having to come in and bend up and down thirty times to pick up books before she can sweep, she can come in, sweep, and be done. It costs the students and me virtually nothing, yet helps her a bunch.

Look for something like that you can do in your own life. Start with one thing. When you have that down, maybe look for another. It makes life more fun, and making someone else's load a bit lighter is one of the best things we can do. Whose load will you make lighter today?