Tag Archives: service

Lessons from the Lawn III: Volunteers

by

Man mowing lawnHow many times do you hear people say that they “hate” cutting the grass? I hear it quite often during the summer time. I often hear people say things like “I’d concrete over my yard if I could”, “as long as it’s green (whether weeds or grass) – I don’t care”, and other similar things. People seem to dread yard work and so when an individual enters the discussion that enjoys lawn care, people tend to look at them a little funny.

This can happen in the church as well. There are some areas of service that people enjoy, and some areas that people simply do not like to serve, or are not well suited to serve. Like lawn care.

Those who see a certain area of service as a “burden” perceive that it is a burden for everyone else as well. You may not enjoy lawn care, but someone else does….. you may not enjoy serving with the 2 year olds, but someone else does….. you may not enjoy singing in public, but some one else does ….. you may not enjoy … well, you get the picture.

When a person, or a church, sees an opportunity to serve as a burden, then it tries to fill it with many different people to share that “burden”. Schedules are made to have several people cut the lawn, to serve in a particular class, to serve in whatever task is deemed a burden, when there may be an individual, or a group of individuals, that enjoy serving in that area. What does it say to that person, serving God in a way they can do well, and they enjoy, that we need to “ease their burden” when it is not a burden to them?

Using the lawn care analogy, this person who used to edge the sidewalks, try to remove weeds, bag the access grass, and make the lawn look nice, now must yield his service to others who are filling a slot. Others who only care that the grass is green, not whether it has weeds, or grass. Not properly edging the sidewalks, etc. all because another deems it as a burden to care for.

Now imagine the lawn is teaching children or youth. You pick the age or grade. What if you had someone passionate about teaching the children the things of God. Doing their best to engage the children and make sure the lesson was doctrinally correct. What if this person found it a joy to serve in this way, but then someone who saw this as a burden on them decided that they needed to rotate with others. Others who didn’t have the same passion, the same care for engaging the children, the same care for being doctrinally sound? Others who just filled a position, even though they “hated” to teach the children?

Paul wrote that we are all a part of the body of Christ (Romans 12:4-5, 2 Corinthians 12:12), serving together to make up the whole body. Each with our own individual gifts.

May we not keep one from using their gift under the guise of “sharing the burden” when the “burden” doesn’t exist.

 

 

How K-Cups Strengthened a Relationship

by

It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship. That’s the mantra that is becoming so prevalent in christian circles (yes, the word christian is lowercase on purpose). Can we get so caught up in semantics that we forget to set examples and actually work on building relationships with God and one another?

One of the relationships that can be difficult to keep healthy is marriage. It is the most intimate relationship we have here on earth with one another and the one that takes the most effort. There can be several reasons why it is  difficult to grow. One is because as humans, we are most often focused on ourselves, our own needs and desires.  Consequently, we put the needs and desires of others behind ours. Continue reading →

Knowing Your Lines

by

I used to plan and run a family service where the children would help lead worship (songs) and some adults would help by participating in a skit to engage both young and old alike, sharing a spiritual truth. The service seemed to be well received.

After holding these types of services for over a year, about once a month, there was some discussion about them. One comment that came up was that if people were going to be in the skit, then they had to know their lines. learning_linesThere were a few times when it was apparent that the actor did not know their lines, and even though in other services, other actors forgot, or missed entire lines, Continue reading →

Does Our Work Show Our Love?

by

In the church setting, people will often look at what a person does to determine how much they love God, or their spirituality. Even though we admit that we are not saved by works, that seems to be the one thing people look to in order to gauge spirituality.

Let’s look at a story I saw on Facebook:

A father looks upon his two sons without them knowing and watches them draw him pictures. The first son has drawn a nice picture of him and his father holding hands as stick figures and the father is proud. The second son has drawn something a bit different. He has used the entire box of markers, glitter, glue, craft paper… he skipped his free time to create the most audacious thing for his father and the father is proud. The first son then looks at the second’s picture and feels the need to point out how unnecessary the attention to detail and the use of different materials were in the creating of the picture. “It was a waste of time, Father will love my gift no less than yours, simple is better, he will not be impressed.” To which the second son replied, “I didn’t do it to gain his love, that we both have. I did it out of my love for him in the best way I knew how”.

Both sons loved their father, and they showed it the best way they knew how. For some, it is elegant, for others, it is very simple and basic. Show we compare how we show love to our Father? Of course not, yet we often do that within the church.

faith_or_works_smDon’t get me wrong, James 2:17 tells us that faith without works is dead. If we have faith, then works will follow, but works do not get us to closer fellowship with God.

The question becomes, do we gauge one’s spirituality by the works that they do? I would hope not.

I knew a pastor that was concerned that some members of the church thought they were more spiritual than they were, or would look down on others because of their lack of involvement. His proposed solution, create levels, and as people met certain goals (fellowship with others, giving, service, etc.), then they would be deemed to be on that level (i.e. more spiritual). I questioned that solution. After all, how is the solution to people elevating themselves and creating “classes” of spirituality, creating levels of spirituality?

The Pareto Principle (80-20) seems to feed into this class of spirituality, where those who serve and do more must love God more and be more spiritual. But like the two sons in the story above, maybe people are showing love to God the best way they know how. Let us not look down on people, rather build them up and help draw them closer to God. May they follow me, and follow you, as we follow God.

Show God that you love Him the best way you know how to today.

 

The Pareto Principle Trap – Misinterpretated

by

The Pareto principle (also known as the 80–20 rule…) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.  – Reference, Wikipedia. This one in a series of posts discussing the Pareto Principle “Trap” and why churches fall into it.

The Pareto Principle states that generally 20% of the effort equals about 80% of the result. church-splitThere are many illustrations in the business world, but I believe that it is often misapplied and misunderstood in the church, because of the “Mary – Martha” scenario I posted yesterday. When we focus on “we who do” and those who don’t”, we build a natural divide between the two groups, like Martha tried to do. We tend to look at where we are involved and see the “lack of volunteers” in our area. When we do this, we are being short-sighted. We focus on our small portion of the entire work being done for the Kingdom of God. Let’s look at the “church” scenario: Continue reading →