Serving

We have just two days left with Tim and Justine before they move on to their next chapter, so this has been a busy week of having conversations with them - both what we need to know for work and just fun friend stuff - and preparing for this major change! We have staff changes in the mix, tenant changes in the mix, and I'm trying to make sure I don't miss any major moments or meetings. 

I say all of that to say...I might be borrowing some blog ideas in the next few days. Well. And yesterday. And today. :) 

I found this blog idea yesterday and the memories it conjured up made me smile so much that I looked like a perfect idiot just sitting there grinning at my computer. I figured that meant I should write about it. You might learn a thing or two about me that you didn't know before! 

The idea was to think about all the places you've served within a church setting and share a favorite or two. 

My very first official role of serving within the church took place when I was in high school and I landed a spot on the nursery worker rotation. Our church had gone through some really painful splits and by the time I was a teenager, I was the youth group. There was another teen who usually showed up on Sunday mornings, but on Sunday nights and midweek services especially, it was just me. Do you know how hard it is to get a youth pastor excited about a church with ONE teen? So instead of having a thriving youth group to be part of in those years, I just launched into serving the babies. 

Back then, of course, we lived in a different sort of world and you didn't have to take classes or do background checks or have super strict policies for checking little ones in and out of child care. I worked every second Sunday morning with my friend Betty and every fifth Sunday morning with my friend Bonnie. (Why do I remember that??) And I also often got to fill in for anyone who had to miss church on another Sunday. I loved crawling around on the floor, playing with the babies, and I was pretty good at getting them to calm down when their moms tip-toed out the door. 

Shortly after that, I also started teaching some elementary-age kids during the midweek service, too. I found old curriculum books in the church library and pieced together lessons, snacks, and crafts for them. I loved my Thursday night teaching! (When one of those moms picked up her boys one evening, she shared with me that what I did was a gift and it was something she couldn't do. That was the first time I ever remember an adult outside my family identifying gifts in me, and I appreciated it!)

In my twenties I spent a few years serving on the church board as the secretary. I took minutes of the meetings and provided snacks. I enjoyed my years on the board, actually. (That's saying something for the girl who hates meetings.) The pastor made the meetings fun, and even though I was the teasing target (as the much-youngest member) for most of the board, we all had a great time together. 

I was also in my twenties when I started leading women's Bible study. It was another role I really loved. It surprised me that I loved it so much. To that point in my life, I'd only worked with babies and small children, but I found I really enjoyed working with other women who wanted to dig into the Word deeply. I can't remember now how many years I led that group, but it was one of my favorite times of ministry and service. 

I went through a few years when (mostly because of living in a different town from the church I attended) it was difficult to serve on a consistent basis. I still found ways to plug in, though. A week of VBS, filling in for Sunday School and midweek service teachers, and other such little jobs gave me a way to be involved even on a short term basis. 

And then at our last church, I served together with Ryan as a small group leader and LOVED IT. As you might remember, I was working to coordinate small groups when we moved, and I really enjoyed that role, too. I think I would have loved exploring it for a much longer time! And I was involved in women's ministry there, too - first as a team member and then as a team leader.

I feel like all those ministry roles were important training ground for me in the work I do now. I love it that God uses each little thing to prepare us, shape us, and mold us. We know that the work we do and the lifestyle-nature of it will probably make it more difficult for us to serve in the local church to the same extent we've done before, but this is also a whole different kind of serving!