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Friday, August 26, 2005
The Little Things Do Matter
So much happens before you even get to the main service at our church.
There are people who direct traffic.
There are name tags for every person who signed up for one.
There are greeters who help visitors get situated.
There are people who make the coffee and put out all the fixins for it.
There are teachers in every children's classroom.
There are nursury workers who got their and sanitized the toys and got all the necessary supplies ready.
There are people who charged the batteries for the hearing aids for visitors.
There are people handing out bulletins.
There are people who stuffed the bulletins with various inserts.
There are people who filled the communion cups and made sure there was enough bread to go around.
There are people who set up the chairs.
There are people who practiced a few times to lead the worship service.
There was someone who typed up all the power point slides with the words on them.
There was someone who designed and printed the posters on the wall for the various upcoming events at our church.
There are people who set up the microphones and run two different sound boards while the service is going on.
There are people who run all the visuals during the service.
There are people who record the sermons and burn them onto CD's.
There are people who made all the copies for the various classes.
There are people who make sure there are necessary teaching tools, like DVD players and televisions and white boards/markers/erasers in each classroom.
There are people who make sure the light bulbs are changed.
There are people who set the thermostats and change them if needed.
There are people who took sign ups and do the accounting for the retreat.
There are people who unlocked the doors.
There are people who designed the building and the classrooms and the nursery and the parking lot.
There are people who mowed the grass.
There are people who taught the classes.
There was one guy that delivered the sermon.
I could go on and on...you got the picture, right?
And it's human nature to put a "higher value" on the guy that taught the class or gave the sermon than on the guys who ran the sound board. I mean, the preacher has the education and the experience and the public speaking skills and affects the masses, right?
But Paul has a different mindset. Check out this from 1 Corinthians 12: 14--18 (from The Message):
"I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different but similar parts arranged functioning together. If Foot said, 'I'm not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don't belong to this body,' would that make it so? If Ear said, 'I'm not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive, I don't deserve a place on the head,' would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it."
Later on, it reads, "An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn't be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on it's own."
I know what you're saying anyway: Yeah, but the senior pastor really is the most important...he affects a lot of people each and every week. But that's because we tend to look at the crowds. The individuals, and their stories, kind of get lost in the large mix.
But try telling the young couple about to leave their newborn in the nursery the first time that the grandma greeter who walked them through the process and calmed them down so they could hear the sermon didn't matter.
Try telling the person who got their name corrected from the misspelling of last week and didn't go into church a bit miffed that the administrative assistant wasn't important.
Those teenagers who got their own room downstairs really do appreciate the guy who donates his time and resources to get original old-school video games and the guy who works for Sony who got them their PlayStation games...and they had such a good time they invited three friends who came to know the Lord.
The senior citizen who got to hear the sermon for the first time because we had the hearing aids got ministered to.
Could you imagine if you didn't get to take communion with your church family because they ran out of cups, juice or bread or the ushers forgot your row?
Those kids who got the Bible story painted on the wall have a visual image of David and Goliath...
The baby who didn't get sick because of the diligence of the child-care crew...
The folks who got burned at another congregation who decided they could attend a church that gave them free coffee and let them bring it in the service...
The folks who never knew that someone picked up that same empty cup they forgot to throw away but are pleased to come into an air-conditioned, well-lighted auditorium...
You may not have a sophisticated ear but you've lost your mind if you don't think a whole lot of feedback or a misspelled word on the video screen would break your worship.
Again, I could go on and on...
But everybody has a place, and they're all equally important...as you can tell when the masses become individuals.
So, for today...can you point out something that might've been "behind the scenes" that now you're thankful for since you've been made aware of it? Write it down in the comments!
Brent 4:08 AM
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