Serving when you are needing

Recently, I’ve heard and read lots of things about service and sacrifice within the church.  Blogs by various people and church newsletters discuss expectations.  The sermons for the last two weeks were about sacrifice.  The point is to not have a consumerist attitude towards church, to not go to church thinking, “What do I get out of it?” but instead thinking, “How can I serve?”

Church is funny, because it’s not just a service group.  If a person just wants to do some good in the community, there are lots of secular organizations:  animal shelters, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, United Way, Kiwanis, food pantries, etc.  Church is about serving its members and serving the community.  Although anyone who has volunteered will tell you how much they get back from it.  Still, they probably don’t complain that the leader of the Kiwanis club is a poor speaker and why don’t those people learn to sing, for God’s sake!  They don’t go to the United Way looking for spiritual guidance.  Church is supposed to overflow the cups of its parishioners with loving grace, so it spills over to everyone else.

When I found my first adult church, the Unitarian Universalist church, I was pretty broken and small.  I needed to rebuild myself.  So, of course, I needed healing, love and support.  I found it.  I also was challenged to serve but I didn’t rise to the challenge very well.  Maybe I wasn’t ready, maybe I was too shy, maybe it just wasn’t the right opportunity for my talents. I did get involved in the worship planning.  Some of my projects there led me in a surprising direction--to an Episcopal church.

Again, here I went, into to a new church.  I was a little stronger than I had been four years ago, a little calmer, a little wiser.  Still, I needed something.  I needed to hear the Good News, the universal, catholic, salvific words of Jesus.  I needed to see the love of God spoken in a Christian church.  I needed to see it acted out by Christians.  I came to church looking for something I needed.  Most people come to church looking for what they need.

I wonder how I would have felt in the earlier, more broken, days if I’d heard from the pulpit that I should look to serve.  I wonder how I would have felt if told that the church needed part of my already poor, empty spirit.  I wonder if I would have felt challenged or if I would have walked out with tears in my eyes.  The thing is, those broken days could very well come again.  Life is surprising and not hardly ever easy.  Some days, even now, I’m just plain worn out and I go to church for a moment’s rest.  Now you’re telling me to sacrifice?  WTH? (excuse the expression).  I am here to get some help, dude!

Except…  If most people come to church looking for something:  broken, hungry, sad, empty, then who is left to heal, feed, comfort and fill up their spirits?  Is it the ones who happen to be strong and happy that day?  Somehow I don’t think that’s the answer.  Do ministers say, “If you’ve got some extra time and you’re kinda bored, we’d love you to come to the soup kitchen?  Just throw whatever extra you’ve got into the collection plate--thanks!  If you’ve had a really great week, got a raise and your spouse and kids tell you they love you every day AND you have had a great night’s sleep, then please chair our next fundraiser!”?  No, I’m sorry, but out of the three churches I’ve attended for over 25 years, I NEVER heard any of those things said.  Churches are full of people who need something desperately and those are the exact same people who give the most to the community.

You know what’s funny, I’m pretty sure I heard sermons about sacrifice and service my entire life; and I’m sure I heard a few when I was broken and needy.  Maybe I just wasn’t ready; maybe the seeds of sacrifice fell on rocky soil at that moment.  Or maybe they were buried deep in the cold, frozen ground and waited for the thaw.

So, if a person comes to church in need, how do you change from looking for what you need to looking for what you can give?  For me, it took some time.  For me, the work and sacrifice of my fellow parishioners running fundraisers, serving food and teaching the children, that spirit started to spilled over into me.  For me, after discussions at adult christian formation and serving potatoes at a fish fry, I, too, saw a need I could help fill.

I guess that when you serve even when you’re tired, broken and sad, you will find what you need.  I know for sure I wasn’t always thrilled to head up my chosen project, Vacation Bible School. At times, I had no idea how I would get it done, with working full-time and having two little kids.  Yes, I’m a teacher and I’m “off” in the summer, which is why I stepped up for this project.  Still, it wasn’t like I had so much free time that I longed to make schedules and organize craft materials.  At times, I had a hard time focusing on church services because I was distracted by all the work I should be doing.  Through all the anxiety, everything came together and we had a wonderful week of fun, laughter and worship with a bunch of great kids.

That’s the funny thing about serving, it builds more service.  Although my current focus is family and work concerns, I miss having a project at church.  When the next fundraiser came up, I didn’t think, “Oh, I wish I could help but…”  I thought, “What can I do with the time, talent and money I have at my disposal?  There must be something.”  I had avoided comments about teaching Sunday School before.  I just didn’t need one more thing to teach in my life, not with 7th graders all day and toddlers all night.  But, after VBS, I sought out the Sunday School teachers to see how I could help.  I know I’ll be tired when it’s my turn to help with primary Sunday School, but I also know how much I will get out of it.  I am not volunteering to head up the biggest fundraiser or chair the most important committee, I don’t even quite know what I’ll be doing next.  I do know my attitude of “No, not me”, has changed into, “How could I help with that?”

So, how do you take people who are looking to fill a need and teach them to fill others’ needs?  I surely don’t know, except that it seems to be happening to me.  Churches all over the place are doing it and it must be happening through the strength of their members.  Healing must be happening over coffee hour sign-ups, soup kitchen rotations, silent auction donations and kitchen clean-up.  The needy are serving and meeting their own needs all the time.