After celebrating our church’s 20th year anniversary, I returned home and began reading my pastor’s memoirs of those 20 years. A few pages in, and I can scarcely believe the level of people’s selfishness. I think some levels of selfishness should make you feel embarrassed. After contemplating what I’d just read, I considered my own ways in the house of God.
Serving in church is not easy. It’s frustrating because the majority of people do not consider that the body and its members must work together. It’s the place where ego must be put aside so that ideas and opportunities flow, and strong bonds are created. Instead, you find that as you are building something good, others are hellbent on tearing it down. In recent years I learned the term “poisoned work environment” and I think this applies in church too. It’s the subtle, sneaky behaviours, attitudes and comments that poison the atmosphere. Sometimes it's not sneaky, as illustrated in the memoirs. However, as a member, you’re forced to endure, and to take the high road and continue to labour in God.
But you get weary. Everyone gets weary. Sometimes you rise above the fray and put in the extra work. But other times it just seems like you’re always showing up, always enduring whilst others get to coast. I’ve certainly coasted at times because the effort seems to be a bottomless pit, and my only reward is resentment. Other times, I roll up my sleeves and show up anyway, giving it to God. But it must not be so.
We’re members of the same body. But if we create an environment where we only sacrifice for our own sake, it’ll make the work bitter. It’ll build resentment. It becomes difficult to take certain things seriously. The work outside of church becomes a priority because at least there are rules of engagement, and functional systems, checks and balances that make commitment a bit easier. It’s easier to be around members that want the group to function and are willing to share burdens. The weight of the burden may not always be equally shared amongst the group, but at least each member is invested and is assured that their contribution is valuable.
Yet, 1 Corinthians12:18 says that “God set the members every one of them in the body as it pleased him.” Therefore, I cannot say that because I’m the leg, I’m not as important as the eye. Or because the ear is preferred therefore, as the arm, I will neglect my duties. We know we ought to serve as unto the Lord, but you’re also serving to achieve a common goal, to accomplish the purpose of God for that commitment, to lighten the load for each other. Everyone is making sacrifices of a non-renewable resource called time. But it is God who has given value to the work that you’re doing. Because the human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, we cannot entrust ourselves to people. If Jesus is not the reason for our service, and strengthening us to bring our service to completion, we’ll never persevere through anything.
But you know what? I think what God is revealing echoes what Jesus said when he said he would not entrust himself to man, because he knew what is in man. It’s not everyone who can be with you in the trenches. It’s not everyone who will pick a shovel and begin digging up for the foundation you’re going to lay. It’s not everyone who will lay the foundation brick by brick. Some folks can only come in once the structure is up; they want to see evidence of something before they see the labour as valuable. And rather than moving out of the way, they’d rather be a stumbling block, becoming the weapon formed against you. But as God has promised, though the weapons may form, they shall not prosper.
So, what’s my takeaway thus far? Rise above the fray and remember the reason why you are serving. Your standard is not another human being, but the word that has called you to serve. Your quality of service should emanate from the excellence deposited in you, and not on the effort that others are willing to put. You will be disappointed. You will be let down. You will be betrayed, even by the very people who are working alongside you helping the work to progress. But all this is like refining fire, to make you wise, to make you trust God only, and make you an effective instrument for the Lord’s work.
