I recently read an article in Christianity Today addressing pastors on the topic of church service. The article surmised that congregants don't work in church ministries for 3 reasons: some feel useless, some are hurting and some are lazy. After reading that, it occurred to me that some church-goers aren't called to serve their church. They're called to something else. 

The Bible specifically lists three types of church servant-leaders: pastors, elders and deacons. Their qualifications are listed clearly in Titus 1:6-8, 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and 1 Peter 5:1-4. Other servant roles such as Sunday School teacher, greeter, nursery worker are not commissioned by the Bible. They have become necessary for the way the American church functions, and there is nothing wrong with serving in those positions, but if one chooses not to serve in those ways, they are not necessarily lazy, hurting or feeling useless. 

All of us are called to certain behaviors that build up the body of the church:

• fellowship together (Hebrews 10:25)
• worshipping together (Acts 2:42)
• praying for each other (James 5:16)
• being accountable to each other (Galatians 6:1-2)
• confessing sins to each other (James 5:16)
• exhorting each other (1 Thessalonians 2:11)
• providing for each other's needs (I John 3:17)
• caring for widows and orphans (James 1:27)
• encouraging each other (Hewbrews 3:13) 
• chastising in love (Matthew 18:15)
• submitting to leadership  (Hebrews 13:17)

When we partake in these behaviors, we are serving the church according to the call upon our lives. How we do these things may indeed occur within other volunteer activities such as teaching Sunday School, leading a Bible study or preparing meals. But they don't have to fall into those confines of volunteerism. You may take a fellow church-goer to coffee for prayer and encouragement. You may go for a walk and fellowship together. Maybe you'll sit around a fire and sing songs together. 

The church we serve is not the building and the activities inside of it. The church we serve is the body of believers around the world. Let us not confuse our calling to build up the body with man's desire to build a fancy building and create an exhaustive list of programs.

We can actually serve in a myriad of church programs and never grow in our relationship with Christ. We can become comfortable in our chosen area of service and perhaps never discover the exciting, invigorating journey of faith for which God has purposed us. I'm not saying this will happen, but I am saying it could happen, and  sometimes does.

It bothers me that church officials, be they pastors, consultants, administrators or other professional, are pushing people so hard to serve within the walls of the church.  Church-goers feel pressure and guilt to help where their pastor has asked or where the administrator has indicated and could give up their real ministry calling. They could actually forsake serving God for serving man. 

For example, let's say Charlie Church-Goer takes McDonald's to the local park every Sunday before he goes to church. There he sits with the hungry, homeless people. He provides Homeless Hank with a hot meal and spends time getting to know them. In doing so, the homeless person is physically fed, receives compassion and love, and feels like he is worthwhile to someone. Charlie Church-Goer is being Jesus to Homeless Hank. Then, one Sunday, Charlie's pastor issues a guilt trip from the pulpit. He says the church needs greeters and people to serve coffee before the start of service because people need to feel welcome or they won't come to church. After the service, Pushy Pastor comes to Charlie and says, "Charlie, you're an early-riser, you really should consider being a greeter and coffee server. We need good people like you, Charlie. And you never miss a Sunday. You're always here a little bit early and I noticed you're not serving the church by volunteering right now. Without people like you we just can't make our members and our guests feel welcome in God's house." So, Charlie Church-Goer submits to Pushy Pastor's request and instead of spending time with and feeding Homeless Hank, he goes to the church building.

Is there anything wrong with holding open doors for those coming to church? Pouring coffee for them? Shaking hands and warmly welcoming them? Of course not! No! Not at all! But Charlie already had a ministry. It wasn't within the walls of the church, it wasn't part of an official church program, it may not have an effect on the membership roster, but it was service and it was ministry. 

All of us are called to ministry. All of us are called to service. Your ministry might be at your job. Your service might be in the community. It might even be at your home. We are all called to serve the body of Christ. That may include singing on worship team or passing out bulletins. But serving the body of Christ does not have to mean volunteering within your church. 

Am I saying you should forsake your volunteer efforts? Quit worship team? Stop showing up to teach Sunday School? No! Not at all! That would be horrible! But if you are called to serve outside the walls, then go serve. And don't let guilt or pressure change your mind. God has not called all of us to do the same things in the same way. 

We need to recognize that some church-goers are serving outside the building. Some of them are immersed in a ministry we'll never experience because it's not for us. And we need to stop labeling those people as lazy, useless or hurting. 

The Pharisees were enraged at Christ's service outside the religious community. He ate with beggars, tax collectors, prostitutes. He healed the sick on the Sabbath. He taught the crowds wherever they gathered, not just inside the temple. He made disciples. He didn't follow all of their religious rules on how to serve, whom to serve and when to serve. He didn't just pontificate on what it means to serve nor did He just sit and discuss theology. He went out into the world and He served everyone around Him. And He was put to death because of it. 

Our religious leaders will likely not kill you for not volunteering in the church. But you may experience persecution in the form of guilt, shunning or exclusion. That is on them, not you. That is their human failure, their brokenness, their mess. Not yours. 

God wants us to BE the church.So, go, BE what He has called you to be. Do what He has called you to do. Pick up your cross and follow Him where-ever He leads whether it's into that preschool Sunday School room or to a third-world country or to the park full of homeless people. Just go, do the thing He's asked you to do, be the person He's asked you to be.

Eight years ago today, we arrived in Bismarck, ND. Just 6 months earlier, we'd come out to visit the land of my forefathers to look at houses and see what winter was really like on the great northern plains. The thought had been we'd move in 2007. But, somehow, we ended up making the move much sooner than originally planned.


Without question in any of our minds, God was calling us to leave CA. He was calling us to ND. We'd planned on moving to Hawai'i. Then considered other places like Northern California, Colorado, Montana, Michigan, and Oregon. But nothing seemed right. Nothing "fit." 


In November 2005, just a few days before Thanksgiving, Scott jokingly said, "Why not ND? It's where your family is from." And I thought, "Why not ND?" My parents had the same "why not?" attitude and so we planned a house hunting trip for January 2006. Yes it was cold, yes there was snow, but yes, we knew we were supposed to move to ND. 


In March 2006, my parents went back to ND to do more house shopping. We stayed back in CA to keep our antiques and estate liquidation business going. They drug our realtor and first ND friend, Tanna, around to look at houses. We'd put our current house on the list as one we were very interested in, but it ended up that Mom & Dad bought it for themselves so they could build their dream home on the adjacent lot. The yellow farm-style house on 12th Street was for us though we'd never been inside. We'd seen lots of pictures, and looked at it from the road that January, but that was it. Nonetheless, we put our homes in CA on the market and made plans to move. 


In looking back over the last 8 years, I'm amazed at how God has been with us every step of the way. Amazed but not surprised. The first 18 months in ND were hard. Very hard. We didn't know anyone in Bismarck. We didn't have a church here. (that's a whole other blog post!) It was one of the hottest summers on record; I remember one day in particular it hit 114! Scott didn't have a job for the first 8 months. At times it was lonely. At times it was scary. At times we wondered what we were doing here. But we always had peace that God had called us, God had transplanted us to ND and this was our new home. 


So we put down our roots and allowed the Master Gardener to water us, to nurture us, and to even prune us after He transplanted us to this beautiful, wide open space. And we waited. Waited for Him to lead us, to guide us, to open doors.
And He did like He always does. 


I'd say our transplanting has been successful. We've loved every minute, even the hard minutes. 


Here's my blog post from the days following our move to ND.


Transplant in Process
Recently, we picked up and moved to North Dakota. Besides a summer in England, I'd never lived anywhere besides San Leandro, California. In fact, I'd had the same mailman my entire life, even after I got married and moved out. When I was growing up, San Leandro wasn't unlike Bismarck. It was a tight-knit community where most everyone knew everyone else and you felt safe everywhere you went. But over the years, all of that changed and we knew it was no place to raise children. So we left. We closed our business, packed our homes and hit the road. I've since referred to myself, and my family, as transplants.

Here are my journal entries from the move:

June 18:
Our last official day as Californians, we celebrated Fathers’ Day then finished packing up the trailer. The plan was to leave bright and early the following morning. Somewhere between church and lunch, we decided to honor our tradition of leaving the night before our planned departure date. We pulled out of San Leandro at 9:42pm. It was Scott and Buddy in the RV pulling the ski boat. Following them was Pops, Grammy and Adam in the Denali pulling the trailer. And I brought up the tail, blocking traffic for the big guys up front, in the Dodge. We stopped for the night just north of Roseville.

June 19:
California became a distant memory when we crossed the state line at about 10am Monday morning. I told everyone via walkie-talkie, “Well, it’s only taken me 16 years to finally get out of California.” Grammy asked for clarification. I explained, “When I was 13-years-old, we went to Canada by car with Baba and Dido (Grammy’s parents). It was on that trip that I decided I didn’t want to live in California for the rest of my life and I cried the whole way home.”

After a long day driving across the Nevada desert, relying on bad jokes on XM’s comedy channel and strong-words from Dr. Laura on America Right, we finally made it to Cactus Pete’s in Jackpot, Nevada.

June 20:
If you want to know what a white plastic potty chair looks like when it’s flying through the air out of the back of the trailer, ask me! Hey, at least it was empty. We made it through Idaho and stopped in Billings, Montana for the night. Let’s not talk about it.

June 21:
“Country road, take me home to the place I belong…” Yes, I played this song for us via walkie-talkie as we crossed into North Dakota from Montana. A brief stop to look out across the Bad Lands near Medora was just what we needed to welcome us home. We made a quick stop in Dickinson to say hi to our realtor Tanna and pick up the keys to Grammy and Pops’ new place then head on down the road. We made it to Bismarck around 4:30pm and went to check out the new homes before resting for the night at the Ramkota Inn.

June 22:
We were filled with anticipation as we walked up the steps to our new home, which, coincidentally, we’d never seen before! Tanna (our realtor) and Karianne (aka She-she) saw the inside and sent us photos about three weeks before. Other than that, we’d only seen the house from the road back in January. Grammy and Pops had walked around the house, peeking in the windows, in March. Truly, the house was a gift from God. It is far better than we ever imagined and can’t express enough gratitude for this awesome blessing bestowed upon us.

“He maketh me lie down in green pastures…”

So many times I’ve recited this verse and wondered about a God who would make us lie down. Often, I’ve thought of a small child being forced to take a nap.

I never liked to nap as a child. Because when I’d awake, my grandmother --Baba I called her--would be gone. She’d lie down with me on her big bed covered in pink roses and tell me silly stories till I fell asleep. Then she would go to work at my mom’s store. I was always so angry when I got up. Baba had done it again! She’d made me lie down for a nap and then she’d left me there.

When I became a mom, getting my kids to take a nap was the most arduous task of the day. Some days, I’d strap my son into his car seat and drive around the neighborhood until he fell asleep. Then I’d sneak into the house and let him sleep in the car. But most days, it was a constant battle: carry him to his bed, read him a book, cover him up, put quiet music on, tiptoe out of the room and into my office to write only to hear giggles behind me a few minutes later. Then we’d repeat the process until both of us were crying. With my daughter, it was even harder. Instead of sneaking out of her room, she’d do naughty things like cut her hair or draw on her antique bed with permanent markers. She’d refuse to lie down and then fall asleep at the dinner table. 

I couldn’t make them lie down no matter how I tried! So this verse continued to escape me. Was God a great big nanny who wanted me to lie there and take my nap whether I wanted to or not? Was He really going to make me lie down?

Then February 17, 2014 came. God didn’t make me lie down. No, I think as a weary homeschool mom who can’t say “no” to anything or anyone, I would have liked to lie down. Instead, He made me sit down. As I ran down the icy steps to our garage, I slipped. Craaaack-Pop! In a heartbeat, I’d dislocated my foot, popped the synovial sac, broke my tibia in two places and also broke my fibula. Funny thing is, I’d just told my husband, “Boy, I’d sure like to just sit here all day.”

I’m not going to tell you that I’ve enjoyed being made to sit still. The days have been long and many of them have been excruciatingly boring. The pain has been horrible. The inability to walk or to drive made me helpless and I felt useless. For a woman on the go-go-go, I have not enjoyed being stop-stop-stopped.

“He restores my soul…”

 Four months have passed and my injury is completely healed. Yet I still cry. I cry tears of grateful joy because He restored my soul. I was so desperately in need of rest, of restoration, that I couldn’t even walk through the valley until I lied down in the green pasture. My soul was so thirsty that He couldn’t fill my cup until I’d experienced still water. I was so burdened that I could not be comforted by anything except His rod and staff. And now I sit at this table, feasting on His love and grace as He pours His merciful peace over my head, its oily goodness running down my face, coating me, covering me. And as I look out into my future as an artist looks at a blank canvas or a farmer looks at an empty field, I see goodness. I see a life reborn because the Shepherd made me lie down when I needed it most.

To My Family,

I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry.

The last four months have made me realize that you have suffered because I was busy. I was so busy and yet I have nothing to show for all of my busy-ness. I've figured out that I lost 6,570 hours of quality time with you because I was busy doing everything over the last two years.  What a waste of time.

I'm sorry I rushed you through conversations, through meals, through school, through visits, through time together because there was a to-do list. I'm sorry that I let my mind wander when you talked to me. I didn't mean to, I just had so much going on that I couldn't focus. 

I'm sorry I said yes to everybody else and everything else but so often said no to you. I didn't often actually verbalize "no." In all of my "doing," I said no to being with you. Instead, I just kind of checked out of your life because there was so much going on in mine. At least I thought there was. 

I'm sorry that I begrudged the routine of our days together. Every chore, every task, even the fun things like reading bedtime stories, became just another item on my to-do list. Family is not a to-do. It's a "be." 

I'm sorry for all the interruptions into our lives. The ringing phone, the beeping text messages, the important emails, all of it could have waited. All of it should have waited.

I'm sorry that I looked for excuses to run to the store just to get away from being here with you. It seemed boring, fruitless to do nothing. So I had to do something. There was always something we "needed" it seemed, so that was an easy excuse. I'm sorry I was always taking on projects so I wouldn't have to do something "fruitless" like play a game or go for a walk with you. I thought there were more important things to be done. There weren't.
 
I'm sorry that I got so burned out on being busy that I could barely function that week back in February, you know, the one before "the fall." The house was a mess. The laundry was backed up. My heart wasn't in anything. It should have been in you. 

I'm sorry I was so exhausted. I was running a marathon at a sprint. I used to joke and say, "Every second needs to count. Every minute needs to be productive." I wore myself out trying to be everything to everyone. I was too tired to be the wife, mom, sister, daughter I was meant to be. 

I know I'm not perfect, but I'm changing. And I'm sorry. 

It's like I've always told you, "True Sorrow Means Change." Hold me to it.

In 2005, a friend made me this little pin cushion. At the time, I was struggling with feeling hurt and manipulated by passive-agressive family members. I'd never encountered such a trial before and it consumed my every thought. My friend, Lydia, was leading a Bible study on James. Do you think that was coincidental? I don't.

Time and time again Lydia would say to me, "Consider it joy, Kristy." I'd sigh and say, "I'm trying." But honestly, I couldn't see any joy. Nor could I see any purpose in that trial. How would dealing with disrespect and manipulation bring about perseverance and patience? And I'm sure that wanting to gouge out the eyes of said manipulator was not a sign of growing maturity in me. 

The idea of considering this relationship as a trial was easy. I defintely felt like I was on trial. I also felt beat up, abused, under-appreciated. And no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't find any shred of joy. Nor could I see how I could even find it. Where would I look? How would I start?

It wasn't until a much bigger trial came along that I would realize I'd been going about James 1:2 all wrong.

As you well know, and perhaps are sick of hearing about, I broke my leg in February. The break pretty well blew apart my busy life. It was a time of physical trial, but also of emotional, spiritual, relational and financial trial too. Somewhere among the pain and the frustration, I discovered what James 1:2 really meant. As I sat in my chair, day after day, lightheaded with pain-killers, heavy-hearted with grief at all I was missing out on, I thought about Lydia and her sweet refrain: "Consider it pure joy, Kristy."

Among the many translations, James tells us to "consider it" or to "count it" which means to "deem it." Deem means to regard or consider something in a specified way. He says to deem it as joy. Joy means gladness. Gladness means a feeling of contentment. James is saying, "When hard times come, regard them with contentment." 

Whoa. I'd missed that. I was working so hard at being happy amidst my trial. But James wasn't telling us to be happy when we are suffering. That is a nearly ridiculous notion. And humanly impossible. But he is telling us to choose contentment. And if that's not convicting, I'm not sure what it is.

Every day, whether it's a good day full of happiness or a bad day full of suffering, we have the ability and the duty to choose contentment.  Happiness is a fleeting emotion, a superficial feeling, a smile, a laugh. It passes nearly as quickly as it comes. But contentment is a deep feeling of satisfaction of not needing or wanting more.

I certainly did not need or want any more pain, sadness or frustration but that is not what led me to contentment. It wasn't deep theological study or exegesis of the gospel. It wasn't routine quiet time or checklist reading plans. It wasn't anything I've ever thought it would be. There was actually very little analysis or practice involved at all. 

Instead it was the quiet moments with God, tears rolling down my chubby cheeks, realizing that He is all I've ever had, all I've ever wanted and all I've ever needed. It was in the quiet refrain of "Stop striving and know that I am God." It was the whisper of "I AM more than enough."  It came as a simple surrender of happiness and sadness, of needing and wanting, of doing and going. 

It was those moments, some brief and some long, that led me to regard my trial with contentment. It was in those moments that I found the perseverance to be complete, not lacking anything as James describes. It was in those moments, that I found Romans 12:2: the life-transforming renewal of mind that comes from not conforming to the patterns of our world.

Everyone asks me these days if my leg hurts and if I'm back to normal yet. Yes it still hurts, and no I'll never go back to "normal." Not the normal I once was. I don't know who that woman was; she seems so foreign to me now. She didn't limp and she seemed happy. But there was no contentment, no deep, abiding joy. So I'll keep the limp, I'll take the pain if only as a reminder to choose contentment. 

Happiness can be faked. Contentment must be chosen. Joy comes out of the latter.