When we came to Corvallis almost 12 years ago, Lionel and I were displaced Pastors.
We had been on staff full time at churches and were a little worn, burned out, chewed up, and bitter. I remember thinking when I moved here, I really do not want one single Christian friend. We started attending Calvary Corvallis our second Sunday in town and we liked the teaching and worship right away. But we had a goal every Sunday- get in and get out. As fast as we could. We would leave during the last song so we could quickly get through the children's ministry. We wanted to remain under the radar. So we did.
A little over a year attending Calvary we were healing, the good hearty Wordwas filling us and refreshing us and the worship was renewing our spirits little by little but something was missing. We did not know anyone and we were not serving. We actually discussed going to a smaller church.
One day our son Jeremiah with all his 9 year old wisdom said "Dad, we were closer to God when we were serving him."
Those words pierced out hearts.
We had been doing our parental "duty" keeping them in church regularly. But our children SO knew the difference. They had seen the passion in us as we ministered to teens, spoke at the nursing homes, evangelized our communities, planned with joy events, retreats, went to summer camps, they had lived it with us and they could tell, something was missing.
We were not ready to rush into the throws of full ministry however and no one knew us. So we joined the Barbeque ministry. This was the best thing for us. We could do it as a family. It was seasonal. It was not every week and we would get to meet a ton of people.
The very first meeting Gene Stokes was sharing his heart for the ministry and the laborers and he said "please feel free to let us know if you need a break or are getting burned out, we don't want anyone here serving and feeling that way." Lionel and I were shocked and encouraged by those words. It was so loving and so caring.
We left there pleased and dazed. We had just come from churches where you were back sliding if you stepped away from a ministry. We had recently been told we must not care about our kids souls if we were no longer in a particular denomination. And now we have permission to step away from flipping burgers? Really?
God began to unravel some things in us that day. He began to undo some of the hurts and poor into us His healthy heart for ministry and serving and fellowship and body life.
And the BBQ ministry was SO fun. We loved getting together with these people and going on Sundays and having people know our names and us theirs. It was a good beginning to build relationships, to begin serving again, and to heal.
We had been doing our parental "duty" keeping them in church regularly. But our children SO knew the difference. They had seen the passion in us as we ministered to teens, spoke at the nursing homes, evangelized our communities, planned with joy events, retreats, went to summer camps, they had lived it with us and they could tell, something was missing.
We were not ready to rush into the throws of full ministry however and no one knew us. So we joined the Barbeque ministry. This was the best thing for us. We could do it as a family. It was seasonal. It was not every week and we would get to meet a ton of people.The very first meeting Gene Stokes was sharing his heart for the ministry and the laborers and he said "please feel free to let us know if you need a break or are getting burned out, we don't want anyone here serving and feeling that way." Lionel and I were shocked and encouraged by those words. It was so loving and so caring.
We left there pleased and dazed. We had just come from churches where you were back sliding if you stepped away from a ministry. We had recently been told we must not care about our kids souls if we were no longer in a particular denomination. And now we have permission to step away from flipping burgers? Really?
God began to unravel some things in us that day. He began to undo some of the hurts and poor into us His healthy heart for ministry and serving and fellowship and body life.
And the BBQ ministry was SO fun. We loved getting together with these people and going on Sundays and having people know our names and us theirs. It was a good beginning to build relationships, to begin serving again, and to heal.
1 comment:
Love it...the BBQ ministry at calvary is such a blessing. God uses it in ways we can't plan for or even imagine. I remember how in childrens church we used to be the last kids to get to class and the first ones to leave our friends behind, but then when our parents started serving we found ourselves their early and playing in the quad late into the summer afternoon enjoying the fellowship of our spiritual family.
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