8/24/20
A few days ago we went and helped a pastor moving pews at a church. In this time of Covid, many churches are choosing to switch from pews to chairs and this church actually had chosen to switch and ordered the chairs before Covid was an issue. But, of course, they finally arrived during quarantine and the church hasn’t even gotten to use them yet.
They moved the pews once, but now they need to move them again because the space they’re in can be turned into a classroom with its own bathroom and that’s important for cleanliness in the time of Covid.
These pews are heavy. I’m honestly not much help because I don’t have the strength some of my squad mates do. And we also had 2 congregation members who had offered to come help. You see, I got to talk with the pastor and learned that he first tried to move them by himself by pushing and dragging. An absolutely insane idea he quickly realized wasn’t working. So he asked for volunteers and had 2 men step up. He was troubled because he knew that wasn’t enough people.
And then he was told about us by people connected to our hosts. He was told that we would come and help. And he was excited for the blessing to get this one job done.
But the thing is we planned on spending all of our morning at the church and the pews didn’t take but an hour to move. So we asked what else there was he needed to do. He briefly mentioned the process of taking all the new chairs and spraying them with water resistant spray. But it was no big deal for him to do on his own, he said. He was taking them in groups of like 25 chairs at a time and spraying them on the patio and putting them in the sanctuary in his free time between writing sermons and caring for the congregation. It doesn’t matter if it takes time because the church isn’t open anyway.
But with a little bit of encouragement, he let us spray some of the chairs. And then as he realized we were actually serious about helping he became open to us just doing them all and moving the stacks where they need to go.
He told me he had expected the process to take about 2 months with trying to find those spare moments to do the work. But we were finishing the process in a day.
Many hands make light work.
He said that to me today and I think it was truly a revelation that he doesn’t have to be alone in doing this work. That we really were sent as a blessing to take the load off him. Because he then left while we continued working to go visit a congregant experiencing loss. The work didn’t have to end just because he left and now he has so much more done than he thought he would.
That’s why we’re here. We’re meant to be a blessing for the people who need many hands to get the work done because it’s overwhelming to do it by yourself.
If I get nothing else out of my time in Oregon, we were there to help this one pastor and this one church.
And it matters.
Our hands mattered.
The pastor didn’t realize it until we were already there working, but God knew.
And God knows your needs too.
