This morning I had the joy of getting a 6:15 wake up call. Normally this wouldn’t be that bad, but when it’s unexpected and immediate action is expected, it could start the day off a little too fast. I went to bed last night with a comment someone said earlier in the the day, “Somewhere around 90% of all ministry is unplanned.” I was just kind of laughing as I went to sleep at the fact that some people actually plan ministry. Well, I guess I would, but I never want to disappoint by not showing up because something else came up along the way. Anyway, back to the story.
I showed up at the children’s home early this morning because we got two 20 foot containers shipped in from the States. These things always bring in an abundance of blessing and about two straight days of work (if you can get about 40 people to help out). So, we called together as many people as we could to come together and help out. The promise of free food silenced the stipulation of a full days work and before we knew it, about 20 of the gangsters we’ve worked with were there and about 20 of our aspiring pastors were right beside them. It’s always fun to see these two groups mix. It’s just a cool picture of the body.
Roel was one of the pastors that joined us to help out. He was just called up to a new position of leadership within his church and God has given him stewardship over a pretty good amount. He and his wife have been ministering to their area for quite some time and the doors have opened for their ministry to spread farther. While some big career moves are happening for Roel and his family, showing up for at least a 12 hour work day at the children’s home was not something that would boost his resume. In fact, this project wasn’t really anywhere near his congregation. He was just doing this becaue he knew we needed help.
At times, I feel like there’s so much competition inside the church. Don’t get me wrong, I think healthy competition is necessary and Upward Basketball is just one more chance to emasculate and create more “mama’s boys” (still love you mom), but sometimes our culture takes it too far. We won’t even join prayer meetings or worship rallies or service projects unless our church’s name is on it. I tried to gather a group of college ministries together one time for a huge worship service on campus and rhe first question I was asked was, “Well whose name is going to be on it, who will be the one in charge?” How about Jesus’, is that enough? Forget denominational lines, we’re drawing boundaries between individual churches now.
Soapbox aside, this isn’t a blanket statement I’m making. But our culture just puts such big pressure and emphasis on names. We’ve got the All State Halftime Report and the goDaddy.com Bowl, not to mention countless streets, buildings, railroad tracks, airports, and anything else named after people, sponsors, etc. because just calling things what they are isn’t good enough. We want our brand on everything. At the risk of being in the world and not of it, we’re dancing on a pretty prideful and arrogant line. As long as Jesus’ name is on, I don’t really care who else’s name follows. But just in case the jury is still out, Jesus’ name should never follow anyone else’s.
As we put in our 12 hour day in the scorching heat, I couldn’t tell who was with Kids International Ministries or the MYTC or the new disaster response ministry or one of the local churches or the seminary. The reason I couldn’t tell was because everyone was working just as hard as if they were all equally invested. The truth is, 95% of those working today won’t get paid (well, 100% actually for this one) and will probably never see the contents of those containers again. So why did they work? While free food can be a pretty loud calling, most of them came because a brother asked. And we’re brothers because of the only name that really matters: Jesus.
