A Jester in the King's Court

Everyone has a story about getting advice that looking back they wish that they had taken. This is not such a story. Its actually quite the opposite. In the Winter of 2005 there was a girl, who though cute and witty, asked me a horrible question that I only now am fully understanding the full implications of. At the time, the church I was Youth Pastor at would have events and play practices that involved an inordinate amount of set-up and grunt labor. Seriously, we were a church of barely 200 and yet we moved more plywood than a Home Depot in Black Rock, Nevada the week prior Burning Man.

Anyway, weekly we would have to move the sets for the play, or the chairs for an event, or tables for….an event (I should have used a synonym for effect, but “happening” seemed odd). I, of course, wasn’t thrilled to always be moving things, but some one had to, why not I?

Well, one night, assumably past midnight because that’s when guys in their early 20’s are on the phone with females they are trying to date, this girl said, “You move things at your church a lot.” I never really thought about it that much before. She returned to it, “You’re the Youth Pastor…why are you always moving things, like you never aren’t moving things.”

I will say, her assessment of me never not moving this was correct, but I had never really thought of it as a negative until that point. It wasn’t so much that I was the Youth Pastor so moving things was beneath me, at least not at first, it was more that I just hated that it was assumed that I would move things. I can’t say why exactly, just that said female’s statement sat with me, and I saw no reason that I should move things.

Fast forward to the past November. Here at Shoreline I was expected to help set up for Thanksgiving lunch since I’m on staff. I was not happy about this, but oddly enough that weekend I actually didn’t hate setting up tables. Nor stacking a billion chairs in a closet built for 8. Fast forward to March, I found myself in the same situation for the Noia Retirement Lunch, only I swear in was 2 billion chairs. Only this time, I actually loved doing it. Fast forward to May. I’m leaving my office after Shoreline’s Gradation and I see the gym is still being taken down, so I put more chairs away, and it was fun. Jump to tonight, and we see me setting up tables and chairs once more, but I truly enjoyed doing it. It was a part of the fellowship and worship of the day.

It might seem like an odd thing, but I’m rather happy that I like the grunt work at church again. The girl’s question about how often I moved things was not bad….but what I did with it was. I let it mix with my own resentment and arrogance and it made what should have been a fun act of worship and camaraderie a chore to be avoided. My response should have been “Yes, I get to minister in hat way a lot…and its how I keep my girlish figure;]” I dropped the ball there, but was reminded tonight how much I love having a renewed joy in this ministry.