Beautiful Service

A couple of years ago, I was an audience member. I was completely immersed in the teachings of my pastor. I was falling in love with church again, and actually seeing something new in the whole church scene that I had never experienced before. My pastor has a heart for service, and it was made clear in his commentary of the Scriptures.

I had heard him talk about maturity in Christ, and being a disciple of God's Word. He talked about being a doer of the Word, and not just a spectator. The fruit of his teaching was evidenced by the joy everyone around me had as they were serving. I'd see people painting walls with happiness. They would sweep the floors with singing. It was really an unreal experience, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

One Sunday morning, Pastor did something a little different. He asked for a couple of people to join him up front and he presented them to everyone as new staff members. He asked for us to pray for them, and talked a little about their stories. I could make a guess at who was presented, but the only one I remember for sure was Kat. Her story was motivating to me, and sparked a desire in my heart that I have wished ever since then to come true.

Kat came to know Jesus in our church around Christmas time in 2005, I believe. She started working at the church almost immediately, and the Lord has been working through her life amazingly. Still sitting in the audience, I turned to my wife after hearing Kat's story, and I told her that I thought it would be my earnest heart's desire to work at the church, like Kat. I had no idea what it would take to work at a church that I loved, but God gave me some direction.

We went to a little thing called "Meet the Pastor".... we now call it "the Connection". Anyway, a ministry leader there asked for people of interest in audio to start serving with him on the media team. That was my casting off point. I actually never saw the light of audio, but got plugged into the video ministry.

It was my first time ever serving the Lord. You see, I served at church before doing things like childcare or clean-up duty, but it was just that... a duty. I always had done things out of obligation to man, and not devotion to God. It's amazing to look back and know how serving God can change a man. Only a couple of months later, my giftings as a leader started to surface, and I found myself in a position of responsibility. This fueled my desire to be in full-time ministry, working at the church, even more.

My day to day tasks at work started to seem like preparation for ministry, even though I saw no relation between my job and ministry work. They just seemed that way because it consumed my thoughts and prayer life. I started talking about this desire to work at the church with my brother in Christ who was discipling me. It would come up in conversation with my wife frequently, and she started to also have the same desires as I had. My Dad, whom I worked with at the time, started to be in agreement that I was less qualified for my current job and more qualified for a media position at the church. The problem was, that a media position wasn't available at the church, even though the need existed.

To fill the need, I just started serving more. My service started when I left the house for my commute, and again when I came home, where I prayed about the media needs. It continued daily as I organized emails and communication tools for the media team and leadership. I started to develop a website that was used as a hub for information related to the ministry I served in. I'd spend every available hour at the church to improve lighting, or camera angles, or just about anything that I could improve. My regular job took 55 hours of my week, and service for the Lord consumed more than 35 hours each week, and this continued for many months.

I started to realize that I was actually in full-time ministry simply based on the hours of service, but I didn't want to keep a timesheet for God. A wise brother instructed me to stop counting the hours and just be blessed by serving. He was right, logging my hours was a labor, not a blessing, and even though I loved the work I was doing for the Lord, I started to get weary.

About that time, I lost my job. Land development came to a halt in the Triad, and my engineering time was first cut and then ended. I thought that this would be my chance. "I'm in the market for work, and I'm already putting in the hours at church, it must be God's time to put me on staff," I foolishly said to myself. This was not in His plan. What I realized, is that by doing all of the volunteer work, the media needs were being met, and the church was able to function without a staff position in media. Praise be to God, that the need was met.

In pursuit for employment, I really wanted to build some skills that would be valuable to my church and to God for the ministry that He called me to. I scooped up the first thing that came to me which was a videography job working alongside of a fellow Christian in our church. This was great! I'd be able to do ministry and work at building skills for ministry at the same time, making me more valuable. Again, this was the wisdom of man, and not necessarily the direction of God's desire in my life.

This all was sort of like shooting myself in the foot. Strangely enough, working with a Christian brother, on "God projects", actually took my hours of service from the 35+ hours down to maybe 8 or 7 hours per week. I became more stressed out because I saw that my ministry was starting to have needs that I couldn't meet due to my time restrictions with the job. As this continued for a month or two, I started to be asked about why things weren't getting done, or more needs started to surface and I was asked to address them. I thought this looked good for my prospect to be on staff, because a need was starting to be noticed, and I had what it took to fill the need... of course I did, because I was the one meeting the need before, but my job as a videographer somehow prevented me from giving the necessary time.

It's quite an anomaly, really. My job was advertised as being one that would free me to do much more ministry work for our church, but instead ended up removing me from my responsibilities as they were. It certainly was cool to be able to take on new stuff that I wanted, such as editing the church TV Program for 3 months, and doing special commercials and promo projects, but those were in exchange for the more needed daily items of the ministry, instead of being in addition to those needs.

Now, my job is coming to a close, and the needs that I could no longer meet as a result of the job will now be met by a staff member. I'm back in the place of seeking for God's desire in my life regarding my career, and my service. I have found myself very confused about my desire to devote my full-time career to service at the church, and maybe that chapter is just planned for a later time in God's story. At the very least, God has used this to bring me back to prayer more frequently than before. I'll be certainly praying more for the media team as it will be under new leadership of sorts and bumpy roads will be ahead.

As for the beauty of service, the beauty found in Kat's story above, well there is always somewhere and some time that we can serve our Lord. I'm serving Him right now on my knees, and plan to serve him tomorrow behind a camera and tripod. No matter what my desire for work might be, the desire to serve my King is greater than any selfish ambition. My favorite passage in all of the bible tells this message much clearer:

Phl 2:3	Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.
Phl 2:4	Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
Phl 2:5	Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
Phl 2:6	who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
Phl 2:7	but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
Phl 2:8	And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Phl 2:9	Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name,
Phl 2:10	that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth,
Phl 2:11	and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

-Obed