Periodically I laugh at a common sign, one I know you have seen, one I particularly see in many restaurants, it simply says “these doors are to remain unlocked during business hours” Duh! Do they need reminding to unlock the doors to let customers in or is this particular business in the habit of locking its patrons in until they have purchased a sufficient amount of goods or tipped the waitress properly? Seems to me any business would struggle to survive if the doors remained locked. Having a sign to remind employees of that basic marketing concept seems absurd. Isn’t keeping the doors open the most important task each day? Ok the sign is likely a city ordinance but still seems silly.
Wow, almost a month between posts, the last few weeks have really run by fast, actively training for the next marathon, remodeling our hobby house, wheat harvest, visits from the kids, and church life. All ran together into one fast busy month. The last three Sundays I have had the privilege or the obligation to speak at our local church. Didn’t think till today that I should have written those sermons out in blog form and just posted them, would have cured two problems for me.. First I would have had more timely posts. Secondly I could have just turned on the projector and said “there it is guys read it for yourself.”
I am no theologian, in fact not sure I could spell theologian if it was not for the aid of Microsoft. I doubt I really said anything that important or memorable, it just needed to be done and I couldn’t find anyone else. I stepped up to the task. Our pastor recently resigned and we are currently without that leadership, preaching is likely the easy part of the job, there are lots of helps and if you are really hard up you always find a good sermon already prepared on the internet. However there are numerous other tasks needing done that our former pastor and his wife preformed that I knew would be harder to fill. I pray we don’t have an emergency, a crisis of spirit or body that would require a skilled professional minster before we find new leadership. But there are also the less glamorous everyday tasks that have to be done, nursery care, cleaning the restrooms, ordering supplies, organizing the ministry, mowing the grass, cleaning out the flower beds and we need someone to play the drums.
I challenged our adult Sunday school on a recent Sunday to step up, come prepared to fill in, be ready to teach a Sunday school class, be ready to preach, be ready if a visitor shows up with children to take the nursery. I had deliberately shown some inspiring videos and through words, scripture, and these videos sought to inspire them and push them to fill each big important task, I laid on guilt trips with a thick knife. I ask each to write down on a piece of paper, on small sticky notes I had placed on each table in our Sunday school area, what they would be willing to take on during the coming weeks. I knew they would do it, I knew every job would be covered, from the nursery to the janitorial service I knew they were fired up ready to tackle each task, One piece of paper, one small pink sticky note containing 4 simple words grabbed my heart, enough that I shed a few tears. I had forgotten something!
“I’ll unlock the doors”
David
