What Makes the Church the Church
This Sunday we wrap up our Sunday school offerings for the school year as we embrace our rhythms of work and rest. It is appropriate, as we pause, to take a moment to appreciate all those who serve on a regular basis, because they are really what makes the church the church. Sunday to Sunday there are folks that you see: doing music, greeting, teaching, cleaning up, etc... But there are many more serving that are rarely seen: in the nursery, the sound booth, in our children’s ministry, more cleaning, feeding college students, etc... Without the various members of the body pulling together, on Sundays and throughout the week, the church simply wouldn’t be the church.
While every function of the body is important, training up the “next generation” is among the most crucial things that a church does. As we pass down the tenets of the faith to our kids, we not only connect them to the most vital truths of the universe, but we ensure that a witness that will continue long after we ourselves are gone. However, children’s ministry is also one of the most labor intensive activities of the church. Recently Debbie Bukovietski, our beloved Children’s Ministry director, reminded us that on any given Sunday morning we have greater than 100 souls to account for between the ages of birth to 10. Over the course of a Sunday morning, nurseries, Sunday School and Christ Kids Worship all function with a predominantly volunteer work force. Praise the Lord for the way that He has provided for these needs through you! Let us continue to pray that we will have the collective zeal for this work as we look through the summer towards the fall!
Whether it is the children among us or engaging those with disabilities or the wounded or the lonely, we follow our Savior outside the camp where the needy are. It will be this theme of following the Savior outside the camp that will be our focus in this penultima study in Hebrews (cf. 13:7-21). Ultimately it is among the needy that we will all be found!