My Y&F Newsletter Article

What if you walked up to your church one day and displayed on its doors were these hours of operation: “Church Open Only for These Occasions: Baptisms, Weddings, Funerals, and twice a year on Christmas and Easter”. How would you feel about that? Would there be a big “whew” when you realized that you weren’t held accountable anymore to sit in a pew every Sunday? Or would you go somewhere else to find a church that had suitable operation hours for you? I’m sure most of you would be pretty upset by that fact and maybe wonder how did this happen. Now this is just a hypothetical/fictional situation. Please don’t run up to Pastor and ask him why our times are changing at church!!

Here is a nonfictional way that things could happen that way: Everyone could just get burned out and not care anymore. It’s that way everywhere these days. People just can’t volunteer their time anymore or take time to nurture their faith. It’s all about staying busy with all sorts of things that society deems important. (This is not a judgment-I’m just as in it as everyone else is) How do we go against the grain? How do we surround our time as well as our family’s time with things that are important to God? Well, first what’s important to God? Well, one thing I know we hear every Sunday is to serve others, take care of the poor, to feed the hungry, to love our neighbors as ourselves and to be in fellowship with others and with God himself. That’s what God wants. Society wants us to worry about ourselves, “You’ll only be happy if you have a ton of money and a ton of cool things”. (Don’t get me wrong, I like cool things) But we have to remember what is really important to us and not by society’s standard.

How would this effect the church you may be asking? Well, if only the same twenty people join committees, volunteer their time to help paint walls, volunteer to teach Sunday school, usher, read or assist the minister; burnout is not far behind. I know not everyone is healthy enough or young enough to do all these things. There has to be a turnover process. Us younger people (and yes, I’m putting myself in the “younger” status) need to know that being a member of a church also leads to a commitment. Not just a commitment to worship here on Sundays but also a commitment to find ways that you can become involved in helping the church. I wasn’t always committed to the church. I started teaching Sunday school when my son was old enough to attend. I also wasn’t involved in any committees or groups for a long time. It wasn’t’ until Al Duthie (I still remember the call) called me one day to ask if I was interested in being a church council member. “What? Me?” Sometimes a simple phone call is all that it takes.

This month on Rally Day, we are going to try to rally people up to become interested in what our church has to offer you and how you can help the church. Helping in the church allows the church to remain open all the days between the baptisms, weddings, and holidays. The church can do a lot more between those highlighted days when there are people inside that are committed to it.

As Pastor has said many times this month: Thank you to all those who are committed in the many ways you contribute to our church. You are a blessing!