Tuesday, December 13, 2011

what I learned today

Layers.

There are layers in everything.  For instance, our church services - lots of layers.

The original pastor topic decision - then layers...
Thematic music chosen
Sometimes thematic drama
Thematic/current information gathered to create announcements
Thematic music chosen/ scored or written/ given to singer and musicians to practice and learn
Thursday night rehearsal
Tech details written out so directors know every camera angle to take & every solo to feature
I could go on and on and on with the layers of our services.

But, today I realized layers exist in each and every event, not just the ones I work on.

No where in our ministry is this played out more intensely than our Adopt A Child event!  Today I get the privilege of witnessing this event come to its completion.

Adopt A Child begins with the need of a child about to experience NO Christmas, these children are identified by various agencies around town that serve our most needy.

  • our people choose a child to buy for
  • gifts are retuned to church
  • gifts are meticulously numbered, recorded...to the point that if ONE gift is missing the team knows exactly who to contact
  • gifts are all set out - put into huge Christmas bags - and waiting for the care takers of the children to come today!
I could go on and on about the faithful people that put in 'full-time weeks' to make this happen but I want to focus on an even deeper layer.

Call me clueless but as I left the auditorium on Sunday I happened to look down and see one of the AMAZING - HANDMADE - GORGEOUS name tags placed on each bag. . I say clueless because it has been on the packages in previous years too - just that I had not paid attention.

These are not just bags of gifts given to faceless children -  each child has a name and the name is written on every tag.

We have a dear lady in our congregation that first of all drives from very far away to attend Crossroads and secondly HAND MAKES all the name tags.  This requires her to begin in JUNE of every year!  

One story associated with these precious tags of love occurred last year.

Darlene, our fearless leader was sitting with a grandmother who came to pick up her child's gift and she mentioned the beautiful name tags.  She said they collect them each year and the name tags have been their ONLY decoration in their house.  They save them and hang them across their mantel!




Events like Adopt A Child provide serving opportunities that are such deep layers even those very close to the event don't always see.  I write this to encourage each of you to serve in some way.  It doesn't matter if your acts of service are a very buried layer that we don't see - God does!

No comments: