Ministry & Love

Beth and I were asked to be one of the sets of communion servers at church today. We're in a church of 1000 people, so it felt nice to be asked. And it felt good to do it. It had been a while since I've done something "ministerial". It was good. In many ways I'm not ready to do official ministry. But that need not stop me from doing ministry all the same. We're still figuring out how to do that as "lay people" in a "big church."

We were reminded, at least, in talking about God's love for the world today that our call in life is to love others (hmm, this sounds familiar, doesn't it?). God's plan for the world it to show it His love. His plan for us is for us to be vehicles of that love. Sometimes it's hard to get beyond my self-centeredness and notice the needs of others around me--especially those I don't know well. Love is an action, and it requires vigilance--at least on my part so that I am focused on loving.

Pastor Efrem pointed out today that the church at large has readily gone to start clinics in the Congo, but we're reluctant to address health needs of those in our neighborhood; we'll go and build homes in Honduras, but are we taking care of the homeless around us? As Efrem said, "If we don't love the world around us, we can't love the world beyond us."