I just got back from the Women’s Ministries staff meeting. I’m noticing that some areas always serve some sort of food. Contrary to the way you may stereotype Women’s Ministries as folks who are always baking goodies, we rarely have food at our meeting. Unfortunately, when I pointed this out, the others volunteered me to bring the food next time. Ooops.

I like staff meetings, simply because it gives me a chance to see everyone in the area at once. In our oh-so-hierarchical system, we receive the report from on high (the division director, Curtis Kearns), followed by our own small updates on the projects we’re working on. Like any staff meeting, they can be somewhat tedious—particularly if we’re talking about the budget.

Today, Curtis’ report told us that once again, we’re getting less revenue than we hoped for this year. Sometimes it feels like we program staff are World War II housewives—the church will be handing out ration coupons before we know it. For a program like NNPCW, where we already bring our own linens to CoCo meetings and I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the World Tour, I wonder where people think there is more fat to trim.

I also wonder, if people indeed back up their values with their pocketbooks, what this says about how people value the work of our church. Funding, in this denomination, is of course a highly politicized issue. Depending on your theological leanings, you may have different answers about why the dollars are shrinking. But really, who knows? Maybe it is just that all those old, faithful Presbyterian saints are dying off.

But maybe it is more than that. Maybe it is an attitude, one which I participate in at times, of valuing the church primarily for what it gives to us rather than how we can serve God through it. For instance, a phrase I’ve heard (and said myself, once or twice), when church-shopping is, “Oh, that church just didn’t do it for me.” We talk more about the songs they sing, the number of small groups they offer, the preacher’s style, than we do about the opportunities they provide to live out Jesus’ call to become a servant. We expect the church to primarily minister to us, rather than to offer itself as the vehicle through which we can minister to others.

If we look at the church only in selfish and individualistic terms, it naturally makes sense that stewardship is not going to be a top priority. It also follows that we won’t see past our little worshipping club to notice the real needs of others, whether those needs are physical, spiritual, emotional, or otherwise. If Christ commands us to “wash one another’s feet” in imitation of him (John 13:14), then to fail in this task is to cut off our own spiritual head as a church. And a decapitated body will eventually die.

So when you think of the church, when you think of NNPCW, look out beyond what we bring to you and consider how you can serve God through this admittedly flawed institution. For those with a servant’s heart have kept God’s church alive, and will keep it vital into the future.

“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.” --Isaiah 1:11

“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” --Isaiah 1:16-17

Kelsey

What makes me mad Kelsey is that when I went to GAC as NNPCW's liaison, I had a suite to myself (2 TV's, a living room, 2 beds, etc) and ate lots of expensive food. The same is true with the ACSWP working group meeting I went to last weekend. Our per diem for food was $55 a day! I also had a hotel room to myself on this trip. At my PACHEM meeting in a couple months, I will share a hotel room with one person and eat moderately priced food.

So it seems that the more "adult" groups of the church get much more funding than the "young" groups. Just my observation.