Small Things Matter

Everyday thousands of pastors and church leaders get up in the morning, drink a cup of coffee, pray, and start their day of ministry. For most of us, the day is a day of small things: a phone call to a parishioner who has been in the hospital, an administrative task, a meeting with the chair of a ministry team, a phone call to a community partner about an event. Each day is filled with a series of small things, any one of them, on their own, does not seem important.

Most of us spend our entire careers doing small things. We will never be named a CNN Hero for our work. We will not be elected Bishop (if we in a denomination that does that).

Still, we follow a Savior who taught us that insignificant things, and sometimes things that seem like failures, can be the cornerstone to something powerful. You just never know. Jesus once told the Jewish religious leaders: “The stone that the masons threw out is now the cornerstone.” He was making an reference to himself as someone they were rejecting, but of course he is the cornerstone of our church. They saw him and his work as something small and useless. But we know better.

On the first Sunday that our church, The Village, opened for weekly worship we had a new visitor show up. She told us that there was a need for a support group in Northwest Ohio for people like her. Her group is an infinitesimal portion of the population, but they are greatly oppressed and harassed by the rest of society. She said to me, “We need a safe space.” The Village Church offered our church as a safe space for the first transgender support group in Northwest Ohio. Twenty-five people came to the first meeting and they continue to meet monthly, now five years later. The support group is a small ministry, now meeting in another church because we moved and we could no longer offer them space. We did a small thing to get them started.

The act of starting a support group did not turn us into a mega church. They did not bring significant money into our church. But on any given Sunday, you might find one to four transgender persons worshiping with The Village Church, feeling welcome and accepted. This is a small and yet powerful thing.

Sometimes it is easy to feel small when we do what seem to be only small things. But small things are not small to God. And small things are not small to the people they touch. Small things are powerful. They might even become the cornerstone for something big. Either way, I hope you will keep doing small things, because small things matter.

How to Focus a New Ministry Team: Start With Why

How to Focus a New Ministry Team: Start with Why

As my church member Rosie and I prepared for the first meeting of our new theatre group I was filled with anticipation. We had invited 22 people to the first pot-luck gathering to discuss how we might change the world through our love of theatre and doing theatre. Rosie, an experienced director and mature Christian leader, peered at me over her Starbucks cup and said, “Now, Cheri, as we lead this first conversation we need to remember who we are dealing with. This is a group of really creative theatre people. They are going to have ideas going in a million different directions. We need a plan to keep the group on task.” I laughed because Rosie and I have a habit in our conversations of jumping from one topic to the next at lightning speed. We are both dreamers. I got her point.

So at the meeting, rather than starting with “let’s do a play” and letting them take off in a million directions with what show we might do, who could do the sets, the costumes, what venue we might use, and then start casting the show….we tried another tactic.

We started with why. We asked the sixteen eager people gathered in a living room, “Why would a group of church folks want to do theatre together?” Here are some of the answers we got:

•  To deliver a positive message in a creative way
• There is a place for everyone in the theatre, some are actors, some make costumes, some work behind the scenes, some take tickets, everyone can contribute; 
• People might come to a theatre production before they would come to a church
• Theatre is a context that is free from judgment (unlike the way some of us have experienced church); everyone is welcome in the theatre community
• To expand our presence in the community

Starting with the question of “Why do theatre?” helped us to find a grounding for what we are going to do. Notice that we did not spend agonizing time crafting a perfect mission statement. Yet we still got some great content by asking the question “Why are we going to do this?”

Simon Senek in his book, Start with Why, thoroughly explores the idea of starting with why we do what we do rather than starting with what we are going to do. If you are not one of the 14 million people who have watched his TED talk, you can see a 5 minute condensed version of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPYeCltXpxw. Our Village ARTS (A Revolutionary Theatre Society) is off to a great start, in part, because we started by asking “why.” 

Why are you doing what you do? Do you know? When starting a new group, I encourage you to start with "why?"

Asking "Why?" will give great focus to your group as you begin.

Warp and Weft

In weaving, the warp are the pieces of yarn threaded lengthwise on the loom. The weft is the name for the thread or yarn which is woven transversely through the warp to make the fabric. The key to having a good strong fabric is to prepare the warp carefully on the loom as you begin.

In my life, my warp are the things that keep me in balance: my trust in God, my daily prayer routine, and my family. My weft are all my wonderful activities and ambitions for each day: ministry coaching, church planting, being a pastor, trying to be a good mom and community member, doing justice, having some fun for myself, and self-care.

When the shuttle, the tool used to move the threads of the weft back and forth across the warp, is thrown and pulled too tightly then the edges of the fabric (called selvedges) pull in and the fabric is no longer square. Any weaver can see there is a problem with the fabric.

When my life gets out of balance, I am trying to do too much. I throw the shuttle back and forth across the warp of my life, trying to weave too many threads into too small a space. The edges of my fabric shrink in and I feel like my life is shrinking in. I cannot breathe. I have to relax. I have to find a way to let go of some things so there is space for what is most important.

Fabric, to be beautiful, must be able to breath. The weft must be in balance with the warp.

This blog is about balance and about weaving all the aspects of my life together in a way that brings balance and beauty. The key is to depend upon the warp: trust in God, daily prayer, and family. Without these three, I cannot be a pastor, a coach, a church planter, a good citizen, or a good mom.

I hope you will share your challenges and your successes with me. I especially want to hear from other pastors who are parents about how you manage the balance of these two full time jobs. Let’s learn together.