When calling doesn’t turn out the way you expected.
Facebook reminded me that two years ago, I posted something about feeling like a doormat.
“It is one thing to follow God’s way of service if you are regarded as a hero, but quite another thing if the road marked out for you by God requires becoming a ‘doormat’ under other people’s feet. God’s purpose may be to teach you to say, ‘I know how to be abased…’ (Philippians 4:12). Are you ready to be sacrificed like that? Are you ready to be less than a mere drop in the bucket— to be so totally insignificant that no one remembers you even if they think of those you served? Are you willing to give and be poured out until you are used up and exhausted— not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work while maintaining a saintly attitude, because they feel such service is beneath their dignity.” – Oswald Chambers
It was January 2016. My family had been back from Japan for over six months, and I had been working as a children’s pastor for all but three weeks of that time.
As if re-entry wasn’t challenging enough.
I took the role at a time when the church had undergone a major transition, including a change in location from an industrial park warehouse to a beautiful old church campus. The children’s ministry occupied what had been a preschool, and the rooms needed to be renovated, as they had been built in the 50s and still had galvanized pipes and such.
Renovations began a week or two before I began this role and dragged on for months. Every Sunday, when the kids’ ministry team would show up to set up the children’s classrooms (the kids’ ministry office was 10 miles away, so we’d have to bring all the supplies over each week), we’d find fun surprises like a circular power saw left on the floor, exposed electrical wires, or giant rolls of carpet filling a room and rendering it unusable for the day.
It’d be a different classroom under construction every week, so our team would have to lock the hazard-laden rooms, scramble to reassign kids’ ministry classrooms, and tell parents where their kids would be that day.
This annoyed a lot of them, adding to my stress.
During the church’s transition, scores of people had left for other churches and there was pressure on my team to keep children and parents happy, lest their families leave the church, too.
When news broke that one family had left, one of my superiors came up to us in a huff, asking me what happened. I hadn’t even seen this family since I started this role, but I felt the blame for their departure.
The weekly room assignment shuffling wasn’t the only challenge. More than a few volunteers who had been serving in children’s ministry stopped when I came on board. I later learned that there was some resentment over me being offered the role over other leaders at the church. One former volunteer even asked me, “Are you really committed to kids, or is this job just an ‘in’ for you to work at (this church)?”
I was speechless. I didn’t need an “in” to this church, as I had previously worked there for 7 years. My family left Japan because I felt called specifically to children’s ministry at this church, in this city, yet here was this perception that I was coming home from overseas, needed a job, and got my friends to carve out a role for me at someone else’s expense.
It would take me a while to earn the trust of parents and volunteers, so I gave my all to the kids’ ministry, as did my team.
We would show up at church an hour earlier on Sundays to handle contingencies. If there were power tools and panes of glass lying around in a classroom, we would move them to make the room usable. We busted our behinds to make sure that classrooms were safe, clean, and child-proof, and if we didn’t have enough volunteers, we would jump in and teach the classes ourselves.
As if that wasn’t challenging enough…
Once in a while, the main services would go into overtime. I’m not talking about 5-10 minutes over– services could go an extra 30-45 minutes sometimes. One service went over by an hour. Kids were getting hungry, restless, and irritable. Volunteers were being pushed to their limits, serving for a 2+ hour stretch with no end in sight, although they were all very gracious about it.
Our team’s pleas to the main service to have parents come pick up their hangry kids were ignored because, they said, they didn’t want to limit what the Holy Spirit was doing.
Really? God’s work can be hindered by the clock? Call me crazy, but if God can create the universe in 6 days by simply speaking it into existence, I don’t think He needs us to give Him an extra 45 minutes to accomplish His will.
It wasn’t hard to think that the rest of the church saw us as little more than child care, watching over kids so that their parents could sing an extra set of songs in the main service.
Is this what God called us back from Japan for?
When we sense God calling us to something, we probably anticipate good times and smooth sailing. We forget that:
- Noah was trapped on a boat full of animals for a year
- Moses led millions of irritable people to wander through the desert for 40 years
- Jesus was executed as a criminal for sins he did not commit
Calling is about obedience, not comfort.
Things got better around Christmas of 2015. Renovations were completed. New volunteers began to sign up. I found a greater sense of connection with the kids and their parents. This was also around the time that I recovered from a painful re-entry.
Relief was in sight. I was feeling good about children’s ministry—finally, after slogging through a difficult six months.
Then came January 2016. The beginning of the end.
