Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Well, hey friends, welcome back to another edition of the weekday podcast. Today, I want you to think about a church potluck. Now, if you're not familiar with this phenomena, I was at one not so long ago at a church I was visiting. Typically. Here's what a potluck is. A potluck is when three people show up with an actual dish. They've got somebody's grandmother's green bean casserole. They've got a real dessert with a name on a crock pot that's been plugged in since 6 that morning. Three people show up with that.
[00:00:26] 40 people show up with a 2 liter of a store branded soda and a bag of plastic forks that somebody's kid opened with their teeth in the parking lot. There's always exactly one mystery casserole that nobody claims and nobody's brave enough to be the first to try. Everybody eats like royalty. Three people cooked like they've entered a competition nobody told them they were in. And that picture reminds me of a lot of churches. On a given Sunday, there's a handful of people that are quietly carrying the nursery. They're teaching in small groups, they're hanging out with students. They're in the parking lot, the tech booth, they they the care calls, and a room full of people who showed up that ate well and never once wondered who made the casserole well. Ephesians 4:12 says, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ. That word equipping was used in Greek medical writings for setting a bone back into place. And it shows up in the Gospels for mending fishing nets when you put together with service, literally waiting tables. And you get this picture. Pastors and teachers exist to mend, to train, and to prepare believers.
[00:01:36] Not to do all the ministry while everybody else watches from a padded chair, but to equip them, prepare them, to train them. The ministry, in other words, belongs to the whole body.
[00:01:48] Every single person that's put faith in Jesus is a staff.
[00:01:53] Just some don't have a name badge to go with it. And here's what part that isn't funny. Somewhere in most churches, there's a person who visited for a year. They sat in the same seat every week. They never got handed a single job. And eventually they just stopped coming. Now if you ask them why, they wouldn't say the sermons were bad or the music wasn't their taste. They'd say something closer to I never felt needed there.
[00:02:16] Nobody drove them off. They just never got asked to be part of the body. And a body that never asked for you stops feeling like a body that you belong to. You're not called to do everything, you're called to do your part. So find your seam. Not everybody's job.
[00:02:32] Pick one act of service this week, not a five year commitment. One act and let it cost you something comfortable. Service rarely stretches anybody, including you. If everyone in the room served exactly the way you currently do, would this church be functioning or would it be starving? Every believer is staff. Some they just don't have a name badge. Well, tomorrow, the last one of the week, I'm going to tell you about my physical therapist who's extremely pleasant but has never once stretched me to the point of comfort. There's a phrase that they use that changed how I think about every hard conversation I've ever avoided. Hope to see you soon.
