Pastor Chris
When I served at Mountain View, Senior Pastor Glenn always liked to say as he welcomed the community to worship something along the lines of the fact that “most of what this church, or any church worth its name, does is not done in an hour of worship.” And this is just as true for Esperanza as it was and is for Mountain View.
But that raises the question; What does it mean to be a church that continues to work outside of an hour’s worship service? What does that really look like? And a part of the problem is, even with all the various ways we serve at and through Esperanza, we still don’t always know how to declare these things as good and holy ministries that tie us back to the worship in which we also encounter God.
How can we connect our hour of worship with the stuff we also do outside of that hour? What if all you have is one hour if you’re lucky?
Maybe you’re one of those people who find that whenever a service ministry opportunity pops up that speaks to you, you have a conflict of some sort or another, such as odd work hours or family dynamics that require you prioritize that over a fleeting ministry opportunity you aren’t sure where it might lead yet. And these are natural things. Coming to worship once a week is often hard enough. Additional time intentionally being involved in the life of the church can seem daunting, to say the least. And so for many of us, week after week we attend worship. We’re reminded that there’s so much happening in ministry beyond the bounds of a worship service, and yet we feel like we’re “just” worshipping. And that’s it. Our faith sits stagnant. Or so it seems.
But the truth of the matter is our faith is a faith that isn’t dependent on our intentional actions on behalf of our faith. The truth is faith – and acting in faith – sometimes happens in ways that we can’t fully understand at that particular moment. Sometimes the work of the church isn’t in all those fantastic ministries that we promote, but it happens in the mundane that we live out every day. Not to say that these other ministries aren’t important – indeed, they are often essential and life giving – but there are seasons in our lives where I believe we are invited to live into our other callings just as fully as those that are often expressed intentionally in our worship service. And a part of this has to do with vocation.
Vocation is a word that oftentimes we want to reduce down to the idea of being a job, but Martin Luther described vocation as something much more in depth than a simple job. The late Dr. Marc Kolden describes Luther’s understanding of vocation this way: “… ‘vocation’ refers to more than mere dedicated service in one’s occupation. It refers above all to the whole theater of personal, communal, and historical relationships in which one lives.” Yes, often the paths of employment we take in order to establish a livelihood are a part of vocation, but true vocation is far more broad than this understanding. Vocation is all the various ways we live into who God is calling us to be. That means whether we’re joining the church choir or building houses for Habitat, or simply going about our daily lives, we have an opportunity to be actively doing the work of God, because the work of God is also found in living in right relationship with one another and God’s creation.
That means as you are living your daily life, if you are living it with the intention to be in right relationship with one another, you are living out your faith. When you live into your call to be the best parent you can be, you are living into God’s calling for your life in how you parent. When you choose the path of patience when you’re tempted to be aggravated during yet another slowdown on I-10, you’re living into God’s calling in your life on how you relate to the stranger on the road. All these things and far more are a part of your living your life in faith exactly where you are at this moment. And these are good and holy things to be celebrated.
Perhaps recognizing how God is using you in the mundane everyday things will give you the courage to step out and find ways to engage in ministries in support of Esperanza’s mission or other service groups with more intentionality as well. Because God’s call is not one that is static – God’s call is one that invites us to greater faithfulness. As God has called you to your daily vocations, God has and will continue to call you to seek opportunities to use these vocations as a stepping block to new and meaningful adventures doing God’s work in the world.
What might God be preparing you for in your day-to-day journey? Come and join us in worship, and listen to how God is still working in our worship and also in our world.
Pastor Chris