Ordinary Life

We were constantly running around, trying to fit ordinary life into our busy schedule. Leadership meetings, worship band practices, home group and Sunday's were insane. We could easily be at church from early in the morning to late at night. It felt a little like we were drowning. It was hard to find time for family stuff, for rest and quality time with friends. It really was like living in two worlds that didn't seem to fit together. I remember a conversation I had with a dear friend after we had left the church we attended. I told him that I was a little frustrated because I felt like all I was doing at the time was being a dad and a husband. My dear friend looked me straight in my eyes and said "your language betrays you" and then "somehow you have been conditioned to think that those are less important things". That hit me like a ton of bricks. I totally did. I had come to believe that being a dad and a husband were lesser things compared to leading worship, leading a home group, doing ministry. It's still a little bit of a mystery how this happened because that is not what I was taught. All the teaching I got would clearly stated that family is of huge value and your marriage is key. So how did I end up not valuing being a dad and a husband? I think it has to do with context. let me try to explain; all of us were busy, all the leaders and a lot of non-leaders as well. I remember my wife and I having a conversation with a youn g couple at a "Welcome to our church" function. The husband and the wife were so frustrated because they felt like they were not involved enough in the church, They felt pressured to be more involved. They also expressed frustration about not being able to be a part of their kids life. They felt bad about not being able to have their son attend little league base ball because how busy they where and were about to get more busy. My wife asked them what they were involved in and the answer ran something like this; "Oh not very much, I mean all we do is home-group on Tuesdays, Adult Learning classes on Wednesdays, food bank on Saturdays and then Sunday School on Sundays. My husband also does the Mens' ministry and I (the wife) go to Women's bible studies. We also do "Serve Fest" when that happens".
To our amazement, she then added something like this; "We would love for our son to do the base ball thing but we do want more opportunities to serve the church and be part of evangelism". We were crushed. This is what we were a part of. This is what we were doing to people. When asked what we would do if we were them, we said, "Stop everything you are doing. Be a part of your sons Little league Base ball. Invest in your son. If you need support in that go to home-group , but for crying out loud, stop all the other stuff."
It's so sad to me now as I look back, this is something I was a part of doing to people. I was a part of the machine that somehow had created a context and a system that produced these kind of people. We didn't have time for all the stuff that we felt was so important. We didn't have time or energy to really live out our values.
Now then, we are doing things a little different. Our context for Church is "ordinary life". How can, what we do, how we do it, when we do it, serve our lives? As we tend to the ordinary life stuff, kids, finances, marriage, work and friendship, we ask ourselves this; how do we support each other in this, how do we form and shape things so ordinary life become our context for church? More on that tomorrow.