Recently I have moved from Newport News to Fredericksburg to be a part time Youth Minister at a church up here. As part of my compensation for my job i get to live in a house that is owned by the church. Now this house was built in the mid 1940s and hasnt had any proper upkeep in over twenty years. As such I have had to completly redo a good portion of the house. New floors, walls, ceilings, lights, the works. The church is paying for most of the materials but the labor has all been volunteer and mostly done by me. From this experience I have learned that people are willing to volunteer to help on such a project, but only for a couple of weeks. They very soon lose thir enthusiasm and stop showing up when they say they will. If I need anything done I have to specifically ask for help and keep hounding them until they come. Really learned the meaning of diffusion of responsibility.
This past week I went to the chirch business meeting and part of the discussion was the progress being done on the house. During the discussion someone had mentioned that the previous tenant had had to move their childrens beds away from the walls when it rained because water would just run down the inside of the walls and soak everything. I was a bit shocked that the people of the church knew how bad it was but never bothered to do anything about it. They certainly would not let their own homes fall into such a state or disrepair.
I think what gets at me most is the churches lack of outreach or willingness to do anything different than what they've always done. They are great at giving offerings to other people to do God's work, but when it comes to doing it themselves they are nowhere to be found. Guess we all get a little too comfortable and complacent sometimes.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment