The CBE Scroll

Comment by jlp

April 19, 2009 @ 9:18 am

This reminds me of this story – Matthew 6

1″Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2″So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Comment by joanne

April 20, 2009 @ 12:57 pm

I think the bigger the church gets the harder it is to have every member participation. The beauty of a small church is that it is a lot more “real.” Everyone knows everyone, the church is “owned” in a way, by every member because everything that happens, happens because we are doing it. The musicians are us. The clean up and preparations are all us. We paint the nursery, we teach the Sunday school, we put on the coffee hour, we answer the phone and copy and fold the bulletins, we visit each other in the hospital and bring each other meals, and pray with each other.

A big church has to have talent up front, and paid staff and so on.

Comment by Frank

April 20, 2009 @ 4:46 pm

It is true that everyone’s gifts matter, and that churches, both large and small, should make efforts to utilize everyone who is willing to serve and to fully use their gifts for the good of all. And I agree this is easier to do in smaller congregations, where everyone recognizes that all must participate if the church is to succeed in its mission to the community at large. But even large churches, such as Willow Creek, have found ways to mobilize the majority of their members in various aspects of ministry. It always boils down, I think, to the leadership realizing their responsiblity is to help the members of the congregation discover their gifting and calling, then train and equip them for various works of ministry; while the members of the congregation must recognize they are the ones who are gifted and called to ministry, and so need to seek the training and equipping for these works of ministry the Lord has provided in the form of these leaders (cf. Eph. 4:7-10). And a book that might be a good start for developing this kind of thinking and practice would be Larry Richard’s “A Theology of Ministry for God’s People” (if I remember the title correctly). It certainly helped me to begin thinking along these lines.

Comment by MathLadyX2

April 21, 2009 @ 6:30 am

Those who serve without a desire to be seen are those who will be first in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Comment by jlp

April 21, 2009 @ 7:02 pm

People like Mrs. Doll are the salt of the earth that Jesus talked about. If only all of us served God as humbly and as invisibly as she did.

Comment by Jamie

April 27, 2009 @ 3:00 pm

Oh wow, I loved that, Hubert Edgar, that was great! Bless you, bless Mrs. Doll. ; )

I can’t carry a tune myself, yet I make the effort to sing the hymns in church, so I especially liked the phrase, “Her gifts in the musical area were all under someone else’s Christmas tree.” LOL. ; )

The “invisible” (or nearly invisible) gifts, the gifts you don’t see, the ministry that barely seems to register — yes, these gifts matter just as much as all our gifts that are given freely by grace.

I don’t understand the megachurch thing, for instance. Being big and loud isn’t always the answer, but humility in Christ always is.

Comment by Sonnet

April 27, 2009 @ 5:11 pm

Many years ago, I sometimes sat/stood near a man with cerebral palsy at our church. He would have been considered very “poor” in singing talent. Yet, I often found myself moved by hearing his voice singing praises to God. His worship touched my heart far more profoundly than the “rich” voices offered up to God. His giving to God blessed me, and I am thankful that he didn’t hold back out of a fear of musical “poverty.”

“As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. ‘Truly I tell you,’ he said, ‘this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.’” Luke 21:1-4 TNIV

Comment by Dorcas

May 7, 2009 @ 5:39 pm

Thank you for posting this. It reminded me of our “Mrs. Doll” and how her face shone with love, even though she was a poor singer. I miss those days when such things still happened in church..

Comment by LDW

June 16, 2009 @ 2:40 am

There are a few voices at our church that sing their praise loudly and with great pride, yet singing is not their strong suit. I have found that it takes my attention off my own “talented” offering to God, and makes me check my heart… am I really praising him, or am I just showing off? This reality check is so good for me.

In our image-based culture we tend to think that everything is about looking and sounding good. But the beauty of the Christian message is that it gives us freedom from the idol of image.