Tonight as I was mopping the floor in the coffee shop, I remembered a school assembly I sat in when I was about 13. (I have already admitted my age in an earlier post, so you know that was quite a long time ago.)
One of my teachers was taking the assembly and was talking about a summer when he had a job in a petrol station. He found it quite dull, but decided that the important thing was to do his dull job really well. He quoted a couple of verses from a hymn we used to sing in school. I guess it was the sweeping and mopping which made me think of it:
Teach me, my God and King,
in all things thee to see,
and what I do in anything
to do it as for thee.
A servant with this clause
makes drudgery divine:
who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
makes that and the action fine.
Any form of Christian ministry, whether ordained or not, involves a bizarre array of different kinds of tasks, some of which are pretty menial. I used to run the Alpha course in my previous church, and that involved the ministry of moving chairs, the ministry of making tea and the ministry of folding up tables (I really, really hate fold-up tables). But it felt like it was all worth it, because we were creating an event where guests would feel welcome, would be able to make new friends, and would have the opportunity to explore Christianity.
A friend recently told me that no one is allowed to preach in his church who won't clean a toilet or give an old lady a lift. I like that.
One of my teachers was taking the assembly and was talking about a summer when he had a job in a petrol station. He found it quite dull, but decided that the important thing was to do his dull job really well. He quoted a couple of verses from a hymn we used to sing in school. I guess it was the sweeping and mopping which made me think of it:
Teach me, my God and King,
in all things thee to see,
and what I do in anything
to do it as for thee.
A servant with this clause
makes drudgery divine:
who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
makes that and the action fine.
Any form of Christian ministry, whether ordained or not, involves a bizarre array of different kinds of tasks, some of which are pretty menial. I used to run the Alpha course in my previous church, and that involved the ministry of moving chairs, the ministry of making tea and the ministry of folding up tables (I really, really hate fold-up tables). But it felt like it was all worth it, because we were creating an event where guests would feel welcome, would be able to make new friends, and would have the opportunity to explore Christianity.
A friend recently told me that no one is allowed to preach in his church who won't clean a toilet or give an old lady a lift. I like that.
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