6 minute read
Something’s Missing
Wil Triggs
Before Cheryce Berg took on director of children’s ministries, before Kids’ Harbor was called Kids’ Harbor, before Diane Jordan started as director of children’s ministries, before that position existed and the responsibilities belonged to the now defunct board of Christian education, Linda Murphy was teaching children in Bible school at College Church. She started 36 years ago. She was a faithful teacher who persevered through a lot of change. She has taught some of the parents of current students.
That makes Linda sound old.
But in all the ways that count, Linda remains youthful in her love of serving the church. One of the things she excelled in was the missionary stories she would tell the children. When Linda told of Amy Carmichael, it wasn’t a story from the faraway past. For a few moments down in Room 100, Linda became Amy— rescuing children, telling people about Jesus, celebrating the rescuing God. And if we needed someone to put on a robe to be disciple or put on a pair of makeshift wings to be an angel, Linda was always game. She jumped in with everything she was and is.
This was not usually the only area of service for Linda. Back when the church had homecooked dinners on Wednesday nights, Linda was in the thick of it. And she was at most of our Tuesdays Together. Did I mention she's managing the Repeat Boutique?
If you drive by church during the week, you might see her pulling weeds and caring for the beds around the campus or planting something new. She’s not falling off the grid. You’ll still see her on Sunday mornings in worship or talking with others afterwards or being in an adult community with her husband, Paul.
A couple in our small group used to ask us, “How do you know so many people?” It wasn’t question they asked just once, but many times.
They were new to College Church. After giving many years of their lives to another church, bad things were happening there, and so they followed their adult son to College Church.
It was a rough adjustment.
And the question they kept asking us shifted over time from a question to a statement of fact: “Wil and Lorraine, they know everyone.” They would say this to other people. We found this to be sometimes a little irritating. We didn’t know everyone. We still don’t.
But I realized as I thought about it, that it was very likely that they themselves “knew everyone” at some level at their old church, the one they had left under painful circumstances. They lost “knowing everyone” when they left. It was perhaps a statement of sorrow that they themselves had lost the knowledge and relationships built over years of time at their old church.
How to start over?
They didn’t want to serve in the areas they had at their old church. Just being in those same positions brought back pain for both of them. They weren’t quite sure what or even if they wanted to serve.
Even before the pandemic, they often stayed home, watching the service on the livestream. There were some health issues, and it was easier after only a few hours sleep to just watch, coffee in hand, from the bedroom or study. It took a lot of energy for them just to show up some Sundays.
Sad to say, the failures of clergy and other church leadership have caused deep hurts and driven many people from churches. At least my friends didn’t give up on church altogether. What they were going through involved real pain, sorrow and loss.
We invited them to serve with us, and when they did, they did great. It was in service that they got to meet people they probably would not come across otherwise. Certainly not from watching the livestream.
But it continued to be a struggle for them to do more than come to worship service on a regular basis. That was before the pandemic. Now, though, their practice has become, dare I say, normal?
After being compelled to stay home for weeks or months, many have adapted to attending church from afar. For such people, service is almost out of the question. At least for right now.
Getting to know people is a valued part of church attendance and membership.
But when does that “right now” become a memory of the past? How do we know who is?
Most of us fall somewhere in between Linda and my other friends. But into our lives, wherever we happen to be, the Word of God comes, speaking still.
It is in this Word that we find hope and purpose.
Let’s say that Lorraine and I actually did know everyone at church. It’s not true, but let’s pretend that it is. Just for a moment. Some would leave the church or move away. Some would die. New people would be born or come into the church. Frankly, we couldn’t keep up with it all.
And then, over time, all of us who are involved today, will not be so involved for whatever reason. There are as many reasons as there are people. And over time, most people will forget the things we’ve said or done. For most of us, we ourselves will be forgotten by most. Others will come and fill our shoes. They’ll walk in different directions than we’re walking.
How might Scripture come to life, how might it come alive in us and through as at this strange time? Thanks to God’s Word and the Holy Spirit, there are as many answers to that question as there are people. And even more to come.
For now, though, there’s us. There are people to tell about Jesus coming across our paths. There is a new class of Kindergarteners to tell how God—Father, Son, Spirit— spoke and everything that was made was made. I have another old friend to join us this year, and he plays the banjo. We’ve got two new collegians and a faithful friend who walked through the pandemic with us last year.
If you happen to drive by College Church and you see a lady tending the flowerbeds, thank God for her service and how God has used her in big and mostly little ways over the years.
God’s Spirit has places for each one of us. Sometimes we don’t know where that might be, but it is his good delight to surprise us sometimes by using us. There’s a lot of talk about wearing masks these days. We’re all sick of it. But the masks no one sees are the most problematic. So by God’s grace, let’s take those off and risk being exposed to something new at College Church. Here’s to new faces. Take the risk. Even when it’s hard to step out of our homes, look beyond our families to the family of God. Welcome faces that don’t look like ours—they’re younger or older, different colors, whatever. And our faces, one by one, over time and with perseverance, becoming something different, something new, something that looks less like us and more like Jesus.
