Vocation

In my work with Marsh, I often catch myself falling into the mentality that bigger-is-better. Society would dictate that the more people we have in our services, the more donations we bring in, the more prayers we say, and the more activities and study groups we offer, the better off we are and the more successful our ministry is. In some cases, this could be true but it is so easy to get caught up in a strange competition where ministry becomes more about quantity than quality. Eventually, we lose sight of the whole focus of ministry and become simply another business trying to maximize our output.

This past Sunday, Jess and I arranged for Jen to come preside over communion. We prepared dinner and waited for others to gather with us but when 6:30 rolled around, it was just me, Jess, and Jen. When we have a vespers service with three, four, or five people—two of which are me and Jess—it’s so easy to think of it as a failure and ask myself, what can I do to grow this ministry, where else can I advertise, how can I get more of my friends to come, how can I reach out to people I don’t know? While these are important questions, it distracts me from the here-and-now of vespers. That’s a shame because I find the services so meaningful and I love the opportunity to worship in a more casual and intimate setting.

I have to remind myself that the point of a worship service is not to fill the space but to gather together as members of the body of Christ and worship God together—to pray, learn from each other, hear the Word, share the meal, and be strengthened to go back into the world. This can be accomplished in a cathedral packed to the walls but also in a room of just a few people. As Matthew 18:20 says, ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there with them.’

In my meeting last week with Soren, he asked me about my hopes and dreams for this semester. I’m always caught off guard by questions like that and never give a satisfactory answer. A year is just such a large chunk of life to assess in a few seconds. And I want so many things—I want to figure out what’s next after college, I want to travel, I want to visit friends, I want to get through this semester without giving up sleep, exercise, or sanity. But I also want to be able to slow down amidst all the demands of life—the hopes, the dreams, the assignments, and the stresses—and I want to take time to connect with people. I want to ignore my tendencies to judge success on quantity and I want to give a vespers service of two or three people as much attention as I would give to a vespers service of ten or fifteen. I want to take the time to pray, to learn from fellow members of the Body of Christ, to share the meal with them, to listen to the Word, to be strengthened to go back out into the world, and to be inspired to come back and do it all over again. I want to find the presence of Christ in even the smallest gathering.