Clean Up on Aisle Three!

We had a Wild Game Dinner at our church this past Saturday. If you've ever worked on a special day or event like this, then you know that there's a tremendous amount of work involved in planning and setting up. There was a lot of planning and meal prep and cooking of course. And lots of decorating. As Kylee scatter empty shotgun shells along the camouflage table runners, she commented that this was not what she originally had in mind when we put her in charge of decorating for events.

There was also the planning of the program and the hours different people put into practicing music and creating and practicing skits. Apparently there's a whole deer blind etiquette to follow - who knew! There were also all the prizes to collect and competitions to organize. All that work definitely paid off because we doubled the amount of people that came to the dinner, and we had thirteen saved Saturday night.

One of the most difficult things about an event like this, though, is the clean up. We had people that signed up to help with clean up, and we had even more of our church folks stick around to help restore the building to Sunday morning readiness. There were people moving chairs and tables back into Sunday School rooms, people taking down decorations, people vacuuming, even people cleaning bathrooms.

It was going really well until about 10:00 that night when Kylee came in the office and asked who had signed up to clean the kitchen ... 

Apparently that was one gap we had on the sign-up sheet. By that time there were few people left at the church and most of them had been there for almost twelve hours. We trooped into the kitchen to look at food still out and dishes from serving 200 people still piled high. It would have been so easy to start complaining. To comment that we weren't doing this next year. In short, it would have been easy to let Satan snatch the victory from us. Instead, people who had finished their assigned work, gathered in the kitchen and rolled up their sleeves. By the time I turned out the lights in the church kitchen at 11:30, order had been restored.

I was reminded of the church conference my husband attended last fall when he had his heart attack. The day we headed home was the day after the conference ended, and we stopped by the church to thank the pastor and staff for the visits and prayers while my husband was in the hospital. One of the staff, the pastor's son, was dressed rather casually that day. When my husband asked him what he was going to do that day, he replied that he was going to be going over the property picking up garbage. He was very matter-of-fact about it. It wasn't exciting, but it was something that had to be done. 

No one really likes the clean up after a big event. It's not fun or glamorous. And it's not noticed unless it's not done. But it's still a necessary part of the work. Proverbs 14:4 says Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox. The man cleaning up garbage across multiple buildings after a conference had a part in the results of that conference just as much as the special music did. The people cleaning the kitchen Saturday night had a part in those thirteen souls getting saved just as much as the speaker did. 

So where am I going with this? You may not be the most visible part of your church, but your work is important. So do it and do it well. And don't let Satan keep you from your joy in serving.

Also, the next time you attend an event at your church, know that it didn't happen without a lot of effort. What can you do to help?