– Kim R. Smith, Sound District Lay Leader
If you were going to channel your inner artist this afternoon, would you pick up a paintbrush and strategically cover the details keeping your hands perfectly clean as the page came to life? Or would you choose to plunge your fingers into all the colors and create something seemingly without structure that definitely made your hands a mess and probably your clothes as well?
Consider the neighborhood around your church building as a blank canvas. Will you serve that neighborhood by keeping your hands clean and the details structured, or will you choose a method that might get your hands a little messy? Each method will bring an image to life. Each one will impact the neighborhood and neighbors, each of those methods will impact you as well.
Think about the many ways we serve our communities. Often, we collect food or clothing for the needy. We collect financial donations and send them to disaster relief. We collect school supplies and help provide weekend nutrition bags for children. These are all beautiful ways that paint a picture of loving our neighbors in meaningful ways. All of these ways are like choosing to paint with a brush. We are creating something beautiful, but we aren’t getting our hands messy doing it. That’s not a bad thing at all!
Consider if we invited the needy to our tables for dinner. While there, we could get to know them and find out who they are and what they love. Those relationships might make painting with a brush impossible because what we thought they needed might not be what they need at all. We finger paint when we move food collection to inviting strangers to our table. It can get a little messy.
What if our financial donations were matched with disaster relief training? In addition to giving money that helps in ways we might never personally see, we move into the houses that need mucking after a hurricane and help salvage their family treasures. Going into their lives at that level can get complicated. We might learn that our neighbors are no different than us, and that makes us feel like we are then fingerpainting our entire lives and values. It can get complicated.
Imagine what would happen if we matched our donations of school supplies with postcards to legislators asking for changes in policies that keep so many women and children living in poverty. Imagine if we matched our “Welcome Back” gifts for teachers with an hour in the classroom reading to a child or sharing lunch together. Suddenly the supplies have faces and names, and we are once again finger painting and making things both complicated, messy, AND beautiful at the same time!
Both ways of painting produce beautiful results. There is something powerful about letting go of safe and “clean” and structure, especially when I think of the ministry that Jesus Christ calls us to each day. He doesn’t give us a lot of structure; he simply says, “ Love.” Love, we can all agree, IS messy and complicated and beautiful! Consider those in your congregation who might enjoy the less structured ways of serving and equip them to do that work. Make room for the finger painters in your church as well as those who prefer the brushes, then buckle up as they create beauty in the name of God in different and glorious ways!
“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” Galatians 5:13