The Chapel Light - Oct/Nov 2007

This month I’d like us to think about stewardship – the responsibility that we have to care for and about certain things.     First, I’d like us to think about the church building.  At this point we don’t have a full-time custodian, and sometimes the task of cleaning up our building after a Sunday service or ministry meeting is made more difficult for our part-time cleaners than it needs to be.     Put your hymnal back into the rack.  That’s YOUR responsibility and it’s not that hard to do.     If you must bring a beverage into the service, don’t let your cup under your seat.  Throw it away.  If it’s one of those plastic or stainless types, don’t let it sit half full of coffee where it can be accidentally kicked and spilled.  Take it home, dispose of the leftover coffee, and wash the mug.  That’s YOUR responsibility.  If you don’t, the MVC Coffee Mug Elf has been known to dispose of such lovely mugs permanently.  That’s HIS responsibility.  :-)     Don’t let your bulletin lay on the seat (or even worse, the floor).  Take it with you or throw it away.  It’s YOUR responsibility.  Show love to the cleaners by making their job a little easier.     Don’t let your stuff lay on tables in the foyer or on the hatracks.  If you went through the gym on our recent “Find Your Lost Stuff Day” you saw four or five tables FULL of (among other things) shoes, shirts, jackets, Bibles, and even children’s eyeglasses (I saw 3 pairs!).  How can a child go month after month without eyeglasses???  Why wasn’t some parent ringing the church phone off the hook in search of those glasses???  Those glasses laid on the table in the foyer for MONTHS.  Are we that “easy come, easy go” that we can just keep buying glasses when little Susie loses them???  (Incidentally, ever since the teens’ all-nighter this summer, one of the guys left his toothbrush, toothpaste, and dental floss container on top of the towel dispenser in the men’s bathroom of the Classic Building.  I trust that this was just a spare;  I’ve disposed of it.  If it wasn’t a spare…well, that’s just despicably gross.)     If you move tables and chairs around, put them back before you go.  That’s YOUR responsibility.  Isn’t that what you’d want done to you?  Don’t leave it for someone else.      If you see paper or plastic on the floor of the church, or blowing across the parking lot – pick it up and throw it in a trash can!  You’re a part of the church family if you come here.  You have authority over that trash!  Take the responsibility and show a little love and appreciation to those who sacrifice time to clean the church.  Make their job a little easier by sharing that stewardship, take care of OUR building.     Second, I’d like to talk about stewardship of babies.  The service is not designed for babies two years old and under;  the nursery is.  A baby in the service is a distraction to AT LEAST a dozen people around you, even if the baby is quiet.  People are naturally drawn to watch babies, and that is exactly what all of the people around you do during the sermon if your baby is with you.  The same thing is true of babies being walked in the foyer.  People near the doors can see you out of the corner of their eyes;  and if the baby makes sounds, even happy sounds, people instinctively turn around.     I know – because I watch it happen just about every week.     Part of the responsibility that each of us has is to not distract others who are trying to listen to the message.  Keeping your baby with you is disrespectful to those around you, and love is not rude.     More than that, we have a responsibility to our babies to acclimate them to people other than ourselves.  An important part of a child’s training involves short times of separation from parents so the child can discover that connection to others is not a bad thing!  The only way to learn that is for the child to experience being left with someone else so he can discover that it did not hurt and he did not die.  Of course he will cry;  you’re stretching his comfort zone!  Stretching the comfort zone is how you teach life!  A parent’s job – a mother’s job – is not to prolong the womb experience for the child every waking hour.  On the contrary, she must gradually wean the child from the womb experience so the child adapts to life in the world.  It won’t hurt to do that very early in the child’s life for short periods of time (like the forty-five minutes of a sermon). “Separation anxiety” is not fatal.  It’s not even dangerous;  it’s a natural part of growing up that babies must be taught by their parents.  Most babies get accustomed to the nursery quickly if you consistently leave them there and if you aren’t swayed by their crying, which is also neither fatal nor harmful (cf. Proverbs 19:18).  The child will not die or be seriously damaged in the nursery.  We won’t allow it.  If you’re really needed, you’ll be called.  The nursery workers here haven’t lost a child yet! So as good stewards of all that is entrusted to us, let us please put ALL babies in the nursery.                                                                     -- Pastor Chris