This is for those of us who make a living around churches. You aren’t directly employed by a church, but you do work for them….many of them. Like me…a consultant. So if you’re “normal” you can just skip it.
I didn’t mean to become a church consultant. I thought I’d “help churches a few months” to pay the mortgage and the other bills til we “figured this out.” That was 2005.
I guess I’m a church consultant. I hate that word…consultant.
con·sult·ant
/kənˈsəltnt/
noun
1.
a person who provides expert advice professionally.
"she is currently a self-employed business consultant"
My challenge is for us to stop asking each other “where do you go to church?” Going to church probably implies you are possibly there 1.3 times a month, and on the drive home, you offer up a solid critique of the street to the seat.
Let’s ask each other “What local congregation are you invested in?” Investing implies that you are sacrificially and regularly giving, you are giving your time through some sort of volunteerism, and you are praying/serving and doing what’s asked of you.
You might be asked to usher, you might be cleaning the restrooms between services, parking cars, leading the women’s ministry, picking up the lunch bill when you are hanging with a staff leader, leading a guys group, working administratively where no one sees you…etc etc. You might start the youth group in your basement…You get the idea.
You are doing all of those things you used to ask other people to do.
You are sacrificially investing in a local congregation. You know what I mean. It’s not easy. You know too much. You get on a plane and fly across the country and you are the smartest person in the room for four hours. Anybody can be the smartest person in the room for four hours…even I prove that.
Who can show up every Sunday you aren’t on the road “working” and serve, invest, give, and even love? That’s altogether a different thing.