Monday, March 11, 2013

Why I Am Stepping Away from Ministry

Most of you will read that title and say "What?  She was in ministry?"

Well I was, kind of.  I have been playing for and leading the worship at church for a little while now.  At the beginning of the year, our previous pianist returned, so now more often than not, I'm just singing.
While most don't prefer to be led by someone sitting at the piano, if I have to sing, I prefer to hide behind my piano!

But now that no longer matters, because I won't be doing it after Easter.

We've changed the Sunday School format at church, so now there are only meetings for teens and adults.  Which means that when I take my three Curly Kids in the door for church, we scatter.  Curly Girl sets with one family, Curly Boy another, and then Curly Baby (who really should be renamed Curly Boy 2 since he's getting so grown up!) goes to sit with a nice lady who has really become a surrogate grandma for us.
Don't get me wrong, I love that my kids have people to sit with.  But it means that once the song portion of worship is over, and the kids head out to Children's church, we haven't been to church as a family at all.  And that bothers me.

My Curly Kids, as pastor's kids, are going to have to deal with a lot of unique issues growing up (believe me, I know).  But I don't believe that one of those things should be the only kid at church who can't sit with their own family.  While I'm at the piano, Mr. Curly is still pastor, the kids can't sit with him.  How are they going to learn to worship, to love, to serve, if they are always farmed out to others?

So after a long discussion (long long long, many months in the making), we have decided that I will step down from that particular ministry at church.  After Easter, when I take my children into the church, we will sit together as a family. 

I honestly think this is going to make church easier.  Instead of walking in already stressed trying to get the Curly Kids into their seats and make it up to the piano in time, we will be able to just find our seat and be together.  There will be no crying "I want to sit with you today!" or "my friends aren't here yet!".  I mean, yeah, we'll have our issues, I have no delusions that my children are going to become angels suddenly because they are sitting with me, but I think it will help.  They know what I expect of them.

And I think we're going to move up.  Because of Curly Boy's age, and then Curly Baby (Boy 2) being born, we've always set in the back.  But I think now we'll move up and sit with (or at least closer to) Mr. Curly.  He's usually on the front row and I don't know if I'm ready for that challenge!

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