“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Colossians 3:12-14, NIV)
It is a sobering thought that our Christian life of ministry and service starts before we step foot out the door. Paul’s encouragement to the Colossians covers all the good (and hard) attitudes and actions our churches and our own homes need. Really, for our churches to be abounding in these attributes they’ll have to start in each home first! As a wife and mom, I would have an easier time clothing myself with these virtues if I could just get “dressed” for church, work, and errand-runs. I’m sure you can agree that our faults and failures are laid bare before our families more than any other group of people. Sometimes home doesn’t feel like it’s full of forgiveness, love, and perfect unity because, well, it’s not. Our raw, gut reaction responses are exposed before each other in part because home is where we are most tired, overwhelmed, and selfish.
Even still, God uses our homes as a starting place for us to grow in grace and holiness. Yes, it gets ugly, but God isn’t evacuating when the going gets tough. Our repentance, forgiveness, and love as parents is modeling for our children our desire to do God’s will and abide with Him as His beloved people—holy and dearly loved. As the old hymn goes, “when we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word what a glory he sheds on our way” (Trust and Obey, John H. Sammis). Our family sees our sanctification journey and our life of church ministry side-by-side and that’s not a thing to begrudge. It’s God’s intention. Paul completes his thoughts from this section with “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col 3:17).
Following Paul’s instructions for the people of God and Christian households (3:12-24), he shifts their focus beyond themselves. Paul explains how God’s chosen people should act towards outsiders with gracious and wise interaction and proclamation of the gospel (Col 4:2-6). Paul says, “Making the most of every opportunity” (Col 4:5b). Even the missionary hero himself is asking the Colossians to pray for him to boldly proclaim the mystery of Christ! (Col 4:3) It’s helpful for me to see these two categories of instruction—how to interact with “insiders” and how to interact with “outsiders”—shoulder to shoulder in Colossians. Sometimes I can get caught up in my growth and forget Paul’s desire (which is God’s desire) for us to reach out. The opposite can also happen when church demands are high or the list of people to connect with from the community seems endless. If kids are added on top of that in our families, keeping the priorities of growth and service in check may be particularly daunting.
This spring, God gave me eyes to see how our children are getting a front row seat to our world of ministry in our churches and communities. We don’t literally sit in the front row seats of our church sanctuary because I need boundaries to contain my children. Figuratively, we sit in the front row. By nature of our husbands’ job we get up close and personal with the life of our church family.
During services our toddler is starting to sneak out the row and, normally, I wrangle him back in quickly to avoid further distraction. But this past Good Friday I realized he was peeking around the chairs in front of him not to push boundaries but because he was curious to watch what was happening at the front. There was a special song with candles and he was interested and watching so attentively. His fixed engagement was special for me, realizing our attendance at this evening service was facilitating his learning.
A little while later our 4-year-old snagged my husband’s hand while he was passing out the communion bread. Surprisingly, Dad let her hold his hand for a brief time as he walked through the aisles. Now, I almost wanted to cry as I witnessed the precious moment of our little child’s simple participation in such a significant moment of remembering Jesus’ work on the cross. In hindsight, I was also stirred by these little encounters for my children because I am tempted to think of them as obstacles or barriers to ministry. I don’t always want to volunteer my time to be with the children instead of the adults. I get a little tired of coordinating babysitters every week so I can lead youth group. And every pastor’s wife would rather pray with a parishioner without their child tugging at her clothes with requests, am I right?
Our kids often seem to have little understanding of what’s going on, but then at times they surprise us. They are here in the middle of ministry with us. Instead of being impatient with them or feeling like you are held back from good things, try to embrace the season and look for the ways they can participate in caring for others.
These are some on-the-ground ways our family is learning to serve together:
-Praying for neighbors and friends and when we hear an emergency vehicle’s sirens. (Obviously we live in a small town or we’d be very holy by now!)
-Colouring birthday cards for church family.
-Deciding to whom we could deliver cookies or soup.
-Attending church cleaning days and tackling age-appropriate jobs together.
-Hosting. (We give expectations of if we’ll play a game together or if they’ll need to find something else to do while the adults visit. We were taught to be conscious of mixing up “serious/church” and “friends” families so our children don’t come to resent having company over.)
So often it’s the simple things, but, as you know, simple is just as hard to execute as big if we aren’t thinking about it. Give some thought to ways you are serving together and be encouraged by how God has been making your family more like Jesus. If you could do better or focus on a different area, pray and brainstorm ideas together.
As ministering families, we are well acquainted with how our children are exposed to conflict and sorrow. Would God give us eyes to see and hearts to embrace the joy in obeying the Lord together?
This has taken patience for me over the years. It’s hard to shift gears as children enter the picture and then they have the nerve to change too! At the heart of it, it’s my own selfishness that is exposed. For example, my husband and I like to joke that at the rate our second oldest produces colouring pages to give away she has the spiritual gift of making cards. I’ve had to remind myself that “my printer paper is not my own” (a loose paraphrase from Jeremiah 10:23).
In our house we are amazed as to how often they are the ones initiating these things. And when we can facilitate ways that resonate with them (and at speeds they can handle) God produces fruit in our own families and those whom He touches through us. There is so much joy in that!
