Something I have been pondering much the past year is how we can better involve our members in service to the church.
During the worst of Covid, we wanted to decrease how many people were actively ever in the building. Inevitably, a few people were taking care of a lot of things.
But now we want to help encourage the opposite: a lot of people being able to each help with a few things. Our leadership has been looking at some new bylaws and board structures, I won’t speak much about that at this time. Simply put, we want a system that regularly gives members a chance to volunteer without excessive commitment.
This matter falls less under my work as a pastor and more so under our lay leadership. But it still has theological roots. St. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth: “.. all things should be done decently and in order.” (1 Corinthians 14:40)
I would argue that our Almighty God is not just a God of order but a God of delegation
Certainly, there is much he does himself, first in creating all things we know out of nothing. And even though sin has come in and brought disorder and corruption, the world we live in still has much order and natural function to it.
But he doesn’t do everything himself, we know God loves working through his servants; he delegates! Genesis 2:15 tells us that God put Adam in the garden to work it and keep it. Eve was made soon after to help in this task.
When God heard his people’s cries in Egypt, he did not need help to free them. But he worked through one of their own, Moses. Moses was someone they could relate to; he served as a mediator between them and God. We today may take for granted having a direct mediator in Jesus; but having no mediator at all could be terrifying before the Almighty God!
There are countless other examples of God working through his servants, we see it with the apostles (meaning “sent ones”) in the early church and how they called others to delegate work to.
Psalm 105 speaks to God’s mighty work and deeds. There is plenty that God has done on his own, but the Psalm can’t help but speak of what all God has accomplished through his servants. I would encourage you to open up Psalm 105, but I’ll also include a hymn text I wrote that summarizes it.
GIVE THANKS TO GOD, ALL PEOPLE
1 Give thanks to God, all people; make known his deeds of grace
Look to the LORD to be your strength, and always seek his face
Remember his great wonders, his miracles of love
How He worked through his servants to save His chosen ones
2 God sent his servant Abraham to father a great race
A nation known, not by their blood, but by their God of grace
This promise came through Isaac, the lone-begotten son
An everlasting covenant for Israel was begun
3 God sent his servant Joseph; whose brothers him betrayed
But through this slave in Egypt, all Israel would be saved
God raised him out of prison up to the king’s right hand
His wisdom fed the nations when famine struck the land
4 God sent his servant Moses, with Aaron at his side
To free his captive people, and demonstrate God’s might.
The Pharaoh’s mighty river, he made to reek of blood
God buried Pharaoh’s chariots beneath the Red Sea Flood
5 God sent his servant Jesus, the servant of us all
The Bread of Heaven humbled, who tasted bitter gall
From him flows living water, a river of God’s grace
that leads us from the desert to see the Father’s face.