My mom and I were asked to do the welcome/greeting for our church.
I decided to share a bit of our history of being in our local church body for over the last 20 and what it’s meant to us to have such a church family. I took three minutes and wrote down my thoughts (my natural gifting).
My mother chose the part of welcoming the visitors and welcoming back individuals she hadn’t seen in a while.
As I stood there listening to her, not for the first time I recognized that she had a gift that I didn’t.
She has a gift of seeking out those who were new, intentionally greeting them, making them feel seen and welcoming them. As she called out their names, she identified where each person was sitting.
As I made this observation to my spiritual mom, she simply said ‘we all have different gifts’.
In our local church body, as our young kids talked about in their program yesterday, we each have a role to play. When we are building something, it’s very unlikely that one person can do it all, but when we come together, we can get the job done.
No one gift is superior to the other as each person’s role is unique to their gifts and talents, and are all important to the work being done.
One of my mom’s favorite thing to do is to meet and greet after church. Most days, I’m out before the last song has been sung. As much as it does not appear this way, I’m reserved and my daughter even more so. So, I honor how she shows up as well.
Have you thought of your gift(s) and how you will use it to serve your local congregation?
I serve publicly at least a few times per month, and I still get nervous doing it. It’s ok to be nervous, and still serve.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the many gifts you’ve given us. Thank you that our gifts are unique to who we are and we don’t need to compare ourselves to anyone else when you have called us to serve. Thank you for continuing to refine us through these processes.