Just Sayin'

I made 2 loaves of homemade bread yesterday.  This was my first successful accomplishment of bread making after several failed attempts over the years.  This bread turned out soooooo delicious and my family has really enjoyed it.  I know they want me to keep making it, but it is exhausting! It's complicated!  There is so much work and preparation! You have to mix the yeast and let it sit, add ingredients and let it sit, add more and let it sit, punch down the dough and let it sit, and on and on.  After several hours you FINALLY get to bake it and out comes an amazing, golden brown, delicious warm loaf of bread. 

All I could think about with this experience is how much this symbolizes ministry.  So many Christians want a slice of the bread, but they don't want to do the work to make it! The list is long for people to sign up to join a small group, to be mentored by a small group leader, or to do anything that benefits THEM! Everyone wants to run to the table to enjoy a piece of this amazing bread, but very few are signing up to do the work it takes to get there.  Ministry takes work and there are the same few servants who faithfully show up every week to work, "to make the bread", so that the majority can enjoy.  Maybe it's time for Christians to start carrying their weight. To stop enjoying the bread and start helping to make it.  Maybe it's time to slip out of your small group for a semester and work the nursery.  Think of the impact you could make on that lost and hurting mother by keeping her child in the nursery and letting her feel the love of a Christian family that could change her life.  Christians are always so busy gobbling up the bread that they leave nothing for those who are truly hungry.

Doesn't this remind you of the children's story of the little hen who needed help harvesting the wheat, threshing the wheat and baking the bread? All of her friends were too tired or hot to help.  At the end when the bread was done they conveniently were there to eat the bread.  Of course we know that the hen did not let them eat it because they had not worked for it.  Wow, can you imagine if we didn't allow people to "enjoy" the benefits of ministry until they had served somewhere? We might accuse a church that did that as being harsh.       

"He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few.   So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.”
Mt 9:37–38

How can you work in the house of the Lord? Is it time for you to take your turn "making the bread" so others can enjoy and be fed?