Church Flowers

A pastor in St. Paul, Minn. blogged this week about a flower garden planted in front of his church.
First of all, I love pastors that blog regularly. It gives a lot of insight into the ministry and what they go through and see throughout the week.
Some even give insight into how their weekly sermon progresses.
Fellowship Church in Dallas has a blog set up for their entire church staff to post notes and journals on.
It gives you a connection with the staff that you might not otherwise have.
Now of course, I imagine some of you are thinking, “What in the world is a blog?” Of course if you’re reading this on my blog, you can skip the next few paragraphs, but if you’re reading it in The Belton Journal, you might want to follow along closely.
To sum it up, here’s the explanation by Fellowship Church:

“What is a blog? A blog is a regularly updated website made up of a series of topical posts.
For Fellowship Church, a blog is simply a new way to reach people - to tell the story of Fellowship Church and the incredible things God is doing here. As our church grows larger, we must continually find ways to connect with one another and share the amazing stories of life-change that take place each and every week.
Written by the staff of Fellowship, the Fellowship Church Blog is your backstage pass to the day-to-day life of our church, with the latest information, photos, and stories.”

A blog is basically an online journal of whatever you so choose. You can be the sole writer, or if you’d so prefer, you can let a group of your friends or an organization add their own writings to your blogosphere. You can find free blog servers all over the place, but I personally prefer www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.org.
If you’re still clueless, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog for a better definition.
So, now that you’re totally knowledgeable on the world of blogs, I’ll continue with my original story.
Pastor Pat Kahnke of St. Paul Fellowship Church writes that he noticed a bunch of kids bustling around in the church parking lot earlier this week.
As he walked closer he realized that a number of his church members had taken the initiative to plow up a weedy section of their church lot and plant a flower bed in its place.
While planting the flower bed, one of the church members knocked on a neighboring house door to ask to borrow a water hose.
The church neighbor said they could borrow the hose that day and year-round to keep the flower bed looking healthy.
And as a result, another member volunteered to plow the man’s backyard for him.
What a great sign of ministry on so many levels.
They took the care of the church upon themselves
No one sat around and waited for a church beautification committee to tell them what needed to be done. No building committee hired out work that church members could easily do.
People took responsibility for their church and went the extra mile to be sure their place of worship was taken care of.
What if each of us looked for areas in our own churches or work places where we could go the extra mile without being asked?
What if we quit shrugging responsibility for things in our offices or church and stepped up and said, “This needs to be done – and I’m going to do it. Even if it’s not in my job description and even if I may not be an expert on the subject.”
They involved outsiders
One of the things I love about this story is that it involved people in the neighborhood.
Now granted, with a little planning they could have brought their own water hose, but think of the ministry opportunity they would have missed. In the process, they made sure that a neighbor of the church knew what was going on at the church and then found a way to meet him at his need.
Wasn’t that Jesus’ entire ministry was about? He met people at their need.
If we are passionate about what we do, or wherever we do it, it can be contagious - people will want to be a part of it.
A business cannot grow without new customers and a church cannot grow without new members. We must rid ourselves of being exclusive or selective in who we reach out to. We must bring outsiders in.
A few months ago I wrote about George Masters who was so passionate about Apple’s iPod, that he spent several hours designing a complete television commercial based on his favorite toy.
“Why would a school teacher spend a good chunk of his free time, for five months, crafting a really slick ad for no money? For no real recognition other than a, ‘Hey, that’s cool,’ from a few friends? Because he really, really likes his iPod,” wrote blogger Andy Havens. “Masters frankly admits that he partly worked on the project as a way of teaching himself some computer animation basics, and to be part of a portfolio. That being said, why pick the iPod mini as his subject? Because he’s a huge fan. And let’s remember that ‘fan’ is short for ‘fanatic.’”
If we can get people passionate about our product or message, people will become a part of the message and share it with them where ever they go.
Little efforts can go a long way
Third, as Pastor Kahnke wrote in his blog that he was blessed and ministered to by seeing their effort and the beautiful flowers left by their effort.
A pastor who was worn down was encouraged and blessed by a small effort by members of his congregation.
I can’t imagine that this group of church goers would have realized the impact their thoughtfulness had on their pastor, or the impact it would have on a newspaper editor some 1,113 miles away.
You never know what impact your willingness to serve will have on others.