Today has been a very frustrating day for me. I asked earlier in the week about holding once a month Scrapbooking Workshops at the church. To me it makes so much sense to who I am as a person and why I love scrapbooking in the first place. I acknowledge that everyone in the church is called to be an 'evangelist'. Some will go to other countries, some will stand on soap boxes. I will listen to the stories of others and share God with them through mine and how I review theirs. What better way to open the doors to a conversation about God than by gathering on common ground, (scrapbooking), and letting my life be the example and my interaction by my ministry. I was so stoked. I had a day booked for May. Nick and I are in talks about using our too-tiny-for-a-car garage to make a mini work out room/workshop to hold smaller gatherings. I was all ready to launch a Faithbooking idea I have for smaller workshops at my big workshop. So many balls in my head got rolling as soon as the day at the church was booked.
Then today I found out that I cannot use the church. Even if I changed the event so I didn't sell anything that day. IF I would possibly make money from someone I invited to the church to scrapbook for the day I cannot use the church to do so. It's policy.
For a bit that stung me personally. I have been working so hard for so many years in so many situations to step up to the plate and make change happen, only to have so many doors slammed on me. It's just the give and take of my life, and I'm okay with that. But it takes me a second to get up and wipe off the dirt after I fall on my butt! Once that sting wore off another realization hit me which piggybacked on my Perspective post of yesterday.
I'm all fired up about how the church is failing so miserably at reaching out into the world in a relevant way. I don't want to offend or anything so I'm just going to leave that blanket statement. Sure I'm upset cuz I'm not sure I'll find anywhere else in town to hold workshops, but more than that I'm sad at all the lost opportunities for the kingdom because I might advance myself by using an otherwise empty space.
5 comments:
Oh,Amanda. I understand your frustration with policies and rules. We've actually held card making/scrapbooking workshops at our church (with no sales allowed) as pure outreach opportunities. God will use you if you don't give up :)
That is really lame Amanda. Don't let stupid church policies frustrate you too much. We do hold scrapbooking stuff at the church here and our church is super conservative so perhaps there is hope for the future! But I wholeheartedly agree with your frustration about the church's lack of relevant outreach. Preach it sister.
Amanda, I understand where you're coming from. Sometimes it seems that "we" the church get so caught up in the rules, regulations, policies and "this is how we've always done it"'s that we miss out on a true opportunity to be Christ. I pray that you will have opportunity to use you're gift for outreach, even if it means outside the walls of the church. It's a good desire and there is no doubt that it is from God!
That is really too bad. The church site, as a host, is a great neutral ground, in my opinion. Small groups at my house never seem to have success, but when they are at the church tons of ladies will show up. I hope that you find success with this. Your garage sounds like a great opportunity to me...
To try to encourage you...just know that it's not like this everywhere or in every church! Who knows who makes these decisions and what they are basing them on. Sorry that it totally put a wrench in your plans, but hopefully your passion will persuade you to not give up! If God has a plan to use you in this way there ain't NOBODY and no policy stopping Him!!
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