Seriously, God...have I grown bored or bitter with serving in church?

'Cause my praise is a weapon and it's more than a sound. 'Cause my praise is the shout that brings Jericho down. Anthem Worship, Genavieve Linkowski, and Mass Anthem. "Praise"

Last week for church I joined the Saddleback service in SoCal where I mentioned I drank their great lemonade and dashed it for lunch at In & Out. Their website said they’d be done in an hour fifteen and they were on the dot. This week, I went the polar opposite direction and went to a much smaller service with a friend, met and talked with different folks, had a nice lunch they provided, and overall took my time there.

Seeing all the volunteers helping with greeting, playing guitar, piano, and drum for praise, and providing pizza for lunch, I was reminded of the investment of time and effort I have seen so many in my own church make over the years.

I hate to make the comparison, but one week I was at the Fortune 100 version of church and the week after I was at the early-stage startup of church. One church may be way more complex and need clockwork-like precision going down to those manning lemonade stations and the other requires everyone to hustle a bit to make church happen, but in both all is run by the volunteers who love their church. Though I can’t know each person’s heart state, I hope they were all serving in joy of the Spirit. It seemed that way.

Those who do invest their blood, sweat, and tears in their church…why do you do it? For Jesus? sure, but why at your specific church? Does the culture and the pace fit you, is the leader(s) compelling, do you get energized by the one’s around you, or are you just being loyal to a place you’ve been so long? Regardless of the reason, my real question is, do we continue to serve with joy?

Isn’t it those who have given so much who grow bitter with the idea of church? Those who are bored with church don’t see the benefit of church and worshiping in community. That is easy to understand. But those who are bitter…they did invest and believe in what they were doing, but some situation or relationship left them sorely disappointed. That feels a bit more tragic than clear boredom.

But that tragedy happens and may be happening to me.

Thinking about their service and love, I’m left meditating on my investment in my own community and asking myself if I have the joy of the Spirit. Something being challenging doesn’t mean you don’t have joy. Something being stressful because of hard relationships or decisions to be made doesn’t mean there isn’t joy. When you are bored, sometimes you just need to make small changes to get the energy going.

It is all for Christ, so we often endure, but does the suffering we experience doing Christ’s work mean the Spirit’s joy isn’t there?

Rather, in the midst of suffering there is his joy, which makes it supernatural. If we are heading towards bitterness or already there, some major reflection, confession, and repentance are due.

At the churches I experienced these last two weeks and the people who made those experiences happen, their visible and behind-the-scenes work were a definite encouragement to me. Beyond how they treat visitors, I’m sure the continuity of their communities hinge on their continual labor of love in Christ. I pray none will invest in their communities without the Spirit’s joy.

I pray the same thing for myself.

Ephesians 5:18-21

¹⁸ And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, ¹⁹ addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, ²⁰ giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

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• Used to invest in a community, but are stopped? What drove you away? What bitter root might the Lord be trying to uproot in you?

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