81. Meetings (Stand Alone)

I know, I know… this week is supposed to be part 3 of The Path. It’s sitting in the queue, waiting for next week. I had to post this in real time while things were fresh on my mind.

Today I sat in a meeting. It was a meeting about VBS, and I was very unsure how I felt about sitting in a church meeting again.

I remember my first committee meeting at Tree Town Baptist. We officially joined in May 2009. The committees were formed in September and began serving in October.

That first year we were elected to the Hospitality Committee. We later found out that this was the “starter” committee.

Our first act of service was planning the church-wide Thanksgiving meal. We were cautiously optimistic when we attended that first meeting. Committees weren’t that common in the church we attended before. It was more of a Pastor appointed kind of thing. So being elected and put in charge of something early on in our membership made us feel a tad special. We sat down like the newbies that we were. We were ready to take on this Thanksgiving meal we had not yet even attended.

The meeting began.

First order of business… We need to decide what kind of meat to serve… what kind of meat did we serve last year?… we served ham, but it was kind of dry, and people complained…

I chimed in by asking what kind of meat was available…

The church uses a caterer. He offered chicken, they said, but it was also dry. What about the brisket? It was also dry…

Why can’t we use a different caterer, I asked, since obviously this one only served dry meat…

This is who the church uses, they said, and we couldn’t make changes.

General consensus… serve ham and brisket. Maybe one of them won’t be dry.

Next order of business…what color placemats should we use… pull up the notes from last year, the chairman said, and tell us what we used last year… It went something like this… Last year we used red, orange, and yellow… well what if we used brown, orange, and yellow to change it up this year… will someone go pull the fall colors from the placemats and bring them in here so we can look…

For several minutes, we debated what colors looked best together…

Placemats chosen…

Next order of business… centerpieces

What centerpieces did we use last year…

Secretary reads notes and says something like this… last year, we used clear glass votives and filled them with deer corn and candles.

What should we do this year… for the next several minutes, we discussed centerpieces until we decided.

Last order of business…

Who should we ask to bring desserts, side dishes, and congealed salad… well last year, we had members whose last names started with A-I bring side dishes, J-R brings dessert, and P-Z brings congealed salads.

Did we have enough of each dish, how many leftovers, etc.?

Well, the notes say we ran out of such and such and had too much of this and had way too much (well, obviously, they had too much of congealed salad because that’s just nasty)

So we decided who would bring what that year…

Let’s wrap up the meeting by deciding when we should meet here at the church…

Time set… meeting adjourned.

I got to church over an hour early for a meeting to make important committee decisions about dry ham, placemats, corn centerpieces, and the alphabet.

Jeremy and I were not impressed with our first committee meeting. In fact, I’ve told that story so many times since then because of how ridiculous the whole thing was.

We arrived early the night of the Thanksgiving dinner to set up, decorate and keep the dry ham warm.

During the dinner, we served food and ensured everything was stocked for drinks and desserts.

When everyone finished eating, we washed all the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, took out the trash, and wiped down the tables…

The ones serving on the Hospitality Committee were the first ones there and the last ones to leave. As new members, we never once had the opportunity to visit with people or enjoy our first Thanksgiving meal with our new friends. In fact, we had to go find something to eat when it was all over.

That committee had a 3-year commitment. By the 3rd year, I was tired and cynical and just over it. I was tired of placemats, corn, and ham…

Third-year veteran committee members were given the position of chairman, so in our 3rd year, I was the chairman.

I introduced the committee to email meetings. We decided what placemats to use, what dry ham to order, and what container to put the decorative deer corn in, all by email. No meetings were necessary.

In our 4th year at the church, we finally attended a meal. For 3 years, for every event at Tree Town Baptist, we helped plan, set up, break down, and clean up. We spent more time in the kitchen than we did getting to know people at events and occasions that were primarily done to give the church members time to spend together.

Even then, we knew just how ridiculous this was. So we vowed to never be on the hospitality committee again.

Meetings were a massive part of my time at Tree Town, many of which, as the children’s minister, I planned myself. Some were required. I tried my best to have as few as possible and at times of the day or week convenient to people. I hated the idea of people coming early or staying late, but I hated, even more, the idea of people coming to church randomly during the week. Meetings were just a big part of Tree Town, and I grew to hate them.

I understand that some are necessary, I get it, but I’m only half joking when I say I have PTSD over church meetings.

Some of the meetings at Tree Town were good, and they weren’t all bad… there was just a whole lot of them. Staff Meetings, Deacons Meetings, Monthly Business Meetings, Children’s Council, Youth Council, Ministry Team… The ones I was “in charge” of, like the Children’s Council, were required to meet at least 2 times every year. So my calendar was covered with meetings all the time.

Earlier this year, the pastors at the church we attend now asked me if I would be interested in planning their VBS.

Now, if you know me at all, you know that VBS is my thing… I LOVE it. I always have. But I swore it off. I was done. No more children’s ministry of any kind for me.

But my family missed it. My kids have genuinely missed VBS and all the things it entails. And I have missed it as well, even though I’ve been afraid to admit that.

When the pastors asked me, they assured me there was no pressure, they didn’t want a traditional VBS, and it wouldn’t all be on me. In fact, they wanted me, Jeremy and both of my kids to put it together as a family.

This wasn’t a decision I could make on my own. It involved the whole family. And so, I sat them down and told them what we had been asked to do.
The kids were ecstatic about the opportunity, and Jeremy also loved the idea.

I told the pastors we were in… we wanted to do it and were excited.

We had our first unofficial VBS meeting at the local Mexican restaurant, and it was so much fun. We bounced ideas off of each other, and when we left, we had a solid direction we wanted to go.

They gave me the opportunity to write the curriculum from scratch, something I had always dreamed of doing.

They also told me they didn’t want things done the traditional way. This wasn’t the VBS I was accustomed to. Three nights, an hour and a half long each night, was the plan… I was pumped.

I’ve spent the last several weeks developing the idea more and more, and today it was time to meet with the team the pastors put together.

We met right after church for convenience’s sake.

I sat down, and I immediately began to get nervous. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to walk back into this kind of thing again.

But here’s where things were different… I could voice that concern to these people, and they offered no judgment.

I could even share with them that my greatest fear was slipping back into what was familiar to me and ending up right back where I came from.

Y’all! This meeting was so much fun. The pastor even said he had been looking forward to it all week. He was excited. I had been apprehensive, but the pastor was excited.

I’ve missed these people. There’s a familiarity we have with them. We worked with many of these people years ago at our old church. The church we left in 2008. There’s beauty in this familiarity.

We kicked different ideas back and forth, and when we left, we were all excited about our next meeting. We had a solid plan and direction we wanted to go. Everyone felt comfortable in that meeting. No one was in a hurry. It was a fun environment.

And it was a breath of fresh air for me.

In those moments, God reminded me that He wasn’t finished with me yet. He would give me safe spaces to use the gifts He gave me.

Here’s the truth… I am cynical… I am terrified… I am jaded… I am guarded… but I have found a hope and joy that I thought was gone forever.

I am fully aware that this church isn’t perfect. I am fully aware that one day I will most likely get hurt again. But God has given me freedom and an opportunity I never thought possible.

And though I worry and fear, I’m finding a trust in God that I thought was lost.

It feels good.

Until Next time,

Whitney