As many of you know, I am a Christian. Although I attend a Baptist church, I don't really considers myself a Baptist. I jokingly refer to myself as a hippie Christian; I think I might have fit in well with the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s. For several years, I just studied the Bible and did my own devotions at home, but I came to a point where I felt I was focusing too much on myself and I had to get out and start giving to others by attending a church. That was several years' ago.
These days I teach women's Sunday School once a month as well as Children's Church three times a month. Sunday School is a joy; I really feel like I am using the gifts with which God blessed me. Children's Church, on the other hand, is a major chore for me. I have trouble dealing with little kids. Yes, I know that sounds crazy considering I have four children of my own but it is the truth. I get along much better with my own children now that they are older. It is difficult for me to put myself on a young child's level so I have trouble coming up with lessons that will hold their attention. The 10 - 12 year-olds enjoy my class, but the 4 - 7 year olds don't get me. Unfortunately I have them both in the same class most of the time because I don't have another adult to help me.
What this boils down to is that I am beginning to feel like Sunday is just another workday. I have to start psyching myself up on Friday to be able to go. If I quit, no one else will step in to take over and it is the children who will suffer. Although I know that I am not doing the best job, the kids prefer Children's Church to sitting in the adult sanctuary where they attempt to sit quietly for 2 1/2 hours while the sermon goes over their heads.
I work for a ministry and I attend church every Sunday, yet I feel like I am getting further and further away from God. During my brief period of unemployment last year, I felt peaceful for the first time in a long time. I attribute it to the hour I spent every morning after the kids went to school, reading my Bible and praying. These days, whenever I try to do that, I am distracted by thoughts of all the other things that I need to do and how little time I have to do them. I don't know how other people with similar responsibilities manage to maintain a healthy spiritual life.
2 comments:
Dani - I am in a similar situation. I volunteer at my church to help with the services as sacrastin, hospitality minister or eucharistic minister. I find that I get overbooked and I end up doing something every single sunday which allows me zero time for meditation or refletion. It's hard to focus when you've got to sit a bunch of late comers to a packed church.
In theory, they're suppose to rotate us every 2 years so that we don't get 'burnt out' - but in practice there's never enough volunteers.
I try to get my God fix in by staying after service and reflecting or going to a service where I'm not booked.
ABM works in a similar capacity at church, Jacqueline. We're in the country so we just call them ushers :-). He spends so much of the service finding people seats and dealing with the young people who sneak out and roam the halls that he hardly hears any of the service. The difference between us is that he is just content to be in the building, while I don't feel like that is enough for me.
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