Many hands make

This week has been so tiring.  It probably feels that way since at the moment, I feel sore all over my body, too sore and tired to even nap.  The hard work started with some hard fun.  Friday night tennis was fun and intense, my calves were hurting pretty badly.  I only had a couple short breaks in the two hours of playing.  Saturday was even more draining. 

From 9:30am to 1:30pm, members of the Shiloh Baptist Church Young Adults Ministry Study (YAMS), members of Eastside Community Church, and staff from 2nd Mile Ministries came out to help swing sledgehammers, cut pipes, shovel up destroyed cinder blocks, sweep, and partake in renovations for the building we've been working on.  The big guys knocked down a few more cement walls which really opened up the bottom floor, metal piping was electrically sawed from the ceiling, heavy rubble and bricks were wheel barrowed and hauled and lifted into a huge dumpster, the shed was organized so all our equipment could fit and be found.  Teamwork was key, everyone had their own role, some did more intense work based on their physical ability, some lead groups of people based on their leadership ability, no person less important than the other.  My job was to chisel out the cement that was sticking up above the ground where the old bathrooms used to be.  It was hard, kneeling down, bending over, repeatedly swinging a big hammer close to my hands, toes, and legs.  Luckily, I only came away with a blister on my hammering hand and a bruised left had (when I accidently hit myself not once but twice in a row).  Here's my friend doing the same job in a more direct and powerful way.

About a month and a half ago, there has been the hope that playing basketball consistently every Sunday at 2:30 at Brentwood park would gather some attention and interest.  I've gone out for a few weeks and have returned home sweaty, achy, and thirsty.  Despite being physically drained, I can't help but feel that this planned activity will fill up many guys' boredom and emptiness in their weekends.  I don't want to presume anything about them, but I do get excited when they willingly join us in our games.  Today, I just came back from four or five games of 4-on-4.  Me and my teammates won all the games by a small margin.  Each player had a role, the more powerful players took it to the hole more often (dribbled the ball towards the hoop), I tended to play on the outside to shoot open shots but also get the ball to open players in the post, and one player on our team wasn't very good, but he was consistent at passing the ball in and working hard on defense.  Everyone had their role based on the gifts given to them, every person needed to win, no player more important than the other.

In each week of our future staff meetings, each of us will have the opportunity to learn about one person on staff--their testimony, their personality traits, more of how God created them internally and externally.  Everyone on staff is so different from each other and we hope that this uniqueness will help us learn how to deny ourselves, our selfish ambitions, and understand that the world is seen through many different eyes.  1 Corinthians 12 talks about spiritual gifts and the body of Christ.  The body of Christ is very intriguing to me.  This is a metaphor for the church.

1 Corinthians 12:14-20
¹⁴ Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.  ¹⁵ Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹ If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

No one person needs to be an exact replica of everyone else.  I noticed at our staff retreat at the end of December that because there was an environment for each person to bring their ideas to the table, many ideas that I would never have even thought of were contributed.  I believed understanding your gifts and also allowing yourself to understand the value of other peoples' opinions and life experiences is important for the growth of a group.  Without that type of environment, it would be very easy to be close-minded, stubborn, or prideful.  The body is made up of many parts, not just one.  It was really cool to see this picture in action yesterday.

(Lots of the guys lifted this old metal furnace thing into the dumpster)

I hope you are encouraged by this.  God made you unique to anyone else He's ever created, for a unique purpose.