Day 4--On the Joys of Babysitting 40 Kids in an Evening

Good news: my Valentine's Day karma has been restored after the gripe-fest of my previous post. I stopped sulking and put myself to good use by helping others enjoy a Valentine's date. Earlier this evening, the church formally know as Oakhurst hosted a Parents' Night Out event for families in our community. Our church space was filled with 40 kids, ages 1-10, many of whom were not members or attendees of the church. This was the first special event I have planned as Children's Minister at Oakhurst, and I am so thrilled at the success of the evening, which is owed entirely to the fabulous team of volunteers who wrangled kids for 2.5 hours, and then stayed to clean up and reset the church for tomorrow morning's services.

I saw community emerge on so many levels tonight--in said team of volunteers, in the groups of children who are so quick to make new friends, in the core group of our church's parents who dropped off their kids and invited their neighbors to participate, and in our church's larger place in the Oakhurst community. It is such a rich blessing to stand at the intersection of all these communities and to just be a part of each one for at least an evening.

I think I was most moved this evening by witnessing one of Oakhurst's core church members sharing with visiting parents his love for the worship community he had found at the church. He invited them to join us for worship on Sunday mornings with such moving authenticity, apparent to all involved in the conversation--his motivation was only for others to experience the renewal and rebirth he himself had found with the walls of Oakhurst Church. It reminded me that "outreach" doesn't have to be tainted with this baggage of proselytism and agenda-keeping that I, for one, so often attach to it. Outreach is about being a genuine participant in more than one community, and by inhabiting these spaces genuinely, the movement between and among them-- church and neighborhood, for example-- is seamless.  I am thankful that the name and presence of our church was shared this evening, in the hope that we can grow in community with more and more of those who surround us.