Our Church Left the Building

This past Sunday was a special and unique day at our church.  We had been planning on doing service projects for some folks in the community for a while, when the suggestion was made to do these things on Sunday.  We met at the church building and enjoyed an abbreviated worship, then dismissed to go out into the community and serve the people.

 

Our projects included things like cleaning up some property, assembling bags with tooth brushes, toothpaste, soap and other necessities, to be distributed in some of our mission areas.  Others chose to make appearances at local nursing homes to sing hymns, or just to make ourselves available to meet the needs of those who needed our help.

Because of my mobility problems, I chose to team up with one of the singing groups to go to a local nursing home.  That's not the first time I have made trips to a nursing home to sing. 

Back in high school days, the church where our family attended worship made regular trips to some nursing homes.  All the young folks were encouraged to go and sing, because "it would mean so much to the old people."  I suppose now would be a good time for me to confess, going to sing at a nursing home was not my favorite thing to do.  Most of the nursing home residents slept through our singing.  Others made an attempt to sing with us, and the noises they made just didn't blend with our singing. 

Maybe the quality of nursing homes has improved, or maybe it's just because I have matured a little since high school, but that singing last Sunday made an impression on me.  For one thing, we had one in our group that brought a camera to take pictures of our singers.   Then one of the nursing home residents decided she wanted to be in the picture, too.   Then there was another, and before long, there was a good sized crowd in the picture with us, and they wanted to stand with us while we did our singing.

 

I have no idea how many times in my life I have sang the song, "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder, I'll Be There," but when I sang it last Sunday, I saw people shedding tears as they attempted to sing with us.  Perhaps it was because they are closer to heaven's "roll call" than some, but none of us are immune to being only a breath away.  Then we sang, "Holy, Holy, Holy" and you can probably guess there were more tears.  In a moment of reflection I realized my eyes were getting a little watery, too. 

 

One of the greatest lessons we can learn, both as young and older participants in events like singing hymns at a nursing home, we are truly blessed when we are doing things that bless others. I can't speak for the whole group, but I want to go sing there again.  

We called our day of projects, "The church has left the building,"  because that's what we did.  We left the four walls of the church building and, by the grace of God, were able and active in showing our loving service to our community.  And that is lesson two for our Sunday.  Showing Christian love and service for others happens outside the church building.  Grab a tissue and join me in a couple of verses of "Amazing Grace."

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