When the Holy Spirit Says Act—Act!

I was recently asked if I would be willing to serve on a church “action team” to help chart our church’s path for the future. After mulling it over a while, I decided it wasn’t for me.

Is it because I’ve never served on a church board or committee before? No, it isn’t. I’ve served on several and have even held an office.

Is it because I have something against accepting a “paper pusher” type of position? The answer to that is an unequivocal “yes”.

Is it because I’m not an “office-type” with no experience in paper pushing? No, unfortunately I have worked in an office or two in my time. Actually I worked in the epitome of paper pushing quagmires, a state government agency which handled federal funds and human services programs. If you have ever wanted to know what it’s like to drown in paperwork and constantly wonder what, if anything, you have accomplished to help your fellow man during the course of a stressful day, then may I suggest you obtain a government job in the human services field? You won’t be disappointed.

But the main reason I’m not all that excited about jumping onto another church board, committee or “action team” (the latest term that means pretty much the same thing) is that I don’t feel the Holy Spirit is telling me to park my hips in a chair at church for several times a month discussing for hours what “actions” the congregation should take.

Am I against our church growing and planning and taking action? No, not at all. But I’ve got this gut feeling that when the Holy Spirit says “Act,” he means “Act!” The Holy Spirit doesn’t mean we have to sit down and write up long, detailed business plans with timelines and quantifiable outcomes. Call me insane, but I don’t believe God wrote out an “action plan” when he created the world. He skipped the paperwork, took action and created it. And it was good.

Here’s a true story to further explain my viewpoint on this subject:

I sat for several years on a church board/committee where we discussed how our small but growing church needed a new sign proclaiming to the community that we were here and that we wanted to share the Good News. The reason we were considering a new sign was that over the years the state highway going through our small town had expanded. Our church’s back parking lot now faced this very busy road. People could access our church via the back parking lot instead of driving around the block to an off street to enter it from the front. The amount of traffic that daily passed by our back parking lot on this active thoroughfare was enormous... What a great way to witness to these folks!

But the back of our church didn’t look much like a “church”. The backside contained no stained glass windows or a steeple. It simply was a flat brick wall—perfect for a lighted cross or other sign announcing that this parking lot and building was a church and that we welcomed visitors.

So I sat down with my fellow church board members and discussed and researched and telephoned and wrote up “action plans” about how great it would be to have a new sign… We discussed its cost, where the money would come from, how much electricity would be needed to light it, etcetera. We received estimates from local sign makers and discussed what if any city regulations we might need to clear before erecting the sign on our property. We put this issue before the elders, the church council and the voters assembly and got their approval. We wrote up new detailed “action plans” when the old ones had become outdated since we hadn’t taken any action yet. We did all these things for a period of two to three years.

Then my husband got transferred and we moved out of state. Sadly enough, the sign had yet to appear on the backside of the church.

About two years later, I returned for a short visit to our former hometown. To my happy surprise a beautifully lighted cross and sign with our church’s name graced the brick wall in the back parking lot.

“Wonderful,” I said to my former church board members. “How long has the sign been there?”

“Richard put it up just this past year,” I was told.

“Richard?” I knew who they were talking about, but I was confused. Richard had not been on our committee to put up a sign. Richard didn’t “do committees” really, but he was a very active church member. I asked him about how he came to put up the sign.

“It’s like this,” he said. “I was driving down Gregg Street (the highway) one day and realized just how many people pass by the back of our church—and they don’t even know it is a church. They don’t know how much we’d like for them to stop by and visit with us. I felt that the Holy Spirit wanted us to put up a sign in the back parking lot along the brick wall.”

“I went to a friend who makes signs for a living and asked how much it would cost and how long it would take him to make one for us. He gave me a discount and finished it within a week. I paid for it out of my pocket—the least I could do—and got my son and some other members to help me erect it.”

He smiled and continued, “And you want to know the best thing about our new sign is? We’ve had quite a few visitors tell us that they never knew this building was a church. They never knew our church family existed until they saw our new sign. A few of them are our newest members, too. Isn’t it wonderful reaching out to the community this way? Why on earth didn’t we put a sign up earlier?”

Why indeed.

What I learned from this incident is when the Holy Spirit says “Act,” he means “Act!”

For me it means I don’t sit and discuss things until I’m blue in the face. I simply get to down to work. When the ESL ministry needs tutors to help new Americans learn English, I don’t sit down and construct an “action plan”—I show up on Thursday nights and help tutor new Americans. When “Rebuilding St. Louis” needs volunteers to help fix up elderly and disabled individual’s homes, I don’t write up a report on the value of being a good neighbor—I show up with my paint brush in hand. When a sister church needs people to help with their outreach ministry to inner city children, I don’t sit down and write long essays about what a great thing it is to reach out to those less fortunate and share the love of Jesus with them—I show up at their street Vacation Bible School events and help share the love of Jesus with the children who gather there.

Because when the Holy Spirit says “Act,” he means “Act!” I’m more than willing to let those who demonstrate the gift of paper pushing handle the write ups for me. I’ll be too busy out in the field helping to spread the Good News.