Being a Church Lab Rat

If you’ve made it to 9am Sunday School this summer, you may have noticed some new teachers leading the class. In fact, over the course of 14 weeks, there are nine different men taking us through the gospel of Mark. How in the world did we find nine guys to willingly subject themselves to this torture?

Of course, it’s not torture. In fact, the classroom is full of friendly, eager learners of God’s word. The students show grace to each teacher regardless of whether the style or content is familiar or strange. Although not subject to torture, some of the teachers might feel like lab rats being experimented on. The experiment in this case is finding out who is gifted by the Holy Spirit to teach the adult Sunday School class. So far, the experiment seems to be going very well.

Because it’s gone so well, I want to make an argument for every church member volunteering to be a lab rat in church. What I mean by “lab rat” is to be willing to try your hand at service opportunities, even if it’s out of your comfort zone.

When I was in high school, shortly after making my first public profession of faith in Christ, my youth pastor, Robert, gathered a small group of squirrelly teenagers for a “teaching and preaching” class. In the class, he regurgitated his seminary’s homiletics course to about five or six completely unqualified zit-faced kids. I was one of them.

The lab portion of the class involved travelling to a different youth group and leading them in a Bible study. My assignment was to teach Acts 12, the story of Peter’s time in the slammer. I met with Robert beforehand to fine-tune the lesson, and when the big day came, I was extremely nervous. I knew I didn’t know anything, and in front of about 20 strangers, I felt like Peter being thrown into a Roman prison.

But it was good and healthy for me. God made it clear through that experience that he had given me the spiritual gift of teaching. I leaned into that gifting and ultimately went to graduate school for education with the idea that I would serve the body of Christ through teaching.

Not everyone in my youth group had the same experience as me. I distinctly remember one sophomore girl vowing to never come to youth group again out of fear she would be asked to speak in front of the youth group. Robert had a way of pressuring teens to step out of their comfort zone in order to discover their spiritual gifts. The youth who didn’t want to be uncomfortable were miserable in our church.

I don’t want you to be miserable at church, but I’d like to offer a challenge, especially if you aren’t certain where you fit into the body of Christ. 1 Peter 4:10 presents a strong command, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” That command leaves nobody off the hook. What gift(s) have you received, and how are you serving others with them? If you can’t answer that easily, here is my challenge:

Look for areas to volunteer either at Foundry, in one of our ministries, or among a body of believers around you. Maybe it’s joining the security team, helping with the archive ministry, the library, Kidztown, a prayer group, visiting shut-ins, planting flowers, Sunday snacks, … the list goes on.

I met a gentleman from Portland last week who said he feeds his church of 500-plus members a full meal every Sunday. His face lit up talking about how much he loved doing that for the body of Christ. He said he could never preach or teach, but in my analysis, he’s teaching 500 people every week about the love of Christ.

The nine men teaching Sunday school this summer have answered the challenge. What about you? Feel free to send an email to blog@foundrybend.org if you want to bounce some ideas off me.