Sometimes, we need to pause and remember why we do what we do.
One of my least favorite tasks in ministry is event planning.
Don’t get me wrong– I love the actual events. It’s planning them that stresses me out.
Though it’s fun to think through what the event might look like and start dreaming out the details, there is always the tension of guess-timating how many people to prepare for: you want to prepare enough to make the event available to everyone who’d like to come, but you don’t want to prepare too much and waste both volunteers’ time and church resources.
It’s a matter of good stewardship.
A few weeks after my family’s move to Ofunato, our volunteer base staff decided to throw a Christmas Eve party at the church we served at and invite members of the community who don’t usually come to church. Being new to the city, I asked how many guests we might expect.
Before we got into that, our staff was overcome by a sense that we first needed to examine our motives. Why were we throwing this event? Just because we, as missionaries, were expected to hold outreach events? Was it all about numbers? Was it about introducing unchurched people to the church?
We began to hear the Holy Spirit speaking through one another, and a message began to surface: What is Christmas? Isn’t it a celebration of the birth of Jesus? Why not simply celebrate Jesus’ birthday, as cheesy as that might sound? If we made this our goal, anyone else from the community who might come would be icing on the cake, but even if not a single person responded to our invitation, it’d be all right, because our staff and the three members of our church would be gathered to celebrate Jesus’ first coming.
We then started brainstorming on how many people to prepare for. The church had limited space and resources, so we couldn’t accommodate too many guests, but we wanted to make sure we’d have enough food for anyone who did come.
There would be twelve people to start with, including our staff, family members, and volunteers from sister churches. As we began to estimate the number of guests to expect, several staff members mentioned that in the past, perhaps one or two others would attend this sort of thing, and if five additional people were to come, it would be considered a huge win.
That would put our total at seventeen, which somehow didn’t feel like the right target number, but rather than try to figure this out on our own, we decided to pray and see if God would give us a number.
Three out of five of us got the number thirty, so that’s the number we planned for.
We prepared thirty meals and set up thirty-one seats, using every single folding chair we had between the church and the volunteer base. It took some creative seating arrangements to fit them all into the church sanctuary, which was roughly the size of a three-car garage in California.
And how many people total did we end up with at the party?
Twenty-nine. At first, that is.
Two guests arrived later, putting our total at thirty-one. We had prepared thirty-one seats and thirty meals, and since our two sons split one meal, we had exactly enough food for everyone.
We were pleasantly surprised that:
- This many people actually showed up.
- About half of our guests were non-Christians from the community.
- Guests included disaster survivors, a temporary housing unit manager, children who studied English with our staff, a city council member, and some friends we’d made in the community.
We had enough seats, goody bags, and food for everyone, and without any wasted leftovers.
If only all events could be like this.
It was great to see everyone there, eating, laughing, playing games, singing, and praying together. After I gave a message on light entering a dark world through the birth of a child (John 1:1-18), we ended with Silent Night by candlelight– something we did every year at my home church’s Christmas Eve service, but it was the first time the church in Ofunato had ever done this.
Hopefully, everyone there had a great time.
It was a party, after all.
2 Comments