Committee-tarianism

This is a brief overview of my day yesterday:
Normal morning
Got all three girls ready to go and out the door for a tire appointment at 1:30 p.m.
Spent an hour in the waiting room with all three girls
Got all three back in the van and went through three drive-throughs: the bank, post office, and Burger King (praise the LORD for drive-throughs)
Rachels for a play date of sorts

This is where my hectic day gets crazy. When I got to Rachel's Gigi was sleeping, it was a 75 degree, cloudy day, so I left all the van doors open and left her in the van. We had the other girls in the yard playing and we were talking and I look up and the van doors were all shut! I quickly asked Rachel if she had gotten Gigi out of the van, and she said "Oh, my gosh, no! I saw Riley shut all the doors; I didn't realize Gigi was in there." So I ran over, she was fine (of course, I wouldn't be blogging about it if she wasn't), she was all sweaty but still sleeping. It was still scary.

Then, like an hour later, Gigi fell in the pool. This actually wasn't so scary. We were all in the pool; I was sitting with my feet in it and Gigi was right next to me. And she just fell in. I scooped her up and out and after she got over the initial shock, she was fine. She even started clapping like she did some amazing flip into the pool.

So after my daughter's life was twice endangered, we loaded all the kids up and took them to vacation Bible school. Sigh.

One of my mom's told me there, that they were bringing hospice in for her mom who has lung cancer. This sweet grandmother has lived with her daughter's family her grandchildren's entire lives. So this is going to be an especially hard loss. This is a part of ministry I don't like; it's hard.

Then after VBS, the chair of the CE committee tells me that I need a list of goals for the school year, that they're going to review it and my job description at the next CE meeting. Argh! After talking to one of the session members and my pastor about this (neither of them had any clue what was going on), I just decided to call the CE chair this morning and ask her what was going on. Well, apparrantly, it's the same stuff that always goes on in Presbyterian churches. They wanted to make sure that all of my plans were going through committee.

Committee's can be a good thing. I like accountability, organization, and deligation. Those are good things. However, when certain committees are occupied by the same people for years and years and years, ruts can happen, progress is slowed, and change, well, just doesn't always happen.

Maybe I'm young and naive, but I hope I'm not. I hope I just trust that God can bring transformation - even to an economically depressed, aging population in SE Ohio. Even to a group of Presbyterians who refuse to change, even when change must occur in order to keep the doors open. Even to people whose hearts have been hardened by hard lives . . .

I feel that my words could have been written by the ancient church leaders. These problems have been perpetuated throughout church history because we are sinners: we are prideful, self-righteous, self-involved people, who care to take far more than we are willing to give. I hope and pray that God saves me from this . . .

There are a few people in our church who have been. They are like a drink of fresh water in the parched land of ministry. So I will end this post thankful for them :)