I had the privilege to speak at the Tech Arts Conferenz in Karlsruhe Germany. There were about 600 creative and technical artists gathered together to learn from each other and to be inspired to keep doing ministry at our local churches.
As I was standing up on the stage having each word I was speaking being translated into German, I was really struck by all the different types of people in the room. I’m used to speaking to technical artists almost exclusively, but here I needed to broaden my audience to include all the people who help make our services happen.
I’m amazed at how frustrating it can be to work with people not like us, yet we can’t really do anything without each other. And without our differences, we would just sit and do production without any content, or we’d be performing our content in a quiet dark room.
In that moment on stage, I was reminded of how beautiful it is for each of us to be different and to fill a different role in the body of Christ. We are all uniquely imagined by a loving God to become a key component in what he wants to do in our local church. The challenge is to celebrate the fact that he has done the same for the people you are serving with also. The people that think differently than you, were designed that way. The people that will never think about the details of their idea were designed to have the idea, not to figure it out. He designed someone else for that…maybe you.
As I see us all trying to work together to pull off a church service, there are so many opportunities for frustration. So many chances to wish people were more like you. There are also many chances to learn from each other. Many chances to love each other. More than many chances to have grace for someone else. Many chances to lean into how God made you to be, without frustration, but with celebration. Celebrating that your gifts were made to compliment those around you for the greater good.
7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues,[a] and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
1 Cor. 12:7-11
