Sometimes Paint Happens

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Romans 12:1 

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

Saturday we had a Paint Day at our 123 year old inner city church. The congregation is older than Spokane but building we were painting was built in the 1950's. Thankfully most of it is brick and did not need painting but we wanted to give some of the previously painted areas a face lift. The bottom below the brick is cement around most of the building and all got painted. I think we might have had twenty folks including some kids and homeless folks come by to lend a hand with the painting. 

Paint Happens

First Covenant Church Spokane

The Joy of The Lord

Rolling

Taping

             
It was a big job and I took these photos as people were just starting on their jobs. I then was sent on an errand to get turpentine. Little did I know that it was to clean up some paint that had already happened. As the day progressed more paint happened and not always where it was intended to go. 

I think perhaps what needs to be celebrated is that people came and gave up their Saturday to love and worship Jesus by painting, scrapping, taping, cleaning, cooking, serving, and loving one another.

I think we often try to put worship into a tidy box and try to relegate it to the singing portion of the service on Sunday.  We are to present our boides as living sacrifices as our spiritual act of worship. I know that bodies were sacrificed and after a long day of painting these wonderful folks went home tired. I'm just not sure they realized that what they were doing was worship. When I put together the power point slide for our service I included a lot of these photos. Normally try to use pictures that are pretty scenes or just textured backgrounds over which song words are laid.
I felt that it was important to intersperse these photos. Not so much to draw attention to each person but to try to connect the dots - that this too is worship.

Scraping

Managing

Paining

Most Sunday's when I am at church I am serving in some capacity. It is a rare Sunday when I am just sitting and experiencing the service.  For me worship is so much more than singing songs. Don't get me wrong I love worshiping through music but I have come to realize that my whole life can be an act of worship.

Wikipedia write "Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. The word is derived from the Old English worthscipe, meaning worthiness or worth-ship — to give, at its simplest, worth to something."

Matthew 25:⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ So I think, when I am at church and through out my day, how can I love these folks around me?  If it was Jesus standing before me how would I treat him?

What little things can I do to help people feel comfortable, welcome, to ease some of the stress some might be feeling. How can I pray, how can I encourage. How can I be the hands and feet of Jesus? 
For me loving, serving, obeying, have become part of my larger definition of worship. 

As I saw people giving of themselves out of their love for Jesus, it was a beautiful thing. Sure there was some paint that happened in places it was not ment to happen.  I know that Jesus was not concerned with paint that got spilled, splattered, and tracked about. He saw his people loving him with their lives, not with mere lip service but with obedience and action.



 

"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

 Luke 10:27