The Ministry of Ordinary Places
Yesterday I read this AMAZING book called The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking up to God’s Goodness Around You. I found it through a forgotten blog or podcast that instantly resonated with me. I couldn’t wait to open the beautiful front cover. So fresh, so simple. Those two words, ministry and ordinary have been creeping up on me lately. I didn’t think I had a dream of “working in ministry,” or “becoming a missionary,” as many of my faithful friends seem to. I have always dreamed of building (a fun ;) community and leading others to the faith. And I have prayed the scary prayer, “God, use me.” I guess I am slowly understanding how ministry plays a part in my own life. It’s a great thing to be able confidently label and name things happening in your life. When I started homeschooling, the book The Ministry of Motherhood, spoke confidence into my overlapped mission of mothering and home education, and my desire to be working. Hm, I can call my work in the family a ministry. Next, when I started teaching fertility charting, I had a hard time naming that as “work.” I’m meeting in an office in my local parish, this doesn’t feel like the professional work I was trained to do. Hm, I can also name this as a ministry? Allowing myself to use the word ministry to define that “work,” has been more than freeing.
Now onto the ordinary. Honestly, I don’t want to be ordinary. For some reason, I dislike using that word to describe my life. I guess I want to be “extra-ordinary!” “Grand!” “Do the big things, not the little ones!” Why is that? Why do I fool myself into false thinking? Pride? Well, by my third decade I’m finally paying attention to the age old truth in “the little is the big.” When I accept the little ordinary flows in my own life, I find peace and fulfillment in the life I am called to. But no, I’m called to more! I pout. By who? What “more?” Listen, Alex. Bloom where you are planted. Love the life you are given. Pay attention. Learn the Ministry of Ordinary Places.
This is what we must learn to embrace! The art of ministering in our ordinary. Loving the life we are given. Are we all not tempted to look over the fence too often? To doubt the goodness in both the joys and sorrows in front of us. Why are we still trying too hard? Thank you Shannan for the gift of your book to open our eyes to another way. (I love when these stage ahead of me women speak such the truth I’m trying so hard to articulate).
“If I could require fieldwork for each one of you, it would be to find a way to regularly break bread with the most random, regular people you can find…They might be the ones avoiding eye contact or sticking to the smallest shreds of small talk.” They’re the ones you might overlook, for no other reason than the fact that they have learned to stay quiet. They’re working at the pizza place. They’re staring at their phones in the pick-up line. You have no idea how badly your random, regular self needs them.” I whine for wanting more? Look around, pay attention. Who is your own ordinary life is waiting to be ministered to.
“Our tendency to group ourselves according to shared demographics has caused us to miss the important one: a longing to be known just as we are, in all our rumpled-jeans, misbehaving kids, tired-eyes non glory. And, at the end of the day, isn’t that all of us?” “It’s not similar socioeconomic status, life experience, or theological position that bind us, after all. Rather, it’s basic proximity and the inevitable nomad status known, eventually, be every one of us. God’s sacrifice is made evident through the willingness of his children to recognize one another as eternal family.”
I wish I could better articulate how God is ever present in the details of each one of our lives. I promise, He is. When we slowly learn to pay attention, we will see with new eyes. I know its a long road ahead, but I’m so excited at this first planted seed of ministering in my ordinary places. In my ordinary last evening, as the kids went to bed and my husband wiped the counters, I opened my door to our Monday night prayer group. Pictured here are my dollar store wine glasses, boxed cookies in a bowl, and a lit Yankee candle as I wait for them to enter. I knew he could capture the beauty in this ordinary ministry I must learn to be proud to embrace ;) “Nick, can you take a picture of me with my new favorite book?” We had 5 minutes to kill, “Sure, Alex.” I’m so thankful for these small moments, that guess what, become the big moments and shape the ministry and gift of ourselves we are created to be! If you have room in your cart, add this book. If you don’t just yet, take my sparknotes and pay attention to your own life on this ordinary Tuesday. God has placed you right where you are, with the right people around, just waiting. You don’t actually have to “do,” anything. Just be at peace, and move slowly to your next ordinary moment with eyes wide open ;)
