A Church Family
by Carolyn Apel
If I had to condense the New Testament into the smallest version possible, I would choose three verbs: Love, Go, Tell. To describe my church and my church family I could use the same three words.
I've been thinking recently about how important my church family has been in my life, the life of my family, and my community. It has been there in times of need, in times of joy, despair, sorrow, and rejoicing as we faced job losses, births, deaths, marriages, and other milestones of life. It has been there to help raise and teach our children, support us in our growth as Christians, provide a place for us to serve, find friendship and fellowship as well as to worship. It has brought us together in fiery disaster and torn us apart and brought us back together stronger than before when we had hard decisions to make. Our church family encourages, supports, comforts, loves!
We have shared God's House with our Korean neighbors until they were able to establish their own church home. We have given through local, State, National & World Mission offerings and Mission action, the most visible being Operation Christmas Child, City Gospel Mission dinners, Matthew 25, & ESL Classes. We have sent missionaries and new, young ministers to Israel, witnessing to both Arabs and Israelis, Mexico, Central America, and several states as we raise our youth, teach, send and reach out. I can't imagine what life would have been like without my church family...or how anyone can survive without one in today's world.
A church is only as strong and fruitful as the people who not only attend, but who volunteer to fill all the tasks that are needed to make it work. It's not only the pastor, the ministers of youth and children, the worship leaders, the secretary. custodian, treasurer, and publicist. They couldn't do it without the nursery workers, teachers, choir members, committee members, and helpers to clean up after activities, to mow the lawn, plant flowers, pull weeds, without the greeters who welcome us each Sunday morning... and don't forget those who arrive early and put on the coffee pot and fill the tea thermos! Like bees in a hive, we are all dependent on one another to make our church work. If you are one of these, I thank you for your time and your dedication!
Think back over all the times the church has been there in your own life. I remember a small congregation who had only met me once before but put on a wedding reception for us because of their love for a pastor who had just become my father-in-law; and a tiny new church in Maryland a year later, who welcomed us into their homes until there were enough of us to build a church to worship in. I remember Joe Crumpler & Del Fritz visiting two nights after we attended Mt. Carmel following our move to Cincinnati. Then this new church was growing and building!
Soon, I was cleaning windows in a 2nd-grade classroom of our new Kenwood Rd. building as I told the first non-family member about being pregnant with our first child. I remember a double stroller holding two tiny newborns collapsing on the front lawn when Mrs. Traughber and Janis Engle came to visit, and our girls' first day in the church nursery. Through their teen years, the church youth group was the center of our daughters' social experience. There were phone calls and visits after my cancer surgery. When Paul died, my church was there for me, finding me a place again in the nursery with newborns to cuddle when I couldn't sit in a worship service and listen to hymns without him singing next to me. I learned from the women in my church family that being a widow isn't necessarily a bad life, it's just a different life.
I continued working with City Gospel Dinners and my church family helped me make new friends and do things I'd never been able to do before. I had people to socialize and travel with. Today, my volunteering is less, but God still finds things I can do and my church family becomes more and more precious to me. If you are someone who comes every Sunday but hasn't found your place in this wonderful family I pray that you will look around, ask questions, and find the perfect place to serve!
