A LABOR OF LOVE

“For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name...” (from Hebrews 6:10)

Today, I was not assigned to work at the telephone answering service at all. I suppose that to many of you what I did with a substantial portion of this day’s free time may seem really weird. This morning, I went over to the “old” church property at South and Taylor Streets, Framingham, and “mowed the weeds” down with a lawn mower and an electric weedwhacker. I know I wrote a piece some weeks ago about “Letting Go” and this may SEEM like a contradiction of that piece, but I honestly don’t think it is a contradiction.

Every time I go over to that former church property, it’s a bit surreal. I remember so many days of going inside that building during my pastorate when I’d say the phone would be “ringing off the hook”. There were constant phone calls and phone messages. I’d also check my e-mail and the church e-mail several times a day. There was always all sorts of “stuff” to do there- not only inside the building, but outside on the property! When the church had first bought that property back in 1994, one of my Board members made the comment, “Isn’t it great that it’s just a concrete and brick building and a parking lot...there’s NO lawn to mow!!”

Well, we quickly found out that along the periphery of the paved lot and in the area of the overflow dirt lot are all sorts of wild grasses and weeds. To use one of my late father’s expressions, the stuff would grow up, “like nobody’s business”! We had bamboo plants which could grow up and out as much as 2 or 3 feet a week! And there were all sorts of weeds and plants...some of which would grow 6 feet tall in a growing season if not cut down. When all the “growth” would be just let go, the property looked neglected and frankly looked horrible. There also was always a littering problem there. Honestly, it was WORSE ten or fifteen years ago...the litter is not quite as bad as it used to be, but there is still a fair amount of litter that will accumulate over a few weeks if nobody picks it up.

I got in the habit of bringing a lawn mower or weekwhacker over to the chuirch property at least once a month during the warm weather months and trying to cut down much of the growth...as well as pouring vinegar on weeds that would grow through cracks in the parking lot.

No, I’m not the pastor there any more. Yes, the Southern New England District of the Assemblies of God has the property up for sale. There’s a prominent Coldwell Banker real estate sign at the front of the building. It’s maybe hard for anybody to understand, but for me (until that property is sold) that place is still “holy ground”. As long as Christians and ministry-related people own it, I think it behooves us to make sure it looks “decent” and “taken care of”.

Once the church was closed and I was no longer pastor, there were both family and friends who told me, “Don’t YOU go over there painting out graffiti on the building, or dealing with broken windows, or picking up the parking lot or anything like that. Let the people who made the decision to shut the church down take care of that stuff!”

You know, for a week or two back in March I was saying, “Yeah, you’re RIGHT! Let THEM take care of it! It shouldn’t be MY problem!”

Well, I’ve found that’s easier said than done. As strange as this may sound to some of you, I thoroughly enjoyed my working at the 32 South Street property today. I felt good. I felt happy. It felt good to see the fruit of my labor. It did not feel like an imposition or an inconvenience. It actually felt like a blessing and was something I enjoyed doing.

You know, I just can’t drive by that place, see it looking neglected, and not do something about it. I’d honestly LOVE to paint the parking lot lines, too. The church actually HAS a parking lot “striper” and still has a few cans of the white paint. I always did a lousy job with that, and I used to have Bill Lincoln, a guy in the church do that. It needs to be done again, but I don’t want to ask Bill. Maybe he’d think I was nuts!

Well, am I nuts? Am I a nerd? Should I divorce myself from any concerns about that property? To me, it’s something I did for the property of what once was our church home and for the people who used to worship there, something I did for the Assemblies of God, and most of all something I did for God - a labor of love.