It’s 9:15 in the morning now, and the Sagebrush Highland team has set up for the first public service today. It was a fast set set up- we started at 6- and the working crew has disbanded for two hours until the service starts at 11:15. There is a lot of excitement about this morning.  Another node of Christ’s church fires up today. The gospel will find another voice near Nob Hill today. 

I am very glad to be involves with this site, but at times I struggle. Invitations to come and serve have echoed from the Sagebrush mothership for six or seven months now, and I have been faithful attending planning meetings, bible studies, and training sessions on set up procedures, but I still show up on Sunday mornings without a clear role, and without strong attachments to many in the body. I am learning names, and I have food a sort of home setting up on the children’s classrooms, but one that set up is done, I rove and try to find other things to do. It has been a struggle to develop any strong connections with anyone in the church yet, though. I am 43, and I still stumble over myself, struggling to feel adequate and valuable in what should be the warmest community of my world- the church. My introversion dominates, and my reluctancy to jump in to new situations and to try and do new things, which requires me to learn while doing before the eyes of others ties me up. It’s a struggle for me to find my place in new communities, and trying to be a contributing cog in this one is no exception. And because feeling like I fit in comes so hard, I wonder what I am doing at this church, as I have wondered about other groups I have joined where I feel so anonymous. 

But I am at this church because it is where I believe He wants me to be. I will keep trying to find my place, simply because He made me, and I have to be good for something in this body. 

Lord, bless men like me, who are common, non-descript, with plain faces and forgotten names, and are reticent servants. We have the desire and will to serve, but sometimes we lack the confidence or  social cache to find where can best use what you’ve given us in the church. Give us assertiveness and endorsement that who we are and what we have to offer you and others is appreciated and valuable.  Help us to keep finding our identities in you. You made us- help us to be put in service in the places and positions that would best suit us, and best serve you.