Recently I have been able to step back into the classroom of our local Bible School. For the last few years, I had been serving at the regional and international level. Returning to the local level and interacting with the same group of students as they journey through Scripture has been so refreshing.
I speak to many of my co-workers who express how little they interact with the “everyday common” person. The higher they climb on the leadership ladder, the less they do of what they truly love.
Much of our time ends up in meeting and committee, deciding policy and executing projects. If we are not careful, we lose touch with the life and vitality of ministry at the grassroots.
This tendency to drift is common to so many areas of our lives.
As parents, we can become consumed with the activities, social events, and sports of our kids. Often the best conversations and interactions don’t come in the chaos, but rather around the dinner table or on the routine drive to school. Busyness has often become a substitute for quality time in parenting.
In marriage, it is so easy to collapse in exhaustion at the end of each day; watching videos or Tv shows in silence. Without a regular return to the grassroots of conversation and connection, the natural tendency is to drift.
In our walks with God, we tend to go to two extremes. Either the busyness of life squeezes God out or we seek intense moments and emotional connections to sustain us. The next conference or the newest twist on a teaching satisfies our appetite and gets us through.
Sometime the best moments with God are when we return to the grassroots of our faith and simply bask in the basic understanding of who God is and what He has done for us.
Jerry Bridges, the former president of the Navigators, describe maturity as a Christian as “mastering the basics.”
I’ve always loved this definitions. New and flashy is not always better.
Simplicity and enjoyment at the grassroots is often the most satisfying.
By returning to the classroom and working with young people, I’ve been reminded of why I’ve given my life to teaching people the Word. Engaging in the day-to-day, rather than the fly in, fly out mentality of a consultant, has helped me reconnect with the most important part of ministry.
The people.
Lets remember to reconnect with our kids, not just the activity of parenting.
Let’s engage the person we love, not the institution of marriage.
And may we constantly remind ourselves of the Person of Jesus we walk this life with.
True life is lived at the grassroots.
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