My Job is not only a workshop

By Rachel Wright
Director of Congregational Excellence
My first “job” at the district office was to help plan this year’s My Job Workshop. With the tremendous help of the Austin District Board of Laity and because of the graciousness of each presenter who is offering his or her time and talents, we have a My Job Workshop full of opportunities for learning and growth.
When I started planning, I hated the title My Job Workshop. In my last work experience—my first full-time job—I learned that a job can be an endless, exhausting set of obligations without accomplishment or reward.
Surely that isn’t what we intend to imply about doing the work of the church, especially when Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians that we are to accomplish that work and still “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, [and] give thanks in all circumstances.”
It is difficult for a trustee to rejoice when the church plumbing backs up or for a Sunday school teacher to give thanks that the preschoolers won’t sit through a lesson. It is even harder to muster those feelings when we are faced with the problems of a world beyond our church foyers.
But then Paul was not talking about serving on a pastor-parish relations committee at Thessaloniki—though it might have benefitted! When Paul spoke of the work of the church there, he said, “We know, brothers and sisters, beloved by God, that he has chosen you because our message of the gospel came not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction …so that you became imitators of the Lord” and so that the church became a place of welcome and strength.
Paul speaks not of a job but of a call. He doesn’t address one leader but the whole body.
I believe we are all called to be the people of The United Methodist Church. We are called to be the people of God. We are called to open our hearts, our minds and our doors as we offer Christ to all.
My job is just one way that I answer that call. I imagine the same is true for you.
Besides, I have recently learned that a job doesn’t have to be an endless, exhausting set of obligations. It can be a joy, especially when one is offered knowledge, support and encouragement. I hope the My Job Workshop will offer that same encouragement to so many who answer God’s call to do the work of the church in the world.