At church... without being at church

I spend nearly 1/3 of my waking hours at church. Sadly, my goal is to attend service 50% of the time and I'm even failing at that. When I don't know about things going on there it's usually been announced in the service or put in the worship folder which I never hear and never get, so I often feel like I'm the last to know things even though I work there. It's become a joke in staff meetings...Oh you didn't know about that? That's right, you don't attend here.

I really felt the longing over Christmas. We were in Seattle and attended church with my brother and sister-in-law. Their church is not exactly my style, but as we were waiting for the service to begin it hit me...I had NO RESPONSIBILITIES! I didn't have a pager in case of emergency. If a child was crying or a teacher didn't come or a toilet overflowed, someone else would take care of it. I didn't need to mentally run through my "To Do" list to make sure that I had told the two year old teacher that so-and-so was in big girl panties today and that all the parts of the craft were on the counters. I wasn't noticing which parents were in the service with me and what that meant about classroom dynamics. I didn't even have to worry whether Justin was obeying his teachers. I just got to worship.

And I did.

And it filled a need.

I don't have an answer to the dilemma. I love my job and it is what it is. My job is about being fully staffed on Friday afternoon when I leave the office and getting two (or six) calls Saturday night with people who aren't coming as scheduled. My job is about a class of six babies requiring six volunteers because each is demanding an individual set of arms because they can't sleep in a strange place. My job is about encouraging parents that they need to go to church and get their own spiritual needs met and promising that I will personally check on their child and page them if their child needs them. I love that I can provide for others the experience of going to church and knowing that their children are safe and happy and loved. But I miss that experience myself.

So for now I just try to carve out as many of those times as I can (it's usually at 8:00a with the AARP crowd in the balcony with Justin and a coloring book), and appreciate, maybe more than most, the opportunity to join with my "family" and worship our God together.