It’s time to tackle the pint-sized elephant in the room:  This church I am working with for the month of August is tiny.  In fact, it’s so small that on July 1st it entered into a “cooperative parish” with another nearby church.  Basically, that just means that two small churches share one ordained elder who splits her time between the two congregations.  In theory, the churches should have joint committees and merged ministries and the like.  In practice, the two churches have yet to really integrate their organizational structure, leaving my pastor with twice as many meetings to attend, twice as many budget issues to deal with, and half as much sleep.

Yet she handles it as easily as I could never imagine myself dealing with it.  Granted, I have only been with her for a week, but the ease with which she accepts constant changes to her schedule and lost hours in her day astounds me.  Perhaps I am merely impressed because I do not handle constant schedule changes very well.  Moreover, I am often convinced that the moments of solitude I use for centering myself are the only thing holding me together.  When something or some one throws a kink in those plans, my brain turns into a pinball machine.

Yet, with my pastor’s helpful example, I am seeing the wisdom in the words of Meister Eckhart, the medieval Dominican theologian, who says:

A beautiful sunset I caught off the lake

“We should grasp God in all things and should train ourselves to keep God always present in our mind, in our striving and in our love.”  He goes on to explain that this inner presence of God is not something that should be conditional on external factors, but rather “we must learn to maintain an inner solitude regardless of where we are or who we are with.”

Suffice it to say, my pastor seems to have mastered this art quite spectacularly.

The other interesting thing about small churches with elderly populations (like these two) is that there is a real sense of reliance on each other and dedication to the community.  The churches may not have the far-reaching influence of a mega church, but each member of the congregation seems to know their worth to the church.  In large part, this is simply because they are worth more to the church, proportionally.  One person out of 70 is a lot bigger percentage than one person out of 500.  (Not to say that people are not valued in big churches, but sometimes it’s hard to believe in your worth as a member)

Furthermore, each member’s worth takes tangible form in the crucial jobs that they take on to keep the place running.  For instance, at my pastor’s primary church, each garden bed surrounding the building is cared for by a different congregant.  The de-humidifier is emptied by another (my host, actually).  The money is counted by another.  Each day I probably meet 3 new people who come into the church just to do some odd job that they are responsible for, and you can tell they take enormous pride in it.

The second church, though, has shown the best example of an otherwise underestimated group having an enormous impact on its community.  This church runs a relatively large food pantry three days a week, which serves needy families in that zip code.  I had the opportunity to help out with the project on Thursday, joining the core group of about seven volunteers from the congregation (meaning 12% of the congregation).  At first, while listening to the elderly gentleman in charge explain to me the most obvious details of my job at an excruciatingly slow pace and with unnecessary repetition, I admit that I briefly wondered how much more quickly a group of young, strong, devilishly handsome volunteers like myself might run a food pantry like this.

But as I stood there, filling boxes with cereal and vegetables and pancake mix for hungry families, two key facts occurred to me:  (1) No group of young, strong, handsome (or even just average-looking) volunteers was present, because no one cared about this tiny church’s project as much as the members for whom it is their pride and joy.  And (2) This elderly group was getting the job done:  Every family received their groceries in a timely manner, and the volunteers fulfilled their duties like a well-oiled machine.  A machine that worked just fine, even if it has been around for a while.