In the in-between time
Easter is history. Mother’s day has come and gone. Graduation weekend for the College our church meets at is over, which means we have about 30 less people with us when we gather.
This is what I call the in-between time.
When September comes we’re back in full-swing. More people, a new school year, and fresh vision for our community all come together to give us a shot of adrenaline that hits us like a 6am triple espresso.
And that can be a rush. And it can be effective. But the problem is, it can’t be sustained.
Just like proper music dynamics make the intense parts of a song stand out, our lives need both ups and downs to make both more meaningful. Churches need that, too.
The problem is, our businesses, our lives, and our churches often run at full speed; and the slow or stop lever seems to be broken.
This isn’t a post about Sabbath (though I’ve written about that important principle before), but about seasons. What I call “High Holy Seasons” in the church are wonderful. I love the Christmas and Easter seasons at our congregation. I love the afterburner that kicks in when our students are back in school. These are truly great times.
But I have also come to love the down times, the slow times; the in-between times. It’s been hard to learn to appreciate them, though, because our culture (even our church culture) is all about more momentum and more energy and more impact…
…it’s just that more of these things don’t necessarily produce more of what we are really looking for.
We forget that God calls us to “be still and know that I am God”. We forget that along with making an impact on the world, Jesus not only slowed down to get away with the Father (what we might consider our “devotions”), but that He took a LONG TIME getting from one place to another. There was a built in requirement for “in-between” time, because in-between the momentum of ministry in Jerusalem and Galilee was a multi-day walk where not a lot happened.
Pastor and author (and friend) John Fehlen writes this about the church event calendar: “There has to be times on our calendars in which there is NOTHING happening. When NOTHING happens then the SOMETHING has greater value.”
John also reminds us that “some bowling alleys remove all pins from service and put them on a shelf. One manager said, ‘We let the pins rest. If the wooden pins don’t rest, they lose their vitality and won’t bounce around as much or be as “alive”.”
Is the church or ministry you serve as busy as ever, but seems to be losing its “bounce” and vitality? Take a look at your schedule and determine when was the last season you had an in-between time. If it’s all momentum, and no rest, you are missing something essential that, though it may feel counterintuitive, will allow the active times to be much more effective.
If you are in an in-between time, enjoy it, regroup, deepen your relationships, and give yourself and your church space to consider who you are, and to dream about what God may be leading you into next!