Spending All Saturday at Church - Why Saturday?

Why would I set my alarm clock for 6am on a Saturday?

To go to church?

There are so many other things that could be done on a Saturday.  Besides, an hour or two on Sunday, that's all you really need, right?

Some of you may wonder why go to church ever?

Answer:  to get blessed.

Darling Bride and I serve in our local church in the junior high and small group leaders areas. We are on summer break from junior high and in between groups. Our local church invests time and resources to provide training so that leaders are prioritized on being Christ centered and focused on the Word, being intentionally invasive, living life together, and how to do that in real life.  Our Saturday commitment was from 8am until just before 4pm.

Did I waste my Saturday?

No, because I received two awesome take-aways:

1 - before leaders can lead others, they have to lead themselves / before I can lead others, I have to lead myself.  I cannot give away what I don't have.  What that means for me is that I've got to re-set my personal organization and priorities so that I'm reading my Bible, praying, and renewing my mind on things of Jesus before other worthwhile pursuits such as bicycling, watching baseball on TV, or even going to work a little early to get a jump on thigs.  Business for the sake of business is not a spiritual discipline.

2 - the goal is not to be free of fear, but to trust the Holy Spirit to help us, even if we don't have all the answers.  That's a paraphrase of one of our church's pastoral resident.  What that means for me is that I need to invest some energy into how I deal with fear.  Who said that courage is not the absence of fear, but persevering through fear?  I'll add to that saying that fear is part of the human condition in a fallen world, and the answer is not to remove what makes us fearful but to instead overcome fear with the resource that God gives us, namely, Himself:

For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control - 2 Timothy 1:7

I fear making the wrong decisions, such as either not doing something I ought or doing something I ought not to have done.

But if it is true we don't have all the answers, then it is true that we have to make decisions with the wisdom God gives us, and the wisdom does not include knowing what will happen in the future.

Putting this, and a lot of discussions and thought together, I believe my course of action is to do this:
1 - go all in on my commitment to the junior high ministry.
2 - rather than go 50% in junior high and 50% in small group leadership,  it may be a good time to let our small group ministry stay on hold, a season of renewal.

Action point:  do you expose yourself to growth opportunities, even when you'd rather be doing something else?  Do you use those opportunities to help you make worthwhile decisions?