Tuesday, July 16, 2013

A Safe Place at the Kiddy Table

Three things have happened in the past few weeks, and they are linked.

1) I was invited to join the "Deep and Wide" cohort of 15 emerging pastors in the RCA. Don't read "emerging" in terms of theology, but in terms of age. Pastors in this cohort will be approximately 25-35, and I am safely on the younger end of that spectrum at 28.

2) We had four children (ages six and under) stay in our home.

3) I told a group of pastors (all of whom have my deepest respect and admiration/envy) about a time I failed to accomplish what I said I would accomplish.

There's something about eating with a range of children that is utterly fascinating. Some children are at an age where they need to be told to finish their food, some children need to be told how to properly eat their food, and some children are at an age where they just go at it and you wait patiently to clean up afterward. The progress is fun to watch. Children, as they age, begin to take on more responsibility at the table. Eventually adults will help clean up after themselves (in theory...). Children, however, create all sorts of messes with varying degrees of capacity to clean it up or even see it.

Confession: I don't like being referred to as young. I hear young, I hear child. I hear young, I hear child, I feel an intense desire to prove myself. I could let the chip on my shoulder slide a little bit. As I remind people, I will naturally phase out of being young. I am already approaching the big 3-0, after all.

Second confession: There's something attractive about sitting at the kiddy table.

At the kiddy table, I am there to make people laugh and attract attention before being released to play. But at the grown-up table, I have to clean up my messes and take responsibility for the functioning of the table.

I sit at many tables. I am in a church table, a denomination table (and being invited into this cohort is a big deal for me at this table), a family table, friendship tables, and even a table of community agencies working together for the betterment of my county. Those are a lot of tables. And yet, there is something attractive about going back to the kiddy table. It is comfortable there. I can sit and talk about what needs to be changed but never take ownership of that change. Changing systems is for grown ups, just like doing the dishes for Thanksgiving.

The kiddy table was cool for a time, but there are areas in my life in which I want out of the kiddy table and to take the place that Jesus has set for me at the grown-up table, wherever that place may be. Perhaps you, the reader, are sitting at the kiddy table of life, a victim of circumstances or scheduling. Let's take a walk together to the grown up table and learn together what it means to take responsibility there.

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