Final Events In Craiova, Part 1 (Obedience)

If you were to ask me what my favorite type of ministry is, I would probably give you the general answer: “anything where I get to be with people.” My heart is for conversations. I like to be on the side of ministry where I get to be meeting people where they are at, telling them about Jesus, that sort of thing.

So when I found myself this last week of ministry in Craoiva running fully administrative things, I thought to myself; “how did I end up here?”

This week we had the opportunity to host two events in Craiova for the purpose of giving everyone our squad had met this past month an avenue for getting connected to the local church. There are 35 people on our squad who have been going out on the streets and meeting so many people every day, so there was potential for these events to be pretty big.

A little over a week before these events took place, I was asked to be in charge of running them.

Misunderstanding what I was saying yes to, I naively gave my yes to planning these pivotal nights of fellowship.

I soon realized that I wasn’t just in charge of communicating details about the events to the squad, I was in charge of planning everything for them. I also found out that in actuality it was 4 events taking place in two nights. The first night was an event for the youth in the church and also a second parallel event for college age youth in a different building, the church office. On the second night, we also had two events, one in each location.

I was faced with a dilemma. I said yes to planning these nights and yet I didn’t want to do it at all. I realized these were kind of important nights and yet I wasn’t particularly excited by the task of organizing people.

This yes meant that instead of spending ministry time out on the streets with people, I would be spending it scheduling people and making logistical plans. To some personality types that sounds great, not to me. Let me talk to people about Jesus, I don’t want to do math, and go mass grocery shopping, and locate the sound equipment.

Like most times I don’t want to do something, I prayed. The soft whisper on my heart was “obedience.” Scripture is the living word, so if you hear scripture in your heart you can be pretty certain it is of the Lord.

Ok Scripture says this: “Walk in obedience to all that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.” -Deuteronomy 28:1

“Walk in obedience to all that the Lord your God has commanded you.” Ok well here is something that the Lord commanded us to do: go and make disciples (Matthew 28: 16-20) and love one another (John 15:2).

Planning these events encompassed both of these things. All God wants from us is obedience. “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” -Matthew 7:21

He wants our obedience even if it doesn’t make sense to us. He wants our obedience even if it is not what we want to do. What makes us think our plans our better than His? He wants our obedience even when we think there is someone better qualified to do the job we have been placed to do.

So I started planning the events and felt grateful for the opportunity to be the behind the scenes working to see a beautiful event come together. The culmination of a months worth or relationships and hopefully the beginning of a journey following the Lord for some of the attendees. Absolutely beautiful. Tell me why I didn’t originally view this job as an absolute blessing.

I got together a team of my squad mates and we planned out the events. Due to a million factors, very few of them me, the events turned out great, but you can read more about that in part 2 of this blog.

I pray that unlike in this situation, my immediate reaction to serving the Lord is always obedience. All the Lord wants from us is our obedience. To partner with Him even when we don’t understand it.

What does it loom like to be obedient to the Lord in places that are unseen, in places where exciting stories aren’t happening, in places where you are never ever thanked. I got thanked for helping with these events. I kind of wish I didn’t because in the fleeting moment someone thanks me, for a second I think these are about me. Oh silly Courtney.

It’s all through God and for God. It’s all about the cross, all of it.

“All honor and glory to God forever and ever! He is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies; he alone is God. Amen.” -1 Timothy 1:17