Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Compliments and Success

I've been in an emotional place recently. Success at VBS despite chaos and crisis has left me feeling good and relief that it is over for another year. I told my co-director that the job is probably ours until we say no. I don't want to brag about prowess or claim credit when the credit is the Lord's. We are good at this. We have complimentary strengths and work well together. This was B's third year planning VBS, the first she did it alone. I was assigned to help with the preschoolers, including Je. The week before VBS that year, I was talking with the woman in charge of decorating, and she said she had arranged to borrow several decorations from another church. I volunteered to go with her to get them since I had a vehicle with a trailer hitch and access to a trailer to haul the several ranch themed decorations. As we decorated the church that weekend with our borrowed items and many that we had provided from our stock of ranch themed ideas, I made the comment that I wasn't even on the decorating committee, why was everyone asking me where to put stuff. B said "You are the decorating committee." The woman who had arranged to get the decorations hadn't been able to make it that day to set up so I was by default in charge. I loved that aspect of it. I was contributing to VBS in an important way, and yet I was behind the scenes, invisible unless you knew. That is kinda how I view my role the last two years as co-director. My name is out there as director, but B is the one who is the visible face of VBS. She makes the announcements and leads the meetings. I give her lists, run the errands, do the research, make the copies, etc. We get together and go over things, make decisions and assign tasks. We share the credit. Saturday, as we finished up the clean up she said she feels like I do the work and she bosses. I don't think I explained it very well when I disagreed. I think I need her to do the bossing and I need to do the work. I told someone that I am the feet of the operation and she is the brain. Not to say that I don't think or have ideas, I do, but I am really good at carrying out the ideas she has. Implementation strength. And I think God put us as a team because we have these complementary strengths. He is glorified when we use our gifts in His service. When 47 children attend VBS in our church which has 15 children birth to high school, that is amazing. May the Lord be praised. When it takes 30+ adults to pull off VBS and they graciously offered their time and talents to this effort, PTL. B and I put in hours and effort, and ideas, but the success is because of Him. He blesses those contributions and we have only obeyed Him when we give service to Him.

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