Bags of Gold

What I am about to say is a little whiny, but as someone who does ministry for my job, it’s really hard for me to enjoy church. This isn’t really about church. It’s more about me and my own insecurities. It’s hard for me to go to work and think about, talk about, and attempt to live faithfully into the reality of God and then go to church on Sunday and feel like I am being told I have to try harder. That’s on a good week.  On a bad week, my response to a sermon with a call to action is, “How dare you! You don’t know how hard I am already trying.” For a long time I felt like church took way more than it gave and I struggled to be generous with my time and my finances.

Fortunately for me, God has time and time again interrupted my inwardness. Even more fortunately for me, God’s way of doing this is to be generous with me when I am struggling to be generous with God and others.

About a year ago, God’s interruption came by way of a donation to the nonprofit I worked for from Nick and Liz Johnson. One of my roles was to review donations coming in and prepare “thank-you” letters to new donors. While the Johnson’s had been supporters of this nonprofit for a while; this donation was different because it was also listed as being from Kairos Church. I flagged it for my boss and she told me about the Bags of Gold Sunday at Kairos. I remember thinking to myself, “Well that’s an awesome church!”

A couple of weeks later while I was on my way to work, I realized I had left something at home.  Existing 285 at Riverside Drive to turn around, I drove by Kairos. My wife and I had been looking for churches for awhile and remembering the church’s generosity and realizing it was five minutes from where we live, I decided we had to give Kairos at least a try.

A year later I am incredibly grateful we did. It seems that every week I have the great fortune to see the generosity of God through the generosity of this community. I see it in the amazing testimonies of members before the offering, in people introducing themselves to us, in the intentionality of connection by the pastors, and in the care and solidarity of our small group. I am finding that slowly but surely God’s generosity towards me through this community is peeling back my own defensiveness and opening me up to share that grace with others.     

– Ben Garrett