Dancing in the Aisles

Joyful Giving

“At offering time, rather than waiting for the tray to be hurriedly passed down the pew, old and young sing and dance. They drop what money they have into various baskets to benefit the community. The experience is a testament to what stewardship should be—joy, thanksgiving and giving back to God.”

Cheryl Sybrant (Fayetteville Christian Church, Arkansas)

Cheryl Sybrant is describing a church she visited in the Congo. The people there are poor when it comes to money, but they are rich in spirit. Their lives are a constant struggle to have enough to eat, and to have safe water and schools. When people find themselves in such circumstances, regardless of where they live, their faith is what keeps them going. Sybrant describes her Congo trip as “amazing, exhausting, inspiring, faith-filled, culturally challenging, beautiful, heart-breaking, and heart mending.” What she saw there was a community knitted together like a family, supporting each other and their collective body with joy. Their common needs were addressed by the whole, as were their individual needs.

We could take a lesson from such a church. Here in America, too often people are drifting, unmoored from their community. Folks can be struggling and no one knows about it because there is no inter-family facility for dealing with such need. When we have problems, we keep them to ourselves or take them to a therapist, but rarely do we go to our church body and ask for help. We may go to church every single Sunday and never speak of our need because to do so would set us apart. We may ask indirectly for prayers, but I wonder whether we truly expect our prayers to be answered. Certainly, we don't dance and sing down the aisles with our gifts to the church.

I try to imagine what a person from that church in the Congo would think if they were plopped down in one of our churches or synagogues. What they would think about the way we fuss and fret about small things, when there is such need in the world. What would they think about our faith and what we hold to be sacred? Do you wonder, too?

                                                       In the Spirit,

                                                              Jane