Shingles

I had been a pastor for one week and no matter how hard I prayed I didn't have a clue on what to do. Still, a pastor is always supposed to be doing something so Saturday I went down to the church and wandered around. The church is located in the old part of Fort Worth in a housing community that was built to house stockyard workers. All the old busineses have long since vanished but the community is still here. Well over half of the people are from Mexico so one thing I was thinking is that since I do not speak spanish the church would need to move fairly soon if it was going to survive. I have walked over and around this area called Diamond Hill many times but never thought of the church moving before. Besides, even if we were going to move the church doesn't have the resources to convince a bank to fund the project.

I wander around to the back of the church and notice a pile of shingles. Mixed into the shingles are pieces of burnt wood from the fire. The thought comes to me that this would not be something I would not want Jesus to see so I get a couple of trash bags and start picking them up. While I fill the first sack up I am feeling really depressed,

Lord God I pray, show me what I should do.
This church has so few people and so many needs,
I see no way we can do anything for the community in your name.
Should we stay in this place or leave?
Show me dear God what we should do.
Amen

I look at the shingle in my hand and it occurs to me that I can only fill three bags at most because where I live there is a limit of six bags of trash per week per household. Wait a second, what if the church had a cleanup day? Even as small as we are there are still five households which means we could cleanup 15 bags of shingles! The church has asked what they should do, I look at the shingles in my hand and smile.