Accidentally became important

There's this meme I've see online, seems like it's fairly new, about people demonstrating competence and bemoaning that they accidentally became important at their job. The implication is they did not want this, do not want to be relied upon, want to continue to be paid without all that responsibility. To me this seems rather zoomer-ish, similar to the concept of quiet quitting, and is sad in a way. But I also get it. Lots of jobs aren't meritocratic and don't reward ability, instead offering only more work. But I digress.

I bring this up because that's what's happened to me. Not at my work, because, well, my work is our home and I've always been important there. In my case I've accidentally become important at church. The difference from the meme is that I'm not upset about it. But it happened quickly and it's fun to say that I 'accidentally became important' so that's been my joke of late.

Before summer 2024 I'd never volunteered in kid's church in any capacity. My wife had been helping out for a while. In my mind I thought someone from my family is contributing, and I'm with the kids all the time, I deserve this one hour a week to listen in church. (Note: we only currently have one service and if you volunteer you miss 'big' church.) And I still don't think that's wrong, especially if the desire is truly to try and absorb the message and not just to get away from your kids at the expense of the church's volunteers. But eventually I came around to the sentiment that if you're utilizing kid's church you should probably pitch in in some capacity.

It all started with VBS, vacation bible school, 2024. From what I can tell every church with a kid's program does this one week a summer, really four nights, for like two hours a night. It's high energy, usually has a fun theme, involves a large number of kids and requires a ton of volunteers to make happen. My first foray into kid's church was this, last summer, and I choose it because it was at night and I wouldn't be missing Sunday church to help out. That year I was one of three volunteers in a classroom with a rotating group of kids, and I barely did any teaching. I was in charge of running our games and keeping the kids entertained toward the end of the night. It was fun, and I had dipped my toe in the water.

At the beginning of this year, in January, our church started up Wednesday night elementary-age kids programming for the first time since we've been going there. When we started, at the same time a new (younger than us) senior pastor had been hired, there weren't all that many kids. In the last ~three years that's changed markedly with the entry of a ton of young families. Sunday kid's church these days is constantly scrambling for volunteers, bless the woman who organizes it, and they started up Wednesday nights too. It's ideal to have a second weekly option to teach kids about Jesus and, if you aren't aware of this, it's very common to have a form of kid's church on Wednesday nights. I went growing up. Since I'd been looking for more opportunities to serve but was still hesitant to sign up Sunday mornings, I became a Wednesday night volunteer. Of course this meant going every week from January to April (with a few exceptions for spring break etc). In doing this I looked at it as a four month commitment, silly me.

Doing Wednesday nights was a worthwhile experience. At the start especially there was a real dearth of help, like three to five people total (plus maybe an extra parent/grandparent). I was first assigned, again, to run games and that was fine, but within a month I was leading a classroom of preschoolers and kindergartners. That's meant making an attempt to review the large group lesson we started with, moving onto some crafts or other activities, and then finally hanging on for dear life until their parents arrived. Still, I enjoyed it and was apparently proving my worth by being there every week and taking on a challenging group.

Over the summer the woman who runs the program this pushes hard to get other people to volunteer on Sundays, as many of the regulars are gone and the normal schedule isn't going to work. She makes it really easy and has clearly gotten enough people to actually have kid's church two of the three summer months, a win. I took a couple dates when we'd be in town, my first for Sunday mornings. In finalizing the schedule she asked if I'd be willing to lead the whole thing one week. So I ended up teaching in front of the large group, another first. It was, I dunno, 40 kids? This meant considerably more prep than just reading through my questions once and making sure I knew how to do the activities and crafts. And even though I've long struggled speaking in front of groups, in particular up on a stage, it went really well. I'm glad I said yes.

Summer 2025 I also did VBS again and this time was like a grizzled veteran, serving as a classroom leader. I was paired with a new hire pastor and it felt funny teaching this guy, who's about my age, has gone through seminary and is on staff at the church, how we operate. On one occasion I assured him that it would indeed be okay if we played dodgeball since we were stuck inside due to rain. I'll remember that for a while.

At the end of the summer the schedule for the upcoming school year needed to be made. I planned to sign up somewhere and could've either helped out Wednesday nights again or taken a once-a-month slot on Sundays. My biggest desire was to help out where I was most needed, and guessed, apparently correctly, that there wouldn't be enough people on Wednesdays. I was now signed up not only from January through April but from September through April, nearly every week. We soon learned that the group coming to this would be like 30 boys and five girls and have made the programing very active and largely male led. That means I've become one of the regular large group leaders in addition to taking on a small group later in the night. The first night, where at least I was only in charge of my 30 minute small group, ended with half the boys wrestling each other on the ground. I was alone with about 10 2nd/3rd graders (and two unfortunate girls) and this is what it devolved into. Some more help has been found the last couple weeks, including, somewhat intimidatingly, our senior pastor who's been in the room with me and watched me preach to the kids (gulp). But again it went well, I guess that's just in my repertoire now.

Something entirely different came up this fall and I was invited to what's seemingly a men's leadership course with like 15 other guys of various ages at church. In addition to every Wednesday night for the kids I'm back every Thursday night, at least until Thanksgiving, for myself. My biggest struggle with it is I'm usually emotionally drained by that point of the week. The main goal with this class seems to be drive out any passivity in our faith and to find ways to share God's love with the people we know and encounter in our lives. It's been clarifying, perhaps, that a big piece of my 'Mission Field' is what I've already started doing with the kids. The two appear, to me, to be aligned.

My wife and I, as well, have for a little over a year been in a small group of five families from our church. We meet weekly, either everyone, only the men or only the women, and it's been great to build out community and those relationships.

Let's add it all up. Last summer, about 16 months ago, we had no small group and I had no church volunteering experience. Right now I'm going to church Sunday mornings, Wednesday nights, Thursday nights and meeting with our small group Monday nights. I have two books we're doing with our small group, one for everyone and one for the men, and another book and homework to do for the Thursday night course. Then I'm preaching every other week on Wednesday nights and having to wrangle a bunch of rowdy boys to boot.

It's a lot, but I'm kind of loving it.

I accidentally became important.

Show up and you might too.