I started writing this weekly blog post in early October, 2016, just as Hurricane Matthew was preparing to hit the Lowcountry. One of our church attendees had suggested that I send something out to the church family specifically in regards to the storm, to give people access to information about our island, and how it was handling the impact of a natural disaster. It wasn’t meant to be anything other than my observations on what was going on, from the perspective of the island pastor, for the purpose of keeping people connected to this special place.
For the first several months, with a focus on letting anyone associated with our island know how we were recovering from the storm, the topics seemed to present themselves with ease. There were plenty of angles to cover, and updates could be as simple as providing progress reports. Yet as the recovery effort wound down, people encouraged me to continue writing, and that brought the challenge of selecting a worthy topic to cover each week.
Sometimes the words seemed to leap from the keyboard, and sometimes I had to search the far corners of my mind, wondering if a suitable topic for the week could be found. I’ve written about specific people from our community, special events of significance, the community spirit, the wonders of nature, the nature of dirt roads, and several other topics. Sometimes there were links to specific passages of Scripture that connected to the topic, sometimes there were general Christian principles, and sometimes the only connection to faith was that the post came from the mind of a pastor.
If I’m completely honest, I’ll acknowledge that some of the posts I felt quite good about, and some of them I was just happy to finish, knowing that they weren’t the best work that I had completed. I didn’t start writing for the purpose of winning a Pulitzer Prize, but I do take pride in my work, and sometimes the best thing that I can say about a post is that it was completed. However, what I can say is that I’ve written some 325 entries, never missing a week. Most of the posts were written from my home, but some were written from foreign countries where I was serving on mission trips, and some were written from various vacation spots or church-related conferences. No matter the location, come Thursday morning, a new Pastor’s Perspective needed to be posted.
There are some people who have the ability to show up and make an immediate impact on a community in a very short time. Those people are few and far between. Most of us, if we want to make a lasting impact, have to take the longer route. The first rule of this approach is to keep showing up. Be consistent. Allow people to count on your presence, even as you know that you will bring more to the effort on some days than on others. This is something that almost anyone can do. There’s a biblical principle that encourages us to be faithful in the little things, and simply showing up is one of those little things.
I’m going to keep showing up, God willing, posting these perspectives for as long as I can. May I encourage you to be faithful in the little things as well, starting with the simple notion of being present? Let other people count on you simply being there – not accomplishing major tasks, but just being available. I heard someone once say that if you want to take over the world, all you have to do is raise your hand. Well, you can’t raise your hand unless you are present, so we ought to start with that first simple step.
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron