{"id":525,"date":"2021-11-07T22:01:45","date_gmt":"2021-11-07T22:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calvinlangton.com\/?p=525"},"modified":"2021-11-07T22:01:45","modified_gmt":"2021-11-07T22:01:45","slug":"the-church-of-sweat-tears-and-bandages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calvinlangton.com\/?p=525","title":{"rendered":"The Church of Sweat, Tears and Bandages"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Church of Sweat, Tears and Bandages<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

(Written while on Disaster Relief in Mandeville, LA)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Worship for most of us is fairly comfortable. When I was young, we had straight-backed board pews. Air conditioning was provided by handheld fans supplied by the local funeral home. You could work up a good sweat trying to cool off with one of those. When young, I sat close enough to Mom that her vigorous fanning got the air moving around me too.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But the most uncomfortable thing about that was the sermon. On and on he droned, while those boards got harder and harder. I was a skinny kid with virtually no padding.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t do church like that anymore. Now it is air-conditioned and set at whatever temperature is deemed most comfortable. (I never found out who made that determination. Probably the wife of the Chairman of Deacons.) Padded pews came next. Now thickly padded chairs are in. That is OK by me. I can endure a long sermon in those conditions. Fortunately, our current pastor sticks to short thought invoking sermons that you can chew on all week.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Comfortable Worship is what we want today. No sweat!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We are in South Louisiana in Mandeville following Hurricane Ida. Around 100 volunteers are living in First Baptist Church. Many of them work outside where a kitchen had been set up under tents on the asphalt parking lot. They don\u2019t have padded pews. They stand most of the day. Many days it has been in the 90\u2019s. They sweat! But they also prepare over 1000 meals a day that are dispensed to anyone wanting them.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Another group of men and women go out with chainsaws, wheelbarrows, rakes and log moving equipment to clean up homes, yards, whatever needs it. They come back with clothes that are soaking wet with either sweat or rain. Sometimes both. Often muddy where they have wrestled a big limb out of a yard. As they wait for their turn at a shower, I ask how their day went. They often say something like \u201cgreat we completed 2 jobs today. One was at the home of a widow the other at the home of a handicapped vet\u201d. Job assignments are prioritized according to need.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We run the shower trailer where the volunteers clean up. We also have a laundry trailer so we take their filthy clothes and wash dry, fold and return them clean and fresh. We are reminded of their sweat when we open up a bag of laundry left overnight. Our showers and laundry run from 7 AM until 9 PM.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Then at night after dinner, we have a report time. These same people\u2019s voices would break and they would tear up as they related the Spiritual and physical needs of those they encountered during the day.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

On Sunday we went to a local church service. I sat behind one of our chainsaw crews. As they lifted their hands in praise, I noticed that several of them had bandages on their hands, fingers and arms. I saw them as symbols of the cost of their sweat.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When thinking about them, Romans 12: ESV comes to mind. \u201cPresent your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.\u201d<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Could their\u00a0spiritual worship\u00a0<\/b><\/i>be\u00a0in serving others in the name of Jesus? Presenting their bodies on behalf of others means blisters, adverse weather, sweat,\u00a0tears and bandages.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Bandages Sweat and Tears. All can be offerings of the heart of a worshiper.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Church of Sweat, Tears and Bandages (Written while on Disaster Relief in Mandeville, LA) Worship for most of us is fairly comfortable. When I was young, we had straight-backed board pews. Air conditioning was provided by handheld fans supplied by the local funeral home. You could work up a good sweat trying to cool […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-different-drummer","category-kingdom-living","category-real-church","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calvinlangton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calvinlangton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calvinlangton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calvinlangton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calvinlangton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=525"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/calvinlangton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":528,"href":"https:\/\/calvinlangton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525\/revisions\/528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calvinlangton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calvinlangton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calvinlangton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}