Vacuuming the Red Carpet - a Paen for the Small Church Pastor

I am a small church pastor.

And I love it.

I know every single one of my 40 to 50 members very well. I know their struggles, their triumphs. I know their weaknesses and strengths. I know their dreams and aspirations. I’ve wept with them, celebrated with them, walked with them through life’s seasons and I just love it.

I am a small church pastor.

And sometimes it’s hard.

I have amazing elders and deacons who share the burden and duties of leading the church, but they all have full-time jobs, and I am bi-vocational… as such, I often become the de facto whatever, plumber, electrician, administrator, coffeemaker, and most all, janitor. My church cannot afford a custodian so frequently the task falls to me.

Every Saturday, I clean the church for Sunday morning services. Sometimes, my wife is able to help, or my sons. Sometimes others from the church help, but sometimes, it’s me, just me.

It’s not a huge job. I vacuum the sanctuary, straighten the pew Bibles, ensure the rows of chairs are aligned and boy, wouldn’t pews bolted to the floor be nice. I set out some welcome stuff for the morning, clean the bathrooms, wipe off the water fountains, check the nursery, make sure the fellowship hall is not a disaster, and lastly, vacuum the red carpet. Our church has a long corridor through which visitors enter, and it is adorned with about a thirty-foot-long red carpet. All told, it takes roughly an hour by myself.

Sometimes I’m bitter.

I was vacuuming the red carpet, angrily. Rage cleaning, as it were. I don’t want to do this. God called me to preach and teach the word of God, not to this. Why won’t somebody help me? Why don’t more people pitch in? One Saturday, I decided to wait until Sunday morning to clean before church. Huge mistake and the place was trashed—there are four separate organizations that meet in our building. I spent the hour before church, you guessed it, rage-cleaning. I had to ask my wife to pray over me before I preached so as not to preach angry. Sometimes I’m bitter.

Sometimes I’m prideful.

I’ve been the teaching elder—what some would call the lead pastor—for 8 years. Before that, I served as an elder while still an active-duty Army officer for 8 years, since the birth of the church as a church plant. I prayed and prayed that God would give me a pulpit, a place to preach. I prayed for years, and He is faithful and true and He did exactly that. I returned from my last deployment and that very week, circumstance allowed me to assume the role of teaching elder, where I’ve served ever since.

We made every mistake possible, our humble church plant and that season, our church was characterized by frustration. It was palpable, you could feel it, cut it with a knife. Attendance dwindled until… I came along. In my foolish and prideful heart, I truly thought that I’d start preaching and things would just start happening, attendance would blossom. We’d “blow up” as I hear it described. It didn’t happen.

Week after week, I’d stand by the entrance to our sanctuary gazing down the long corridor with the red carpet, waiting for the people to come. Weekly services became a weekly kick in the junk, a weekly humbling, reminding me that Jesus says, “I will build my church.” (Matthew 16:18) It’s His church and He will build it as He sees fit, in His timing. Now, I believe that. I’ve preached it, but for the last 8 years, I’ve lived it.

I served in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) for the better part of 15 years. I had to try out to gain entrance into the unit and at the tryouts, people say things like, “I’d be happy to vacuum the hallways and make coffee in the organization, if you’ll just let me in.” Now, we don’t really mean it. What we really mean is, “just let me in and then you’ll see how wonderful I am, and I’ll get to do the things to get the glory.”

It's the same with the kingdom of God. “I’d be more than happy to just sweep the floors in the kingdom of God.” This is a lie. It should be true, but in my prideful heart, it’s not. But, maybe it can be.

I was going through my duties one day, dutifully vacuuming the sanctuary, then on to the red carpet and on that same red carpet I’ve vacuumed so many times, it occurred to me… the carpet I was vacuuming might just receive, indeed had received, someone’s first steps into eternity. This carpet would represent someone’s path unto salvation, maybe to hear the Gospel for the first time, maybe even to salvation.

Something changed in my heart. God changed my heart.

What a privilege to vacuum the sacred and blessed ground that holds such an honor, the path to glory, the path to the Almighty. How could I be bitter with such a humbling assignment. I began to see my duties in a sacred light, my Levitical duties in prepping the sanctuary to receive the blessed saints of God in gathering to worship the Lord on high. What a blessing to have been granted such a wonderful facility to gather. What a blessing to have a gathering at all, a beautiful pulpit to preach the word of God. Who better to polish its beautiful oak finishing than the preacher of the that same word?

Sometimes I am humbled.

“Humble me, God.” What a dangerous prayer to pray. I didn’t pray that specifically, but that is exactly what God has done, is doing. And so, every Saturday, I still go about my janitorial/Levitical duties in preparing the holy place. I’d be lying if I said I still weren’t bitter or weary occasionally, but more often than not, I am humbled and grateful as I vacuum that same red carpet.

I was recently approached by a church member who felt led to take upon herself the weekly cleaning of the church building. What’s this? Hope?! I don’t know if she’ll follow through, time will tell, but I found myself, interestingly enough, wondering if I’d actually miss vacuuming that blessed red carpet. Maybe.

I am the pastor of a small church, and I just love it.