Let me tell you what I love about serving in communications:

• I love that I see the back end numbers of who we are reaching. Church is more than Sunday morning in a building. I love that our content social media is reaching both our followers (our congregation and friends) and non-followers.
• I love to track which type of content reaches the most people. Seriously – if I tell you that your content isn’t right for a particular platform, it’s only because I want your content to reach the most people.
• I love that I get to provide a connection for someone who can’t— or maybe even won’t— come to a physical building.
• I love that I get opportunities to pray for those people online during the service.
• I love that I get to listen and watch the service sometimes several times over as I create shareable clips to post during the week.
• I love that I get to care for a team. It’s a small team, but they are dedicated, talented, and it’s growing.
• I love that God had given me a vision for growth in this ministry and that He gave me the heart to see it as a ministry rather than a task.
• I love that I get advance notice of what’s to come. I get to pray for how people will receive the words and sometimes get to promote what’s to come.
• I love connecting with my counterparts at other churches both globally and locally to strategically reach our communities and our world for Jesus through digital platforms.
• I love creating series art and sermon quote art — its not slapping words on an image— it’s the word of God coming to life visually.
• There are more things I love — too many to list.

Now let me tell you what I miss (because love does take sacrifice)

• I miss Sunday lunches and dinners with my family. Video editing can take a lot of time
• I miss praying with people or even talking to people at church. Most people don’t know I’m even there. The livestream starts early, ends late, and there’s gear to pack up. There have been times I needed prayer, but I push through it to serve others. I’ve served through sadness, grief, tiredness, and loss that no one ever knew about.
• I miss certain activities and events. Communications is not only device-centric but time sensitive. I need to be serving when most people are “off.”
• I miss a dedicated lunch break every Thursday to send our church email.
• I miss being part of a team that huddles and prays together.
• I miss mornings, evenings, weekends, and sleep. I serve when I’m not working my full-time job.

But….

I will always always always start with what I love. What I’m grateful for.

Every ministry…. EVERY MINISTRY takes sacrifices.

Ask people in ANY ministry what they give up to serve. Their lists are undoubtedly long.

This is NOT an “I give up more than you” comparison.

If we’re going to compare, let’s compare our lists to Jesus’.

Because He wins.

He missed a lot when He gave up His life.

You know those times you need one thing from the store? We no longer live in a time where you can borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbor. Unless you have our neighbors — they’re the best.

But sometimes in the middle of a mess, you really HAVE to run to the store.

You’ve had a hard day and it shows in how you look. And you pray that you won’t run into anyone you actually know.

And then you see everyone. Almost everyone.

So yesterday going to and at church…

Let me back up…

Last week was one of those weeks that I wished didn’t happen. A prayer that I’ve prayed for wasn’t answered as I’d hoped. A family we love is grieving the loss of someone way too young.

And yes, as Christ followers we know without a doubt where she is. But there is still heartbreak. This is not the outcome I prayed for.

The sadness hit heavy and hard.

But the show — or in this case the church service — must go on.

So I made it to church and took my place in the back. Behind the screen.

My little livestream corner.

I prepped some social media (really just resized slides to squares — 17 of them!), remembered that I hadn’t scheduled a push notification which has to be done manually each week, I checked a link which I had hoped would be ready ahead of schedule – but wasn’t, I prepped our sermon title thumbnails so all I would need post-service was a single image, and then I cried.

I cried more than I thought I would, could, or should.

The sermon was fantastic, but my tears were a response to the week.

Tired tears.

Sad tears.

Weary, exhausted, and heartbroken tears.

Fortunately no one turned around and saw the crying mess I was in the back of the room. And I even had the opportunity to pray with someone on the livestream. I do love it when people ask for prayer during our livestream.

And talk about great. Any morning that that sees four hands raised for Jesus, yields a Sunday afternoon cutting 12 sermon clips, a baptism recap video, and church members requesting digital copies of the service slides is undoubtedly a great morning.

But I definitely breathed a sigh of relief when I got home.

Relief that only Jesus saw – and relief that Jesus always sees and loves – the blotchy, swollen, puffy-eyed, runny-nosed, middle-of-the-mess me.

Never more grateful for a view from the back than yesterday.