My
sons-in-law and I cleaned out a storage shed at our church a few years ago. It
was a project that was much needed and long overdue. As we sorted through the
junk, several thoughts occurred to me.
First, my
mind raced back about 25 years when I was the business administrator of a large
church. Dealing with a simple thing like “spring cleaning” is never a simple
thing in a church. Every bit of that broken, outdated, and worthless junk is SACRED. You can’t throw it away. It belonged to some class, mission society,
teacher, or long-dead member whose daughter is the chairman of the deaconess
committee. You must be a good steward of the resources God has provided. So
cram it into an attic, a closet, a cabinet, an unused classroom, or rent
another storage container to keep and protect that junk.
Second,
if it can’t be used now, there is probably someone somewhere who may be able to
use it for something sometime. It would be a shame (or probably a sin) to throw
that perfectly good, worthless stuff away. It would be better to save it
for the youth camp fund rummage sale or, if no one is willing to give a nickel
for that old, broken down computer, you could always donate it to another
church or, better yet, a missionary. Missionaries always need good junk. The
youth group could raise funds for a short-term mission project so they could
all rent a truck and a bus to take a pile of crap to a mission church in
Tijuana (never give them new stuff because it might spoil them).
Third,
remember, everything you think is dumpster fodder is a precious treasure donated by some dear saint and he is watching you. Most of our donations came
to us in the week following Christmas and just before the first day of January.
That’s when people make their year-end offerings of broken refrigerators, torn
sofas, and wrecked cars, to God. It’s a pretty cool deal. They can overhype the
value and take it as an income tax deduction, save the time and cost of
disposing of it at the landfill, AND, there are the added benefits of feeling
good about themselves and gaining brownie points with God for their generosity.
Fourth,
as I watched my boys toss out that stuff, I caught myself thinking that some of
that was worth keeping and, probably, some other well-meaning, seasoned saint
might get his shorts in a wad when he finds the storage shed cleared. After
all, that was a perfectly good shovel; all it needed was a new handle. But then
I quickly got over my hesitation. The neat, clean, organized storage space was
well worth the tradeoff.
Okay, so
I realize that there is a generational gap thing going on here that explains
why older people are inclined to save, store, and hoard. My grown kids are too
young to have observed it but I see it all the time in my dealings with the
elderly. Anyone who has lived during the 1920s through the 1940s probably has
a propensity to save stuff. The Great Depression brought hard times and the war
necessitated shortages and rationing. Those were the days when stuff was expensive,
and labor was cheap. So, for example, my grandfather saved used, bent nails. He
had the time to straighten and sort them rather than waste good money on new
nails. Today that doesn’t make sense because labor is very expensive, and goods
are relatively cheap. But all of this is a digression from the topic of church
storage.
Ignore all those excuses. Just
because someone donated it is no reason to store it and just because you have
it is no reason to keep it. The reason someone gave you that mimeograph machine
is because he now has a laser copier. And the reason someone donated that
flannelgraph is because she is now teaching with PowerPoint. Come on
folks, get rid of it. You will feel so much better when it’s gone.
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