Did you ever think shining shoes would lead to volun-
teering your time at church? Well it did for Matt Kromke.
About a year before Grace Beyond started, Matt heard a
sermon about washing feet and wanted to do this for the
staff but thought most wouldn't go for feet washing so
he offered to polish their shoes every Wednesday. Then
when Grace Beyond came up he was praying about where
God wanted him to serve. He wanted God to show him.
Stacy Armbrester called and asked if he'd be interested in
doing outdoor greeting. So, Matt stopped by the church
to sign up and Ken Meines was there with Stacy trying to
figure out the leading of the outdoor greeters, in the midst
of this there were fire alarms going off and it seemed like
chaos. That is where Matt came in and said, "Let me run
this, you guys have too much going on. Don't worry about
it again." And he did, not with just one group but he led
two groups of outdoor greeters.
He was amazed at how God always worked out the de-
tails of putting these groups together. When someone
would call in sick the night before, another person not
scheduled to serve that day would pop in and offer to
help. Every Sunday God had just the right number of vol-
unteers to meet the needs of the day. Matt got a front
row seat to see God at work. Not only with the scheduling
but also hearing the many, many stories from people he
met greeting and the greeters themselves. Like Christine,
a woman who lived in the area and read about Calvary
in a flyer and started coming to Calvary@Calvin. He felt
like he got far more reward in serving than those he was
actually serving. God's economy isn't like ours and that’s
a great thing!
Using your time to serve God is never a bad idea, and in
my experience you always come out far ahead of where
you would have been had you chosen not to serve. There
are many areas of the church currently looking for volun-
teers. Let me encourage you to put Romans 12:1 “offer
your body as a living sacrifice” into practice and offer a
sacrifice of your time to God. Find something you love
and enjoy and step out and serve God, you won't be sorry
you did!
If you feel lead to explore serving opportunities here at
Calvary and/or learn about your spiritual gifts, please con-
tact Director of Serving, Stacy Armbrester (sarmbrester@
calvarygr.org).
By Chris Walkup
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