I want to let y’all in on a little secret: church doesn’t just happen.

No matter how big or small your church is, or how many people there are on staff, or where it’s located, or how its service is structured, I can guarantee you that on Sunday morning there is at least one person running around like a chicken with his or her head cut off in order to allow you to sit in your seat and experience worship.

I have found this out because I’m on the rotation of volunteer Operations Coordinators at my church. We have probably about 200 regular attendees, and 2 services. Our worship is contemporary, with a band, and the “sanctuary” is actually an open room that doubles as an art gallery, so we have rows of Ikea chairs rather than pews. The Sundays that I am “on duty,” I’m at church from 7:45 to 1:00. I have a few physical tasks on my checklist, like setting out the communion bread and wine (including replacing it between services, which lemme tell you, I’ve almost forgotten before in the time crunch!), but my main role is to serve as a point person for all of the OTHER volunteers: the nursery workers, the hospitality set-up person, the Sunday school teachers, the ushers, the PowerPoint slide clicker, and the sound tech. I equip them with their checklists and I follow-up to make sure everything on them gets done, which means doing it myself sometimes. I protect the pastors from having to deal with logistics so that they can, you know, preach and pastor and facilitate worship. I answer questions about where the extra mugs are. I fold bulletins. I straighten chairs. I call people when they are 10 minutes late and call someone else to come in if the first person has forgotten it is their Sunday. And on the worst days, I usher AND do my own job.

The thing is, if the people like me do our jobs well, you’ll have no idea that we’re doing anything at all. And that’s all fine and well. I went to church for years without giving a single thought to what all went into a Sunday morning. Then I served as a children’s ministry intern one summer and got a tiny glimpse of it, at least on the Sunday school side. But jumping into this O.C. role has opened my eyes to a whole new side of church. And it’s made me realize that there are people at every church who do silent work every week but deserve a very loud THANK YOU that they probably never get.

Every group of people needs some dreamers and some doers. It’s not exactly how Paul said it, but you know, it’s kind of what 1 Corinthians 12 is getting at. And I happen to serve at a young, hip church with a lot of visionaries, a lot of artist types, a lot of free spirits. As I got more involved, people started commenting on how great it was that I was detail-oriented, a task master, someone you could count on to get things done. But after awhile, that starts to feel like a lot of pressure. It can start to feel like all the rest of the people, the ones who weren’t blessed/cursed with a type-A, S/J personality, are copping out and leaving all the hard work to you. I watched from the wings as a staff member I respect a lot got taken for granted, at least from my perspective. And I realized the big secret that church doesn’t just happen. 

Sure, as a church plant, my church would not even exist were it not for the dreamers. And it’s somewhat of a given that in any group of people, some small minority of the people will volunteer to do a majority of the work. That’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’m just asking you to look around on Sundays, and say thank you to someone. I’m not asking for me–I’m built the way I’m built, and I’d probably keep doing this work in a vacuum because I can’t function any other way. I’m not trying to pat myself on the back or toot my own horn. I’m really not. But I’m sticking up for those who make church happen. They know who they are. You might know who they are, too, and if you do, give them a wave. And if you don’t, see if you can find out. You might be surprised how small their number is. They’re never going to ask you to, but say thank you. It will mean a lot.

Well, after blathering on about it for almost 1000 words, I started a Whole 30 after all! Except that, in a “works for me” twist, we’re only doing it for 21 days. We’re going backpacking at the end of the month, and, as some people experience, uh, you know, intestinal difficulties after reintroducing non-whole foods back into their diet, we decided to give ourselves a couple of days before we hit the woods with freeze dried meals that include who knows what, just in case. We’re one week in, with exactly two to go. The authors of It Starts with Food, who came up with the Whole 30 program, say, for various reasons that “in [their] experience, the full thirty days of the program is essential to give you a taste of ‘the magic.’ Many Whole 30 participants report that their most significant transformations take place in the final few days of the program.” But since I don’t have a full 30 days to offer it right now, and they were also adamant about starting immediately, I figured it was better than nothing. We can always return to the program after our trip for a week or two (though “they” also say that any slip-up requires an entire reset of your 30 days….I call baloney on that, personally).

[Note: I like that they call it a program. I’m not thinking about it as a diet, and I don’t think the Hartwigs intend for you to. In fact, it’s sort of the antithesis of a diet.  I don’t really want or need to be on a diet, especially since I think the way Americans especially approach diets is, for the most part, unhealthy. But diet is the word most people can associate easily with a change in eating habits, so I’ve tried to come up with a good response when people ask me what diet I’m doing. I’ve been saying that it’s less about restricting what you eat and more about trying to change your approach to food in general.]

Bets hedged as they may be, I haven’t really experienced any of the negative things some people have written about at the beginning of the program. I had a very, very mild headache at the end of each of the first two days, but I’ve had no upset stomach and honestly no particularly strong cravings. Yesterday was the first day I even thought about wanting a Diet Coke.

That said, I have yet to experience anything particularly positive either. In fact, the more I read about the Whole30 in It Starts with Food, the more antagonistic I felt toward it, and at this point in the program, I’m feeling mostly ambivalent. I honestly didn’t buy a lot of the science they put forth in the book that was supposed to convince me not to eat things like legumes and dairy. And after some time on the program I’ve developed a few other criticisms.

The authors claim that food should be enjoyable. But the very nature of this program makes it not so! For the one thing, for the first 5 days of the program, I felt like all I was doing was thinking about food, cooking, and cleaning the kitchen. Normally Andy eats breakfast at work, but his meal would normally be oatmeal or granola with yogurt, so in order to replace that, I’ve been needing to provide breakfast, lunch, AND dinner options, which is new. So I felt like every time I turned around the kitchen was dirty again! Since I had more time to plan, this week has been much better so far, but it definitely takes a lot of work.

Secondly, this program makes socializing hard. (And I know the authors say, “this is not hard. Quitting heroin is hard. Beating cancer is hard. […] Drinking your coffee black Is. Not. Hard.” I get that. But the Whole30 is, without a doubt, difficult some days!) I hate being “that girl” at restaurants or parties, having to ask what is in everything. We’ve managed a few outings since starting it: one featured a barbecue buffet, so we just left off the sauce, and one was for brunch, so Andy got eggs and breakfast meats and I got a salad. Last night my church community group had a cookout, and I know for a fact there was some honey in the sauce on a sweet potato I ate, but I decided to let it slide. I can only do so much.

On the flip side, among these outings I have passed up macaroni and cheese, chocolate cake, sushi at a work lunch, cake again at work, and various goodies at the cookout, and I have to admit that it feels pretty good to use that willpower muscle.

The other issue I take with the presentation of the Whole30 plan is their discouragement of eating snacks. They suggest that you eat enough lean protein and good fat at each meal so that you are not hungry until the next meal–and in fact, so that if you for some odd reason have to skip your next meal, you would be okay. They say, “Avoid snacking between meals because it turns your eating habits into grazing, and grazing can disrupt the normal functioning of leptin, insulin, and glucagon, and may promote inadvertent overconsumption.” Okay. But as one who has always struggled with blood sugar fluctuations, I have lately quite successfully structured my days around 3 meals and 2 snacks. I eat specifically portioned snacks, and I don’t graze except for on occasion. When I sit down to eat my snack, I eat my snack and that’s it. I normally eat some nuts or a granola bar a few hours between lunch and breakfast, and some sort of fruit or veggie between lunch and dinner, and I don’t see what’s so bad about that! For the sake of the program I’m giving it a try; I’ve actually started being able to make it from breakfast to lunch, but after lunch I get raging hungry around 5:00, still a few hours before we’ll be eating dinner. I can feel grossly stuffed at lunch and still get hungry like that–and I don’t think they would promote “grossly stuffed!” I just hate that this program that is supposed to promote healthy eating has made me feel guilty about one of my eating habits for the first time in my life.

So what are the positives? I’ve discovered some delicious new recipes that I think I’ll keep in my repertoire. I’ve been able to flex my meal-planning muscle and practice using willpower. And I get to think about what specific foods might be “worth it” to incorporate back in later. I’m glad the authors remind us that ”the Whole30 is just a springboard into a lifetime of healthy eating habits. We don’t exepect (or want) you to stay on the program forever, or eat according to our rules all the time! Think of the Whole30 as a tool, allowing you to build new, sustainable habits that will be with you for the rest of your life.”

That’s what’s getting me through so far, since I haven’t had any “magic” to report, but I’ll let you know if anything changes!

I’m linking up to Works for Me Wednesday at WeAreThatFamily.com!

I recently read a book that had been on my Amazon wishlist for some time. I stumbled across a copy at my parents’ house and asked my mom if I could borrow it, to which she replied yes, but in a tone that implied she wondered why I would want to. (In other words, she hadn’t liked the book that much.)

As I made my way into the book, I found myself really into it! I was invested in the characters and intrigued by the plot. It was unique and the characters seemed like people I might encounter in real life at some point. I talked to my mom on the phone and expressed that I was surprised she hadn’t enjoyed the book more.

But then I got to the end, and I understood. It wasn’t that it was bad. I can’t even pinpoint exactly what I didn’t love about the ending. But the book in sum total was not as enjoyable to me as the middle.

And I thought, what a metaphor for life.

I often find that I’m living in anticipation of the next thing. I’m planning for a trip, or wondering what my career might look like, or thinking about what’s for dinner next Tuesday. None of that is bad: I wouldn’t be who I am if I weren’t a planner, and Andy and I wouldn’t eat such good meals if I didn’t think about them in advance. But by letting myself be preoccupied with what’s coming, maybe I miss some of what’s happening. By constantly looking to the end, maybe I miss the enjoyment of the middle.

So I’m taking my experience with the book to heart. I can love the middle, and it doesn’t matter what the end looks like. If I get to the end and it’s not that great, it doesn’t cheapen my experience of joy in the middle.

Just live in the middle, and love it.

It sounds dramatic to phrase it like this, but sometimes I sabotage myself. The other night I flipped open my computer at about 10:30, even though minutes before I had been planning to head to bed. As is inevitable, I ended up surfing the internet for over an hour, not really doing anything useful. And once I shut the laptop, I had trouble falling asleep because I’d gotten wound up from my piddling and from the light of the screen. So then once I didn’t sleep well, I didn’t get up to go to the gym the next morning, and I started the day feeling groggy and upset with myself for not exercising. I knew I really needed to go to bed, but I didn’t.

Sometimes making a decision like that makes me feel like an adult. “I’m an adult and I’m going to stay up until midnight watching Veronica Mars because I can and no one can tell me not to!!” And then sometimes it just makes me feel like crap.

I know it’s important to give yourself grace. But I also think it’s important not to give yourself too much. Especially as a type-A personality, I need to have standards for myself. Holding myself to certain standards is, I’d say, a large part of what has made me successful at the things I’ve been successful at in my life. My parents were never super hard on me about grades because they knew I was hard enough on myself, and in fact I made mostly A’s for my entire school career.

I believe that I am capable of a lot and I strive for near-perfection in most things. I am perhaps more disappointed in myself over perceived failures than others because I believe I can be better (even over silly things like giving in to eating a cookie in the kitchen at work). But there’s gotta be a line somewhere between beating myself up and being grumpy over mess-ups while still not sabotaging myself on a Sunday night when I’m lured in by the computer.

How do you handle “keeping yourself in line?” Do you struggle with standards, whether realistic or not?

I’ve blathered on here several times about learning to code. I first attended a Rails Girls workshop back in the fall and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. And then in the new year, I set some goals for myself and vowed to work on learning for its own sake. Well, somewhat to my own surprise, my experience with coding has taken on a life of its own! At the end of January, the Rails Girls workshop expanded into a monthly meetup, which I’ve been attending. I’ll admit, my entrance into the world of programmers has been  eased dramatically by the fact that I am married to a full-time developer who knows a lot of people. (Thus, by proxy, I know a lot of people, too.) So even at the first meetup, I had a small cadre of people I knew who made it much less intimidating to walk into the room. For each meetup, we have a homework assignment to prepare and then often a presentation on a related topic before we share our solutions to the homework.

I’ve been surprised by the reaction of “lay” people (read: non-developers) when they find out that I am learning to code. I guess by being around so many smart programmers I’ve become inoculated to the foreignness that many people associate with computers. Plus, I’ve realized that I’ve picked up more than I knew from just asking Andy about what he worked on each day and from overhearing him practice conference talks. AND, I think I also retained some fundamentals from my two computer science classes in college. So every time someone new finds out that I’m learning Ruby, they’re astonished and impressed and it sort of makes me feel like a bad ass.

Honestly, I am definitely far from an awesome programmer at this point. As Andy would say, even experienced developers always have things they can learn, and I have even more than that. I’m still sort of learning how to even learn, if that makes any sense. I have access to the documentation of the Ruby language, and even that doesn’t always make sense to me. But as I hoped, learning to code has given Andy and me a great outlet for spending time together. He thrives on teaching me things and is even prouder of me than I am of myself when I catch on to something. I sometimes feel a bit like I am cheating because by the time I share my homework at the Rails Girls meetup I have already had help refining it (or maybe even approaching it in the first place)!

The homework assignments for Rails Girls have been escalating in difficulty and becoming more and more like real-world problems a developer-by-trade might actually face. This past Saturday, Andy and I began tackling the most recent assignment: an open-ended task of creating a to-do list in Ruby, which will eventually be translated into a Rails app (meaning something that can actually be on the internet!).

Working on this one project alone has introduced me to numerous topics, which was exciting! Until now, I’ve just been writing Ruby code to run in my command line, but with this project I started interacting with RSpec (a testing framework useful for Test Driven Development), using git to start pushing my work to GitHub (sort of social networking for code), and reading up on a lot of new Ruby concepts. Whew! By myself this would have been totally overwhelming, and I have unending respect for the people who can take a book or a website and learn on their own. But together with Andy, it was a blast! I think my next challenge will be getting over bumps in the road without turning to him for a hint or explanation, but I’ll either get there in time or I won’t. And if I never get there, I’ve still learned a lot and achieved a long-standing goal of having a shared hobby with my husband!

If you’re interested in seeing what Ruby looks like, or exploring code for the first time, TryRuby.org is a fun resource. It allows you to type simple commands right in the web browser and see them run immediately. And if you’re feeling a little more adventurous, I learned a lot from Learn Ruby the Hard Way and from solving Project Euler problems using Ruby.