Back out of the ole' comfort zone, again.

I have written about liking my own little 'comfort zone' before. I really like my comfort. Really. So when asked recently to become one of the first women ushers in our church I took pause.

How many Baptists does it take to change a light bulb? None, we don't change anything.......ever!

Except......now we have a younger more trendy pastor. He hates it when I tell him he is trendy but I like to stir things up a bit sometimes. We have drums, guitars, speakers and a keyboard on the platform now. We clap our hands and some even (gasp!) raise their hands during Praise and Worship. Now, don't get me wrong, I love good praise and worship music and might even raise my hands on occasion but this is an old church so these things happen slowly.

Now, back to my comfort zone dilemma. When asked to be an usher I immediately said no but when one of my close friends said she was going to do it I decided I would. Nothing like middle age peer pressure.

Yesterday was our first day and there we were with our little 'usher' badges on and ready to go. Usher duty isn't just taking up the offering it's greeting folks, helping them find a seat, hanging up coats, directing new people with babies to the nursery etc etc My issue was the offering taking, it's just never been done by a woman in my wonderful 150 year old church! I was sure I would either trip or drop the plate with money flying everywhere, I even had a dream about it the night before that the founding father's were spinning in their graves!

Well the sky didn't fall and I didn't drop the plate and had a wonderful time! Numerous people commented how nice it was to have a team of ladies doing these duties and that we were much more friendly and outgoing then the men. (is gloating a sin?) I told the pastor that we probably got a bigger offering as we winked at all the men in the congregation as we went by. lol