I recently attended a class at St. Paul’s Monastery. When I arrived, I was greeted, and  then given my name tag from among those laid out on the table.  The greeter did not give me a blank name tag and a Sharpie, nor a computer printed name tag, but a hand written name tag with a stylized font. I noticed all the name tags had the same look. Someone had written these name tags not an assignment, but as a ministry.

The different between serving in ministry versus merely completing the assignment was not that it was done by hand, nor was it done perfectly (my name happened to be misspelled, but I didn’t even notice until the next day), but that it was done with care and prayer. A sister took time to do this, made sure they looked good, and likely prayed for each person as she wrote their name.

I’m not against using computers. I’m using one to write this post. It is not the tool a person uses that turns an assignment into an act of ministry, it is the person allowing themselves to be the tool in the hand of God. For we are His poems, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).