When I was a little kid in Anderson, South Carolina, I had a tree house. It was huge (granted, I was 3-5 while we lived there) and had a swing set attached and a sandbox underneath. I remember running out to it in the rain and climbing into the covered part when we were house-hunting before we even moved there. I remember playing up there for hours with Dee Hayes. I remember the time I fell off the top rung of the ladder and twisted my arm catching myself on the way down. I remember begging my mom to take the whole thing apart so we could move it with us to Lawrenceville, Georgia.
Maybe it’s because of these that I so closely associate tree houses with childhood, but I felt very childlike this afternoon as we took the team out to Hacienda El Refugio and had facilitated quiet time in the tree house. The El Refugio tree house is something dreamed up by Paul Reichert that the staff and tons of teams have been building for three years. It’s finally finished, and this was my second opportunity to spend time there.
Part of Paul’s devotion was about the fact that we are children of God. People talked about the image of sitting on God’s knee, or thinking in terms of other people being God’s children as well. But for me, I just thought of how much we have to learn as children. Being a learner, especially even as I am in a leadership position this week, has been a theme for me over the last few days.
We talked a lot today about why we have days out at El Refugio. We want to have intentional quiet, worship, and prayer time, taking a step back from scheduled “ministry” days to realize that we worship and minister through our lives. Having that childlike feeling of being in a tree house, it was quite easy to do that all afternoon, being intentionally in the position of a learner and being among other children of God. Even after our official time there was finished, I stayed around and had a chat with Mark, Cathy, and Deb. They are all old enough to be my parents, and Mark is the team leader, but as we talked about our worship time, about the tree house, about ministry, and about what God had been teaching us, I think we all learned something from each other and from God, and did our best to share our hearts and thoughts as well. For those twenty minutes or so, reading scripture and talking, our responsibilities, our titles, and our schedule simply didn’t matter. We just had fun being God’s kids together.
I’ve heard Paul’s orientation both times I’ve gone to the tree house, and as he puts it, we don’t have to go to a specific place to worship, but it’s a helpful opportunity when we set aside a specific time and space to connect with God. A lot of what that specific tree house represents is a space in my heart, but that’s exactly what I was able to set aside today, and what I think we all need to remember to do as we go about serving not just in physical times and places set aside, but with every aspect of our lives.