This week, I am doing something I absolutely love. I am ministering at Haven Camp—a camp for people with developmental difficulties in Rome, NY. I was given the opportunity to try this ministry about 8 years ago, and it has blessed me beyond belief. The campers are some of the most loving people I have ever met and they have just really touched my heart. A lot of these folks have faced some pretty tough battles, but many of them have mastered something that I have sometimes struggled with. They live their lives with pure joy. They model the childlike faith Jesus called all believers to. They have questions, but for the most part, they just believe. I deeply love this type of ministry and praise God that He allows me to be a part of it. 

That being said, according to EFCA.org, People with disabilities and special needs are one of the largest unreached communities in the nation. About 56.7 million people—19% of the U.S. population—had a disability in 2010. More than half reported the disability was severe, and only 5 to 10% of the world’s disabled are reached with the gospel. This means among this population there is a tremendous opportunity for the church to do great good and to make an eternal difference in the lives of some pretty special people. 

One night as I was hanging out with the campers in one of their social functions in the evening, I was overcome with emotion, because in that moment I felt the love of God for these people and for me. When I think about where God has brought me from, and the precious lives He has entrusted me to teach, I was overwhelmed by gratitude. I remember all the years I spent as a frustrated artist, wondering if anything I ever did really mattered at all. I thought being an artist was the be all, end all for me, and success was elusive. All I ever wanted to do from childhood was make pictures and tell stories, and it felt like it was never going to happen. It turns out I was looking at my gift incorrectly. I wasn’t meant to hang works of art in galleries and museums. I wasn’t meant to create the next Ninja Turtles and make a fortune in licensing. Art was not the be all end all, it was a tool to be used to tell a better story, His story, and I could not be happier.

The truth is between the church I love and these opportunities to go beyond the walls, I have never worked harder, and I have never felt more fulfilled in my working life. And I’d like to think the joy I receive is flowing over into the rest of my life as well. So today I want to take a moment to thank God for all He has done for me, and especially for what He has done in bringing me to this place. The campers are an absolute joy. The staff who work here, many of whom are very young, are the kind of people who will restore your hope for humanity. Their love and compassion for these folks is completely inspirational. When I started this journey of ministry a long time ago, it was at least in part because of hearing 1 Peter 4:10. “Each one should use whatever gifts He has received to serve others…” The implication here is that everyone has at least one gift and it comes from God. How are you investing your gift? I truly believe that it is in the investment of our gifts, that we can find pure joy. 

“Everyone is replaceable.” It was said to me more than once by more than one employer. I probably had coming. I was probably getting too big for my britches, as it were. And I suppose it’s true… except it isn’t. Oh, please don’t get me wrong. Your employer can fill your role, and they will before your seat cools. The problem is, this allows people to be seen as nothing more than cogs in the machinery and that is sort of what we’ve become, at least since Henry Ford “invented” the assembly line, but that doesn’t mean you and I are replaceable, and to think it does devalues our humanity.

No, no one is replaceable. Each person is a one of a kind unique creation. Each person brings unique gifts and talents to this world, and yes, that includes you. [You] are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for [you] to do. (Ephesians 2:10 but personalized by me, stay tuned) This means you and I bring something special to the table, because we are special creations of the perfect Creator, created on purpose for a purpose. The question then becomes, since we are, in a very real sense, irreplaceable, how then shall we live?

Well first of all, if we are talking about that which we do for a living, we need to be more than a cog. We need to bring our best selves to the role in which God has placed us. Do whatever you do as if you were doing it for the Lord. It took me a long time to learn this lesson. For years I looked at things I was doing as unimportant, something anyone could do, and I did them accordingly. I filled a roll, punched the clock, and waited for the time to pass. Understand what I was doing. I was accepting being a cog in the machine and living as a cog, a very replaceable cog. Cogs are replaceable. The thing is the Lord put me in that position for that time, and whether I viewed the job as important or not, God had placed me in that position for a reason and I failed to bring Him glory. As such I was replaceable.

So what does it take to be irreplaceable? In one sense, absolutely nothing. You are a one of a kind unique creation, there will never be another you, and therefore you are irreplaceable. In another sense, to be irreplaceable is to fulfill your role with great gusto, doing what you can to the glory of God. There may be someone else who can do your job, but no one else will do it like you. This means we need to see what we do as a mission from God, and do it as if we were doing it for God, because in a very real sense we are. If you do that, and people still see you as replaceable, they’re wrong and one day as your assignment changes, they will realize it and look back on you fondly, (or maybe not. Some people are like that, but that is on them not you.) 

We need to bring our best to what we do, and that word “we” is important. Earlier in this post I personalized Ephesians 2:10. I did that to emphasize the uniqueness of who you were created to be, but the fact of the matter is the verse in its original form is plural. You see it’s not just that we are unique creations, but God’s design is that we would be unique together. That rather than expecting everyone to be a generalist, the downside of Henry Ford’s concept, we become the specialists we were created to be. All people are a collection of strengths and weaknesses, and this, I believe, is by design. When we bring our strengths to the table with others, and we fulfill the roles for which we were created, we are better together than we can be individually. This is the concept of the body of Christ, but it could apply to everything we do as well. We were created for teams, interdependent on one another and totally dependent on God, and were we to interact in this way, along with others, we would be, among many other things, happy and fulfilled. 

Be irreplaceable, because, in a very real sense, you already are.