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I stood in our compact, two-car garage one Saturday morning, the floor around me covered with the remnants of a preschooler’s play: a ransacked doll house that looked like a teenage block party, wiffle bats and balls, two Big Wheels (one with plastic tires worn smooth and flat), a big green tricycle with blocks on the pedals. I was just about to yell at my daughter, “Jeannie! “

You see, this was my garage. My cars sat in the driveway because I couldn’t get them in the garage, where they belonged. Besides, I hate messes.

But just before I yelled, I realized, You won’t have a messy garage long, because that 4- and that 2-year-old won’t be around long. Someday you will walk into an orderly garage that will stay however you leave it because there won’t be anyone around to mess it up. You’d better enjoy it whiLe you can.

It was a sobering, teary moment that stood me well during the next fifteen years of parenting.

It also contained d principle for ministry: raising kids is messy, but the mess is worth the kids. Later I found a Scripture that captured the same idea: “Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, but much increase comes by the strength of the ox” (Prov. 14:4, NASB). As someone else has said, “No manure, no milk.” The proverb is a straightforward statement about cost and production; you can’t have the latter without the former.

Sometimes we feel that we would gladly forfeit the profit in exchange for a neat, clean stall. We hate messes. Neatness takes priority over life: Better to shut off than clean up. Kill the ox and save time and work.

A thriving ministry has no shortage of messy stalls:

-Smudge marks along the hall leading to the Sunday school classrooms, the result of a growing children’s ministry.

-Complaints from old-timers who feel like it’s not their church anymore now that so many newcomers have made the church their home.

-Nervous neighbors worried about the teens crowding the church grounds on weeknights.

-Budget overspending because the needs and opportunities outstrip the original vision.

-Overcrowded parking lots and members upset about parking on the street.

-A shortage of children’s workers because classes must divide again.

-The discomfort of some members with minorities joining the church, with kids who act differently from theirs.

-Disagreement with young people about music and worship styles.

The solution to these problems is easy-lock the doors, shut out the kids, offend the teens, snub the neighbors, stop ministering, stay home- die. The ultimate orderliness is solitude, or death. When the children leave home, the garage stays clean. When a mate dies, no one disturbs a thing.

Dead or dying churches and ministries may be neat and predictable, but there’s no profit, no life. Untaxed rooms cost little to maintain; lifeless repetition lures no curious crowd. Dollars can be controlled, and orderliness can be king.

Though we often complain about the kind of problems listed above, we should instead celebrate them as signs of life. Every living ministry is messy, but I am learning to view the smudges on Sunday school walls as fingerprints of the present and living Lord.

Johnny V. Miller is president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina.