Grunge Work

Organizing a high school youth retreat can sound pretty simple. Then you find out about the grunge work, and you realize what a chore lies ahead of you.

It's worth the work.

On the weekend of April 15th-17th I led a high school youth retreat at my college. The retreat consisted of keynotes, a poverty simulation, a mission site, worships, and other activities focused around the theme of doing mission. I based the weekend on our call to worship in the Great Commission.

Planning, leading, and preparing for Mission: Possible was the most extensive project I have undertaken. I definitely underestimated the work load that came with this type of project. I underestimated the amount of "behind the scenes" work that was required, such as sending out and responding to a billion e-mails, making phone calls, and figuring out solutions to many challenges. However, because it was my most extensive project I have undertaken, it was also the biggest learning experience I have ever had full of many lessons.

One of the many important and interesting lessons I learned in this experience was Saturday's work at a mission site in Wheeling, a center for helping children in poverty situations. When we arrived we were greeted by their director and received a message in doing mission work. He introduced himself and went on to teach us the importance of doing "grunge work". Often we come willing to help we are looking to do "romantic work," such as serving food at a soup kitchen, working with a child, or building something great. Which are all great things to do.

However, there also is another type of work needing to be done and that is the "grunge work", such as cleaning. The cleaning and organization needs to happen so that the other ministries and "romantic work" can occur. So we began our "grunge" work by cleaning up after recent floods and then by helping clean out their facilities by scrubbing tables and organizing closets.

Even though at the end of the day, it may have seemed like we didn't accomplish something tremendous at the mission site, we were still doing work that was needed. I was also able to relate this lesson of doing "grunge work" to my personal experience that came with planning and leading a project of this kind and the unexpected workload that came with it.

For me "the behind the scenes" leading that I did to prepare for this project was my "grunge work". Furthermore, even though I was excited for the end of the weekend to come to an end, because it meant business was complete, I am very fortunate that I had this experience because of the lessons like these I learned along the way.

Rebekah Cypert is in her second year as a HELM Leadership Fellow and is a member of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in McKinney, Texas.