What an Acolyte Taught Me This Past Sunday

One of our Acolytes taught me a valuable lesson two days ago.

Children, youth, and adults all take turns being Acolytes at our church. I love this inter-generational diversity.

We were singing our last song in worship, and one of our church’s children had put out the two altar candles and moved to the candle by our pulpit.

It’s a tricky one. It’s a oil candle, and only the wick is visible atop the wide flat surface of the plastic column. The bell-shaped snuffer part of the candlelighter doesn’t fit down over the wick completely like on the altar tapers.

Most adults, including myself, get frustrated with the pulpit candle flame still flickering after a few attempts at properly extinguishing it, so we huff and puff and blow that flame out.

Not Sunday’s Acolyte. She covered the flame appropriately, and stood there. We made eye contact and she grinned at me.

I smiled back and she kept the flame covered a moment longer.

Then she nodded at me and lifted the bell.

The flame was out.

She had taken a moment that adults haven’t, including me when I’ve taken a turn being an acolyte here.

Rather then giving up quickly and rushing to the next thing, she stopped her movement and let the candlelighter’s snuffer do its job.

She taught me the importance of slowing down, sometimes to a complete stop, in order to get the job done.

There’s a rhythm to life. Some of us want to constantly increase the tempo.

She knows the value of slowing down to the speed of life.