I love to scrapbook.  I do it whenever I have a few minutes to spare.  I have all kinds of punches, stickers, ribbons, button, brads, and numeruos other tools.  To me scrapbooking is a great way yo relax and chill out from a busy day.  I love to let the creative juices flow when developing a new page.  Looking at the pictures take me back to some wonderful memories.  This is just one of my hobbies and I throughly enjoy it.

     Now to my question.   Can something this fun also be a ministry?  I think it can and for me, I believe it is.  I do scrapbooking for the local branch of Heartbeat and for the Liberty Center of Sandusky, our area homeless shelter.  The Liberty Center has scrapbooks showing it’s development from its very beginning.

    I record in pictures all the big events of the year.  We have a volunteer social, and an auction, birthday parties, Christmas morning, special events, and work projects.  These are all documented in pictures.  We even had a wedding one year between a couple that had met at the shelter.

     At Heartbeat we record births, fund raising events and social activities given for the mothers.  It ‘s so much fun to create adorable scrapbook pages with all the tiny babies.  The books also serve as a way to show the community what Heartbeat does and how many young mothers are helped.

     Every year I add to a scrapbook of our Vacation Bible School at the church.  The children’s pastor takes tons of pictures during VBS week.  I sort through them and find stickers and other embellishments to accent the featured activity.   Then the following summer we put the book on display at church as a way of showing parents how much fun VBS is.  The children also love to look through the scrapbook and find pictures of themselves and their friends.  It causes them to want to attend the next VBS and demonstrates to the other church members that we take VBS very seriously.

    Sooooo, I think scrapbooking can be a ministry when done in conjunction with the ministry itself.  Me scrapbooking my family pictures, at home is not a ministry.  But, when I spend hours at the homeless shelter doing it, I am also interacting with the residents.  Even today I spent an extra hour at the shelter visiting with the residents and staff.

     Scrapbooking may be an unusual ministry, but it can be ministry just the same.  The Bible says we should do all things as unto the Lord, even scrapbooking.  What a wonderful way to express the goodness of our God.