Checking Under the Hood: Serving

Sunday’s sermon on serving, broadly defined, was paired with a ministry fair in the foyer. My prayer suggestions this week focus on serving within our church, applying principles from the sermon.

On a Sunday morning, we want to be greeted warmly as we enter the building, grab coffee and a treat at the café, drop off the kids to caring Sunday School teachers, and be led in worship by a talented and dedicated team of musicians. We want a hospital visit when we’re sick and someone to pray with us when we’re grieving. We want to have a life group to attend on Sundays and a small group during the week, and we want special events like a women’s retreat or men’s breakfast. I want to be served, but am I willing to serve others? That is the first issue to be addressed before the Lord.

Bob Schraeder focused on the first and biggest reason to serve: Jesus came to serve, not to be served. How can we think serving is optional for us when our Master poured out his life to serve? An important but often overlooked reason to serve is that serving in the church is a God-given arena for sanctification. I can testify from personal experience that God will grow you spiritually as you serve. It may start with being confronted by your need for humility. Perhaps you think, “I’m willing to start serving if I can teach a class or lead a small group.” But what if the need you’re asked to fill is sanitizing toys in the nursery or being a helper in the 2’s/3’s Sunday School class? Are you willing to take an entry-level job? Once you’re serving, especially if you’ve been “promoted” to a role of greater responsibility, you must resist the temptation to substitute serving for study of God’s word. To serve well, we must consistently engage with Scripture to remind ourselves of how great God is and how small we are. We must consciously depend more and more on prayer, asking the Lord for guidance rather than leaning on our own understanding. Finally, as we serve alongside others, we learn to speak the truth in love and have frequent opportunities to practice the “one another” commands in the New Testament. You might serve with someone you love as a sister or brother but who really annoys you. You might serve with someone who fails and needs forgiveness; sometimes you are the one who fails. Pray and ask: Lord, use serving to grow me up and make me mature.

Calvary Family

Take time this week to thank God for the many faithful people already serving at Calvary. See how many you can thank God for by name, or by a mental image of their face. Ask the Lord to bless them for their obedience. Ask Him to strengthen them for their work and to encourage them.

If the Holy Spirit is nudging you to begin serving – perhaps for the first time ever or in a long time – ask the Lord how He wants to use you at Calvary. Ask Him to open the right opportunity for you and then pay attention to how He will work.

If you are already serving and your plate is full, pray for people who are not serving and need to consider it. Perhaps they are new at Calvary or have been here for a while, hanging out on the fringe of the community. Perhaps they are listening to Satan’s lie that they have nothing to offer. Ask the Holy Spirit to act in an unmistakable way in these people’s lives.

In Christ,
Carol Gilbert